three weeks today! feels like 3 months
all alone the other night, i came to realise we'll be freinds for life
it was always meant to be, for some people the heavens can get it so right...
you'd be so proud of me now i am finally taking a stand
now i can dance, the clouds have all disappeared
and freedom i hold so dear cos nobody knows me here
though i can only imagine the sadness in your eyes
please understand, now i can dance :)
-Tina Arena
allora! ieri io ho avuto un fantastico pomerriggio!
Translation: well! yesterday i had a fantastic afternoon!
hooray! the last two days have been so excellent, even though i havent done anything particularly amazing at all! friday morning school was awful cos i was so tired and was literally falling asleep. i think the culture shock has set in now and i am just exhausted all the time. but, exhaustion does NOT equal unhappiness, oh no! after the break at school i felt much better, i think cos food woke me up a bit, and i had a great time discussing simpson episodes with a girl at school. (the episode where homer stops going to church and then his house gets burnt and ned flanders saves him was on tv the day before i think so we were discussing it, and it is just so funny, even in italian!!!!) then after school i had to meet Maddie, another aussie girl from Correggio whom i sat next to on the plane over here, and we caught the bus to Carpi together, where we met Maria, the other girl on the plane with us, and then we had to get to our first italian lesson. It was so excellent to be reuinited with them and we just couldnt stop talking! m&m, if you are reading this, i had a fantastic time with you both! cant wait til next week! we had to make our way to the piazza where we would then meet Angelica, a lady from our organisation, to take us on the bus to the office and have our lesson, and also to meet Nadia, another aussie who none of us had met, who was going to be taking the lesson too. We managed to make it to the piazza, which is only a few blocks from the bus station, without too much trouble, and then had a bit of time to chat before we met Angelica. We couldnt stop talking the whole time and it was sooo awesome to swap experiences and speak in english! we were talking so loudly and kept laughing all the time, in the middle of the piazza and people kept looking at us funny but we didnt care! we met angelica and got on the bus and just kept talking. Once we got to the office and met Nadia, the lesson got started. i was a bit disconcerted at first to find that it was to be an emersion lesson, with next to no english spoken by Angelica, who was out teacher. At first i was so lost, but once i really tried to listen i was surprised to find i coudl actually get the gist of what she was saying...most of the time. I guess it helped that i already pretty much knew the stuff she was on about (basic introductions and grammar) and she was talking very slowly but it really gave me a huge confidence boost cos i realised that contrary to my previous opinion, i have actually made some progress with the language! i was soo pleased! hooray! then when the lesson finished the four of us girls got the bus back to the piazza, although nadia left at the train station, and then got gelati before heading back to the main bus station. It was rather funny communicating what we wanted to the icecream man, but he was very helpful and was laughing with us, not at us! And Agnelli and Doddy, two freinds of Elisa's saw us in the shop and said hi to me, which also made me happy cos i felt like i had some freinds here too! hooray! unfortunately we were about 2 minutes late for Maddie to catch her bus back to Correggio, but found there was another one 40 mins later, so I waited with her to catch that, and Maria eventually left with her host family. All the while we were having a great time chatting away in english at a great speed! i cant explain how good i was feeling last night after i went home.
As i was waiting for my host mum to come and pick me up from the station two men approached me (separately and at different times) and started talking to me. the first guy had obviously over heard us speaking inside cos he asked me, in english, if i spoke english, and then introduced himself. He was Lorenzo from somewhere in africa....cant remember where....and after finding out why i was in italy he gave me his mobile number and told me to call him and he would show me around Carpi and then, thankfully, he left. Sorry Lorenzo, but i dont think i am going to take you up on that offer! I was a little freaked out by that, but once he left i decided he had actually been very freindly and was obviosuly trying not to intimidate me, cos he stood a few meters away from me when he was talking, and he left quickly. the next guy was a little scarier. He just was walking past with shopping bags and then suddenly started talking to me in italian. I told him i dindt speak italian, i speak english- so he said 'francese?.' nope, dont speak french. german? nope. spanish? nope. all this time he was still talking at me in italian. i said again i only spoke english and what did he do? he reached into his shopping bag and gave me an orange......what the? so i am holding this orange, talking to a man who was kind of freaking me out, standing in the cold outside a bus station at night, and this man, unlike lorenzo, didnt seem to show any sign of going away. I was so very glad when very soon after this my host mother drove up!
