I know i posted yesterday...but this is important!

I'll keep this short and sweet!

I GOT MY CARE PACKAGE FROM MOMMMMMMMMY!!!!!!!

-peanut butter

-some reese's peanut butter cups

-crispy crunch bar

-winter jacket

-fall jacket

-mits

-gloves

-my math formula books

-headset for rosetta stone (i forgot it at home :S) 

-some shirts

-some vitamin C

-and my tuque!

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH MOM!

thats all lol 

xoxoxo

Ginnastica, and some other stuff :)

ALLORA...the main point of this post is to talk about finally starting gymnastics!!! but i'll add in some other random things to, because gymnastics wasn't the only thing that happened this week :P

So uhm yeah...one tuesday i started gymnastics, i'm going to be going from 4:30-7:30 mon-fri!! except on days when i have long italian lessons, or when i have lots of homework :P So that made me very very happy! Yeah, um anyways, i started gym, and it went pretty good....but i'm so out of shape :( it's very very disappointing but i know i'll be back to my normal self eventually haha. I'm the oldest at the gym in the competitive group, the next oldest are 2 girls who i think are in grade 8?? i'm not 100% sure though.. just know they're in the same class, and the aren't in high school yet. i think there's 4 more girls in the group who are younger, like between 9 and 11?? I was really surprised at how good some of them are! One of the "older" girls is really good. 

okay so before i continue on about that,  i'm just going to give a short briefing on the gym itself...so basically....the whole gym is about that size of a normal competitive floor... lol They have a normal beam and a low beam, and for vault they use mats. The bars are...interesting...they aren't full size, but they aren't kids bars or anything that small...and they bounce allot...I feel like they're going to snap when i use them haha uhm...floor is 2 strips of like the floor rolls we use as the vault runway...but they're as wide as a normal floor strip, and there's foam under them. they also have like kid size exercise machines, and a trampoline (which only the little kids can use because the ceiling isn't that high :P) So the gym itself is kinda iffy :P but the rest is really nice, like the change rooms and bathrooms are all bright colours and there's benches and coat racks and the sinks are really cool, the look kinda modern :) anddd!!!....THERE'S SHOWERS!!!!!!!! hahaha wooooooo!

Allora...back to what I was saying so the fact that the gym is well uhm, not the nicest is why i was really surprised at how good one girl is! on beam...she does back handsprings (here they call them flics), and back tucks!!! and on bars, he mount is uhm...i don't remember what its called...but it's like a kip, but you bring your feet through and end up almost sitting on the bar! And on vault she's working Yurchenkos! and on floor i have no idea how she manages to do it on the floor they have but she does whip, back handspring back tuck! Yeah so i was pretty amazed and i watched her floor routine and it's pretty much amazing haha and her music is Pirates of the Caribbean! and the first thing she does in her routine is back handspring, back arial or layout step out w/e you call it but yeah idk it made me happy to be back in the gym, and be able to watch something i could look forward to learning. Its funny a lot of times the coach will be working with one of the younger ones one beam (she's been doing beam routines) and we'll be doing conditioning and everyone will start fooling around and this one girl is just like "GUYS WE NEED TO KEEP WORKING...STOP RUNNING AROUND!" it's funny because she's really tiny and she acts like a coach :P oh and i managed to do some back tucks, which surprised me :P and some other stuff :P

Allora..."other stuff" 

well this week, we didn't really have school after tuesday, because there's something called "occupatione" going on? so the students are having "Autogestione" which is basically, we get the first floor of the school and do what we want, the first day we made new classes (ie: dance class, singing class, impersonation class, ect ect ect) It was funny, I was in impersonation class lol. The next 2 days we didn't go to school, because we thought it would be better to sleep in and study :) and yesterday we went to school, but we didn't do anything, we just walked around and played "doctor" outside (the game where you hold hands in a circle, then mix yourselves up and have to try and get back to being a circle again) 

hmm? more other? I had more italian lessons and i've been bringing my italian literature homework, so my teacher can help me understand lol, i'm learning about Ludovico Ariosto and italian poet.  My italian is slowly getting better :)