Once we got home i put the strange orange-giving man out of my head and my afternoon came back to me. the italian lesson really gave me a huge confidence boost and also heaps of motivation, with my italian, so at dinner i really made an effort to speak in italian to Orianna and Vanni. It was pretty funny as i was always speaking in half sentences and random words and probably mostly wrong, but it was mildy successful. And then i went to the circolo with elisa, where we spent some time chatting to people and then played the board game Taboo....you know the one where you have a little egg timer and have to explain to your partner the word on the top of your card without using the other words below it, all before the sand runs out. It was really fun, and i just had a great yesterday.
I then woke up this morning still on a high from yesterday and went to school and treid to talk to some of my class mates in italian. They were very encouraging and helpful which was great. We had an assembly today which went for like 3 hours (so yshs-ers, dont ever complain again that the parade has run 10 mins into pm break!) but it was ok cos i had my iPod with me. It was the first time i have taken it to school, cos i absolutely would die if it got pinched, but i took it because i knew otherwise i would be soo soo soooo bored during the parade. Then afterwards some bands played which was....unexpected and rather strange. But we got to go home early and i feel so excellent now!
I realised just now that i have been here exactly 3 weeks now, but it feels like so much longer than that. I saw a doco on Steve Irwin on tv the other night, and was straining to hear the english dialogue under the Italian dubbing, but most of the time i just watched the pretty pictures of australia. i must say that i got teary seeing all the shots of the bush and the beach and kangaroos and stuff. i feel like i havent seen a gum tree in years and it really made me feel...homesick isnt the right word, but nostalgic maybe, to see the pictures of the bush. I even teared up when i could see steve irwin's mouth form the words 'fair dinkum' which is so ridiculous, but it got to me. lol.
However, this week has really been a good one, especially the last 2 days, and I feel muhc more comfortable and confident now. I am now going to go upstairs to read my 'idiots guide to italian' to learn some more about the irregular verbs, (omg there is so much grammar to learn) becasue i am so determined now to learn quickly so that i can talk with all the people i have met.
hope you guys are enjoying the heat, and have a nice look at some gum trees for me ok.
lauren and jose, i hope your move to brissie went well! cant wait to hear from you! and can you give me the exact address of your house in waterworks st or whatever cos forget it.
amo, the pink light is shining still :)
naomi, have you taken over my room yet? mum and dad, i love you.
maya and grace and ian and christie and bek, i hope work is giong ok.
dom and sage my dear boys, how is school?
fergus and chrissy, i hope your moving goes well too!
mali, dont worry, i have easily managed to communicate that i have dirty washing and havent had to lick my shirts!!! and sorry to disappoint you but we dont live in a shack on a hill :)
hope everybody is well at home
thinking of you often
love always
ellen
so much to say, so little time
it's not the same without you around me
it's so lonely here
photographs still replay in my memory
the colour's wearing thin
kepping me here is making me how much
i love you....
i close my eyes to see you and i see you standing near
i'm giving all i have because i know that's what i need
to carry on here
-Alabaster Box
ok well, first things first: A BIG THANKYOU to all the people who emailied me! it is so ironic, because last week i had about 4 days in a row where i had the opportunity to check my email, most of the time at school, and nearly every day i had nothing, or only one from mum and dad. i have to admit it made me rather down. and today, after not checking them for 4 days, i have about 15 new mails in my inbox!!!!! hooray! it really cheered me up guys so thank you. i haven't read any of them yet, and i dont think i have much time now, so i am sorry if i dont get to reply straight away, but you can bet your bottom dollar that i will.
ok, next. a HUGE happy birthday to Yoko for last monday (i wrote you a letter, but havent had the chance to send it yet as havent been to the post office to find out how much stamps to japan are), to Rebekah for yesterday! To Christie for today! and Nigel for Wednesday! Happy 18th all of you, I hope you stay safe and are very happy now that you are officially adults!
alicia, i am so glad to hear that you can ski! it sounds like you had an excellent time! your whole blog sounded pretty happy actually, which i am glad about. it is good to hear things are going well for you. and i know how hard it must have been for you to go to school on saturday. i have to do it too! i miss you lots. *meng*
A big Congratulations to Alice and Brendan on your new baby boy Thomas!! Hooray!
now for some unpleasant news, I have the flu! Not good, but I am feeling rather ok at the moment. I woke up yesterday morning with tonsils that felt like bowling balls and a head that was pounding so hard i swear the rest of the house must have heard it. Alas, nobody was awake, until i started vomiting that is :( so that was fun...NOT. unfortunately, yesterday we were supposed to go to this carnival thing where everybody dresses up (sounds like the same as your alicia) and erica, my oldest host sister, had made these absolutely terrific minnie mouse outfits! they were so good! with these little white frilly pants and red skirt and top! and we had ears and everything. there were four outfits, and it was going to be me, elisa, and ele and ele, her two friends (and yes, they have the same name which is very confusing). but i couldn't go cos i was sick! but i slept all day and then when i got up finally at about 4.30 i turned on the tv to find 'The Real Macaw' was on, dubbed in italian of course. so i watched that and nearly cried at the end (stupid soppy music!), and everytime they were on the beach i longed sooo soo much to be at home on the beach too! i guess i didn't feel very good yesterday. or this morning when we got up to go to school. i ust rolled over and went back to sleep. i felt so terrible, but when i was woken up to be told we were going to the doctor at 11, i felt suprisingly better. So i did a little reading in my 'idiots guide to learning italian' book to learn some phrases about going to the doctor, fearing i woud have to explain my symptoms. but luckily, once we got there, orianna did all the talking and all i had to do was say 'aah'. then i came home, had some lunch and watched Aladdin and Gli Aristogatti in italian! I thouroughly enjoyed that, although, dad, 'I'm the leader' and 'Where's my beddie-bye basket?' doesn't have quite the same ring in italian! But i was thinking of you when i was watching it :)
I actually feel like i have quite a lot of news, since i havent updated this in maybe a week. Last thursday i went to my history teacher's house for dinner, Professa Mondini. She is so very nice and is also giving me an italian lesson once a week at school, on top of the ones i will start with my exchange company here on friday. So i went to her house and despite being really really nervous, i had a really good time. Her family has just hosted Simon, a NZ boy, so they were full of news and pictures (oh so many pictures) about him, which was actually kind of nice to hear. And they showed me the video of him doing the 'kumate kumate kaah kaah' rugby yell thing which was really funny. her 11 year old son plays the clarinet in a philharmonic orchestra here, and after finding that i played brass, and was interesting in being involved, she has told me she would look into it. I have also been invited to see one of their concerts sometime, which they apparently have about once a month, and to go to one of Sergio, the 16yr old son's soccer matches, and to go back for dinner another time, all of which i would like to do. They were very nice people and I really liked them.
The next night, friday, elisa and two of her friends and i were goig to go to the movies, but ended up spending all our time at the circolo, which is a public tennis club with a games room and cafe/bar thing where all her freinds hang out. have i said this already? anyway, i spent most of the evening chatting to elisa's freind doddy, who speaks excellent english (with a very american accent, so we did get confused sometimes).
then on saturday after school we went to the piazza for a while and just wandered around and had an icecream from the gelateria (oh my god, the ice cream completely lives up to what i had been told, it is FANTASTICO!!!!) and then later on we went to the disco, which i think is basically like our niteclubs (although i have never been to a nightclub) and you dont have to be a certain age to get in. it was pretty crap. after waiting in the freeezing cold for ages to get in, we then went inside where it was really really hot. i have never been a huge lover of parties, especially as i often get shy and find it hard to talk to people, but i would pick that anyday over standing around not being ABLE to talk to people. after a while the music started and it was black eyes peas i think and i thought, oh well, at least i can dance. alas, after about 4 decent songs, the music changed to techno. i thought, ok i will jut wait for a good song to come on. alas! it never changed! it was techno the whole time! aaah. most of the time there wasnt even a melody, just beats thumping over and over again on the same note. i tried to dance, but somehow found it really difficult and ended up just bobbbing my head up and down and kind of half jumping, which is pretty much what everybody else was doing anyway. luckily, elisa hates that disco so i don't think we will be going back there. by the time we went home at 1.30 i was really really tired, and that has probably contributed to me being sick.