Yesterday in my opinion was a great day, we went to school late, and left at 10:30 haha then we went to S. Agata for lunch and stayed for a bit that afternoon. Then we came back home got ready, and ate supper. We went out a around 8:30 and it was actually kinda nice out, not to cold, i think it was like 15? We walked around and i bought some candy from the candy store :P they have something like "pop rocks" here, but after they pop...they turn into gum! We met up with some other people and walked around some more. And I went BY MYSELF and bought a gelato!!! it was caffe and Panna Cotta...sooooo soooo gooood! panna cotta is my new favourite flavour of gelato! Then we met up with some more people and walked and hung around via roma. I actually talked in italian a bit, it was funny, one girl started talking to me normal, and then without realising, just started talking like crazy fast and i was just like... :S huh? haha it was a funny moment :P 

(me and my host sister with our candy)

(Fizzy Pazzy, pretty much pop rocks, but they turn into gum!)

Today i woke up early (like everyday...because no matter what time i go to sleep at...i wake up 8 hours later...and usually lay in bed for 1-2 hours because no one else is up yet...because it only like 6:30-7:30 lol) anyways i got up and showered and got ready and we went out for lunch...in Vibo...which is about 2 1/2 hours drive away, it's on the OCEAN! it was really pretty and before we ate we walked around for a bit on at the docks and took some pictures...(i'll add them in once i upload them onto the computer) On the way there, i was teaching my host dad english (he wants me to talk to him in english for 1/2 hour everyday :P) yeah so "lunch" was interesting lol we went to a really nice restaurant (my host dad said it was famous! (don't remember what it was called :S) and it lasted...3 hours! there were SIX COURSES!!!!! I have never been so full in my life! there was a small first course with like gravy and a little tiny mouth full of meat, second (for me i chose the meat meal instead of the fish one) was prosciutto and salad, 3rd was veggies in a pepper and tempura potato/mushroom thing, 4th was ravioli with like spinach, 5th was meat with cheese and gravy (this was my favourite part...even though i couldn't finish it because i was so full), and 6th was dessert. I got a tiny (about 1/3 of a scoop) of fiore del latte gelato...soooo delicious (now also one of my favourites!) and it was in what i thought was a conish thing and i took a bite and it almost tasted like those sticky cookies they have at chinese restaurants?? then i looked at it and was like ummm?? :S what is this turns out it was walnuts (or almonds i'm not sure what they said) in a sugar thing.... :S but on the bright side...it didn't bother me! so i don't know if that's because i only had a tiny bite...or if i'm no longer allergic to them!! yeah after lunch we left and stopped in Cosenza on the way home cause my host dad had a presentation of a childrens book he wrote like 6 years ago at a new library, and then we came home and yeah that's it :)

(The Bay in Vibo)

(Left-right: My host dad, Giovanni, My host mom, Marilena, Wife of my host dad's friend, My host dad's friend)

(The girl on the right is my host dad's friend's daughter)

nothing much else to say? 

My list of accomplishments for this week:

-finally figured out how to snap my fingers!

-also finally figured out how to put eye liner on the top lol without it looking like a complete fail :P

-went into an Gelateria and bought myself a gelato! (Caffe and Panna Cotta!!! SOOOO GOOOD!) 

-First inside joke! (it's VOLDEMORT!) (not counting all the ones from the camp)

-actually spoke in italian with someone

-understood an entire story about Voldemort XD

yupp..that's it for now

ciao!

xoxoxo

How to use a bidet!

Here's the link for Luigi's explanation of how to use a bidet!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4XikMWmn0M (<---- This one is in English)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcujWWaTlVY (<----this one is in Italian)

Allora, Va bene...Or something like that XD

Side note: Before i start i'd just like to say in advance ...excuse me for my bad grammar.. i know i tend to forget to capitalize my I's and i spell lots wrong but usually when i write these, i'm trying to get them done quickly...so yeah sorry about that haha

Allora....This post is mostly going to be about the orientation I was at for the past 4 days :) because nothing much else is really important...the day after my last post, officially marked my 1 month here in Castrovillari!! 1 down 9 to go! ...well i guess that isn't really a good thing but i guess it kind of is?? meh oh well ? The only other non-orientation related thing was that today has been a pretty decent day...i got an extra 1/2 hour of sleep because no one set there alarm...so we all woke up at 7:30 :) then at school, we had a math test, so my teacher gave me different questions and i got them all right...she was very happy! Then for english we went to the computer lab, which i love, because it's about 20x nicer than the one at my canadian school, it has REALLY nice computers and these headsets that when a certain person talks in them you can here, so i got to use the "special" ones to read stuff in english, then someone else would read what i read and i would correct them, thats what we do every english class...but today...it was better, because we were in the computer lab :) and on top of all that...today i witnessed a miracle...i went to the washroom...and guess what i saw when i opened the stall door?? TOILET PAPER!!!! I did a mental happy dance, i don't know why but it made me happy haha, even though i had my own "fazzolettis"

Okay so ORIENTATION...first of all was AMAZING!!!!!!! I haven't laughed so much in my life honestly it was just totally 100% AWESOME! I love every minute of it...okay well maybe not every minute...but i'd say about 99% was great! uhm i don't know where to start...there was so many great things, but i don't remember when everything happened :P
ALLORA...Va bene ...i'll start with that haha. For those of you who don't know, Italians really really really like to use the words "allora" and "va bene" they mean "then" and "okay" but everyone uses "allora" as "so". Like almost every sentence begins like this "Allora....blah blah blah" ....and when they forget what they want to say, or don't know what to say it goes like this "Allora.......Allora......Uhh Va bene....allora.....blah blah blah" It's quite hilarious. They use these the way teenagers use the word "Like" haha So this was basically our first inside joke from the camp...every time one of the volunteers said it, we would all repeat it :P

hmm okay i guess i can explain "Or something like that" there was one guy at the camp from serbia, and he would end every single on of his sentences with "or something like that" because he wasn't sure if he was saying the right words because he doesn't really speak english...it kind of caught on and by the last day almost everyone was doing it :P

Hmm, well, the actually "camp" part of the camp, like the part where we did planned things was pretty good. We talked about our families, and italian school, and our countries, and stereotypes, and Italy, and we played games, and did skits, and laughed like i've never laughed before!

(This is from one of the skits...the topic was italian school, so we all got to make a skit about what school here is like, most of them included, "Allora...Allora..uhhmm?? Allora haha and teachers leaving to go take an" important" call, students paying absolutely no attention etc etc etc they were HILRARIOUS!)

(This was a game we played, like charades but each person had a country on their back, and they had to guess what it was by asking people to give them hints... this one was for Egypt!)

In on our "free time" we just hung out around the building...(it was the vesuvian archeological institute for something...i can't remember, but it was actually really nice, there was a snack bar, and on our floor (the top one) you could go out onto the roof!) anyways...so yeah we hung out or watched the guys play soccer, idk just getting to talk with everybody was really neat, one night we explained how school worked in our countries and how a typical day for us was, and on the last night we all sang out national anthems....at 4 am haha we didn't want to go to sleep because we knew we didn't have much time left with each other :( Over all, i think it was an amazing experience to be able to talk and just hang out with so many amazing people from different cultures all around the world! There were people from; Canada (haha), USA, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, China, Japan, Thailand, Croatia, France, Belgium, Latvia, Egypt, Serbia, Switzerland, Germany, Iceland, Turkey, Hungary, Paraguay, and Australia! And every single one of them are AMAZING!!!

(just chilling, the sun was soooo bright!)

(there was a university group there the last 2 days we were there, and they wanted a picture with us haha, 3 girls from China on the left, and me and Mikeala...she just takes the most amazing pictures haha...on the right)

(My name in, normal, arabic, and chinese writing)

(The view from the roof...that mountain is Vesuvius!)

(some of the guys playing soccer in the little feild)

hmm? unlike at the rome orientation, the food here was actually really really really good, we had pasta, and salad, and meat, and fish, and bread and more bread and more pasta and more meat haha and GELATO!!! AHH the Gelato in castellammare was sooooooo sooooooo goooood!!! i couldn't decide what to try, so i got, banana, vanilla, and coffee! yummm :)

(about 1/3 or the gelato flavour the gelateria had)

(a creme filled croissant that the volunteers bought for everyone!) 

yeah uhm well...I really have no idea what else to write, so I'm just going to make a list of some of the things I learnt :)

-In Japan, in winter...toilet seats are heated...and they have buttons to press, some flush the toilet...other spray wash your behind :P

(Keita explaining how to use japanese toilets)

-Also in Japan, school goes like this; 50 minutes sleep...10 minutes, mangiare (eat)...50 mins sleep...10 minutes mangiare, 50 minutes sleep...10 minutes, mangiare...50 mins sleep...10 minutes mangiare, 50 minutes sleep..and finish. Well according to Keita anyways

-How to use a Bidet. The funniest thing i've ever seen! (i'm going to post a link to the video once i get it uploaded on youtube!)

-How to salsa dance, the guy from Ecuador was teaching a bunch of us

-How to warm up for gym class in france. You do a easy dance, Marina (from france) taught me and mikeala her classes first trimester dance to "Waka Waka" 

-In Thailand hahaha is written 555 ??

-An endless list of curse words in multiple languages haha

-In Croatia, there is a house...inside a house. There's a story behind it, but it's to long to write, it you want to find out, just google it :)

-In Brazil, schools close for the world cup soccer matches

-We also learn't how to use turkish and chinese toilets :P

-Apparently us canadians are crazy lol

-How to figure out which direction is Makkah 

There are so many things i can't remember them all!

okay well i might update this post tomorrow or something, but for now thats all

Va bene...Ciao a tutii!

xoxoxoxo miss everyone!

Things are getting better :)

So, i posted on thursday i think, so i don;t have to much to update, i've decided not to explain every day in detail, because it just takes way to long, so i'll just write the important stuff :)

First off, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! I hope everyone has an awesome day and and awesome dinner! Eat extra Mashed Potatoes for me!

So umm, friday wasn't a very good day, for some reason i was incredibly homesick, and just wasn't in a very good mood, but i skyped my dad, and he brought his laptop outside so i could see all the leaves changing colour, that was nice :) Also, friday we didn't go to school because there was a strike and Elena (my host sister) was sick, so i just hung around for most of the day

Saturday school was normal, i mentally celebrated my "One Month Away From Home" haha
Saturday night, we went over to Stefania's (a girl in my class) and hung out for a bit, then we went to "Tiffany" (the caffé) and met a group of like 15 guys who were extremely loud and hilarious! one of them kept falling out of his chair because he was laughing so hard haha...we hung out at the caffè for a bit them hung out on via Roma, i got some gelato (chocolate and coffee :) it was very very cold, and i wish i would have had some mittens...but over all it was a good night :)

Sunday we went to S. Agata, but this time we didn't go to church, because there was no church or something,...they said it was festa di madonna? Not sure what that is but works for me :)
after yet another delicious lunch i went for a walk and took some more pictures :)

(the truck in the background is something that is very common here, lots of people drive them in the city) 

(i can't take good pictures...)

(tiny streets :)

(kitty cats, near the park)

(the park)

(looking up at the city form the park)

When we came back home, i skyped my momther, and she told me she's shipping out my care package this week!!! I CAN"T WAIT FOR PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!! :D :D and she showed me the yard on the laptop, and it was very pretty :)

Today, was wonderful! At school we had math (which i kind of understood!) and then physics, and for english, we watched "CAST AWAY"!!! I love that movie and watching made my day/week! We got out an hour early because out last period teacher is still away! At lunch we had my favourite food...gnocchi! and it was delicious! (even though is was the store bought frozen kind :P) Today, I finally got to go to the gym!!!! :D it isn't very big, and the equipment is old, but thats okay with me! I'm just happy to be getting back into it! So the plan is for me to go next monday and be "assessed"to see if i'm good enough to train with the competitive group :) i think i'll do fine lol but i'm going to be the oldest one there by a good amount :P Hopefully the plan will be for me to train with the competitive group, and they train 4:30-7:30 monday-friday! that's 15 HOURS!! YAY! When i heard that i was extremely excited and now I can't wait for monday!! I'm finally going to say goodbye to boredom and hello physical activity! EEEEEEE!!!! :D 

uhm nothing much else to report? i don't remember if i said this already, but on thursday i'm taking a bus "pullman" to Napoli for another orientation camp! I'm super excited to see some of the people i met at the orientation in Rome, and to see Napoli!! (BIRTH PLACE OF THE PIZZA) I come back on Sunday (i get to miss 3 days of school!) and i get to take a TRAIN! because there aren't any buses running from Napoli to castrovillari on sunday! 

Well i think thats it

Once again, Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all eat lots!

Protests! :P

A side note before I start...for anyone who had wanted to see some more pictures, that doesn't have me on facebook, i've uploaded quite a few into my other posts, so if you want to take a little peak at my older posts feel free to do so :)

hmmm, i think before i get into the whole point of this post, i'll give everyone a little background on what is going on here in Italia. So, basically the italian government...or school board, i'm not to sure which...has decided that school is going to start earlier and end later (at least thats what i've been able to gather) so, all over italy, students are protesting against this. i think that's all you need to know?

Anyways,  my last post was sunday morning, so sunday afternoon, we went with a friend of my host dads out to a hotel (which i think he owned) in the mountains, about a 1 drive from here, and i ate the best meal of my life!!! although, i only made it through half because there was so much food and because i wasn't feeling that great, but anyways the meal was like 5 courses, 2 appetizers (one was a fish platter, with shrimp and breaded fish, and thinly sliced fish and salad, and the other had little finger foods, but they were like gourmet!!) the first main course was 2 bowls of 2 different pastas, one was a mushroom based and creamy and the other was like rolls with idk what in tomato sauce...it was sooooooo soooooo goooood. The second main course was i think beef, and potatoes, and i had a little bit and it was amazing, but i got waaaaay to full, so i stopped eating. Then after there was a dessert platter with either ice creams and fruit or pastries. yeah so best meal of my life! My host dad said when i get married, to come get married in that hotel, it's so gorgeous and the hall is modern and ahh i love it!! ...i think thats about all that happened sunday?

(a picture i took from the front of the hotel)

(driving back)

(this small city where the hotel is)

nothing to exciting happened monday...school was okay, I had a physics class, and it was on where near as bad as i expected! i actually understood everything we were talking about (i had to have some of my classmates explain some of the symbols..since i haven't done physics before :P). I did my physics homework, after school, which was just to read a few pages, and learn the concepts. In the afternoon, we went out to the pharmacy to get something for my stomach problems :P (it's all good now :) and on the way back, we stopped at some clothing shop that had really nice/expensive clothes, my host mom bought herself an outfit, and a pair of pants and shoes for my host sister, she offered to buy me something but i said no...i don't like other people buying me things especially when they're expensive....oh and i had this pastry after supper that was like a cream filled ball with icing and it was soooooo goooood!!...yeah so that was basically monday

tuesday, was a very interesting day at school, we had what they called an "assembly" but it lasted all day, and for the morning, it was some guys talking at the front of the room, and no one payed attention...no joke, like no one, we were talking pictures and playing UNO haha. In for the second half, some more guys went up (these were all students) and imitated the teachers from our school, it was quite hilarious :P

(once again, not the best picture...but oh well)

(UNO!!!)

the only other thing that happened tuesday was that i started my italian lessons, they are at my teachers house on the other side of town (she is a student at the university in either cosenza or catanzaro...i cant remember) but she's very nice, and i learnt something a few thins after only one lesson!

Wednesday, this is where the protesting comes in, we get to school at the normal time, and it was pouring rain (thank you sooooo much Auntie Claire, Uncle Rick, Kendra, and Nat, for the umbrella!!!!) so we all went inside to wait for the bell...about 2 mins before the bell ppl start screaming and clumping around the stairwell...turns out, there was a mouse hahaha, okay it's a mouse, no big deal right?? WRONG!! people were screaming and having panic attacks and calling their parents and running outside! We ended up standing outside in the rain for over an hour, then the school said that everyone could go home because there was a mouse infestation...me and my host sister ended up staying along with about 20 others because i really have no idea why...but at around 11:30, the principal said that everyone had to leave the school so it could be sanitized, so we left school and walked around for a bit then went home and had lunch (which was delicious!! as always!) So, later on that night, i was on facebook, and i read one of my friends statuses...you know what is said...(this isn't exact because i can;t translate very well, but it gets the point across) "Students of Liceo Classico G. Garibaldi! (<---that's my school) As planned the school was closed because of a "mouse infestation" we were successful, and tomorrow we PROTEST!!" idk, it was something along those lines, but i all in all it was a decent day :P

(One of the apparent 50 mice that were found in the school)

Today, was nothing out of the ordinary, i only had 1 class because i had 2 scheduled study periods, and the other 2 were science...but our science teacher left so we don;t have a new one yet! for one of my science classes i was in a another class, so i just talked with some of the people in that class for the period, i was nice, they all had a bunch more questions :P After school, i had another italian lesson, it was good, this time it was more talking than writing :) and my teacher gave me some pear juice and it was soo good, it was like thick, like a smoothie!! thats all :P

Hope everything's good on the other side of the world!

3 Weeks :)

okay i don't really feel like writing this right now...but i have time, so i might as well :P

so uhm nothing to much to report so i'll just make a list

Italian Lessons:

My italian lessons didn't start on thursday like they were supposed to because the girl that was going to  be my teacher was a university student, and apparently my teacher has to be an actual teacher (like in a school) but they've found another teacher and i'm supposed to start my lessons tomorrow :) i'm going to have 3, 3 hour lessons every week, so in total i think it's going to be like 40 hours of something :)

Gymnastics: okay so now that we have my lessons sorted out, were going to go to the gym tomorrow, or tuesday...i can't remember what day :P...so i can register :D i'm so happy, to finally get back in the gym, it's been waaaaaaaaay to long!!

Choco chip cookies:

so i made my cookies :) and they are delicious!!! they taste like home :D and my host family loves them!!

i put some pictures of them on facebook, and one of my host brothers called to ask if they were good hahaha :P

(Balls of cooookie dough)

(tehehe yumm :)

(the final product)

(:D)

School:

school has been pretty good, we've finally figured out a schedule that works :)

i'm going to be taking; Physics, Math (geometry & algebra), english, italian (literature and culture and stuff), Italian (grammar), science (biology & chemistry), Philosophy/history, Phys Ed. , French (literature & history), french (grammar),  History of art, and religion. Throughout the week, i also have 7 study periods :P one of which i will have access to a computer :)

Yesterday, we almost didn't have school because someone had filled the keyhole for the front gate with some kind of cement :P but they only filled one of the keyholes, sadly there are 2 :( so we had to go to school. I was in a few other different classes this week, and everyone has so many questions :P I've also been invited to 2 other classes to do a little presentation on canada :)

oh and i got about 1/2 of my textbooks, and my tutor is getting the other 1/2 :)

Homework:

i've been doing more homework, but i don't understand a lot of it. Math for example makes no sense ... what so ever -_- ugh, hopefully i'll be able to catch on eventually. Same thing goes for chemistry lol :P

Food:

food here is still amazing!! one of my new favourites, is fried mozzarella!!!! it's soooooooo sooooooooo AMAZING!!!! haha. i love the potatoes to!! they look like scalloped potatoes (which i hate) but they taste like french fries!!!! yummmm :) and the other day we had these ham and cheese patties and they were also amazing!!! i just am in love with italian food!!! and i've been trying lots of new stuff...a few days ago for lunch we had this seafood pasta and there were little squids in it :P they weren't half bad :P

idk...other:

-Yesterday we went out after lunch instead of at night, and i had a gelato with whip cream i was delicious!!! then we walked around for a while and just hung out

-Yesterday...i also had my first ride on a SCOOTER!!!! it was awesome, they go so fast, and you just squeeze past cars :D

-i don't know if i've posted this already...but form the 14th-17th of this month, i'm going to a afs camp with all the other exchangers in northern Calabria!!  i'm excited to see some of the ppl i met at the orientation! and to miss school :P

-my host dad came back from canada, he said it was very beautiful (he was in vancouver) but the food wasn't that great. The fact that in canada we eat big breakfasts then supper is like pasta, fish and then thats it lol :P he brought back a bunch of "canada" pens and he bought these little bags for me and Elena, they're very cute :)

(This is my caffe gelato with cream :)

(My host sister Elena on the right and some friends at the "tiffany cafe")

I think thats all for now? 

nothing else exciting, i'm not feeling all that great, not sure what wrong?? but my stomach is like a balloon, i just keeps getting more and more bloated :( I really hope this isn't going to be a repeat of St. Donat....

Ciao! 

i miss yous!!