well that is about all i have to say. dont worry about me cos i think i am getting better, althouhg i am hot all the time and am only wearing a tshirt at the moment, which probably is a bad sign considering last week i was waering 5 layers inside and was still cold.
anyway, i am going to go read all of your emails now. keep them coming
i love you all
ellen
ten days
hello
well it's been ten days without you in my reach,
and the only time i have touched you is in my sleep.
but time has changed nothing at all
you're still the only one that feels like home
well, today is as cold as ever. in fact, in my last class i had to put my jacket on, despite the heaters and the 4 layers of tops and jumpers i was already wearing! and when i stepped of the bus this afternoon it was three degrees.
actually, speaking of the bus, i am very proud today, because after only catching it twice before, i braved the trip both to and from school on my own today! elisa didnt come to school, and i was very nervous, but i managed to get on the right bus and ended up in the right place. hooray
yesterday was the weekend, although it was only sunday. we slept in which was excellent! and then after lunch i went to watch elisa play tennis in the finals of the competition she has been going to all week. it was about an hours drive each way so it was a decent trip. because it is so cold they played in doors, or at least, in huge big white puffy tents. i imagined it woudl be warm inside them, but it really wasnt much warmer than outside. i guess it was ok for elisa and her competitor, as they were rather active, although it must have been cold at first, but i was really really shivvering by the end, even though i was wearing my big jacket, 5 layers of tops and thermals (thankyou domenic!) under my jeans, and a beanie and gloves. it was just soo cold and because i was sitting in one place for the whole game it guess that contributed to my coldness. mum, i think i have inherited your cold hands syndrome, as even when i am inside or wearing mittens my hands still feel cold to the rest of my skin!
unfortunately elisa did not win the tennis final, but that was something i did not find out until afterwards, even though i saw the whole thing. i kind of followed it, and i could mostly tell who was winning the games, but the sets and stuff i got all confused with my numbers and the announcer guy was speaking waay to fast for me to really follow anyway. and to make things worse, elisa seemed very happy that she had lost, and both girls got a trophy, so in the presentations i also couldnt tell, because everybody had trophies and were smiling and laughing. i guess i am not a big tennis person, but i probably will be by the time i come home! it was fairly entertaining and it really made me want to play (althouhg that could have been cos i was freezing!)
well one good thing about school here in italy is that most of the girls are as short as me so i dont feel like the minority. hooray! some of the boys are pretty tall, but even then, most are not muhc taller than the girls, which is just excellent!
one thing i dont think i will get used to is the smoking here. apparently the legal age is 16 but most people dont really care anyway so it seems like everysecond person is smoking at school. of course they cannot smoke inside, so all the doorways are crowded around and i hate leaving the buildings cos it is like walking into a freezing gas chamber. and then standing near people or sitting next to them i often find myself holding my breath because they smell so strongly like ashtrays. so i am also missing australia's smoking laws, and the clean air we are able to breathe. actually, everything smells here. it seems i am unable to go anywhere without being accosted by a strong and often unpleasant smell. whether it is the ciggarette smoke, the fumes from cars, the horrible musty smell that lots of inside places smell of because they are locked up and being heated all winter, or whatever, it all smells horrible and polluted and yuk. the only thing i have almost liked so far is the smell of smoke at night time, but smoke from fires, not ciggies. it sort of fills the air at night which, although it is at times unpleasant, usually reminds me of camping or something so that is kind of ok.
allora, that is all for now
missing you as usual, but feeling rather good today
love ellen
Core of my heart, my country
hello again
allora. (this means well.... and it is one of the few words i have learnt so far. the others are freddo, meaning cold, stanca= tired, zampina, which is the command for the dog to shake hands! and piena, meaning full, of food that is. :)
i don't really know where to begin. firstly i should say thank you to all those who have emailed me. it is very nice to hear news from home. hard to explain exactly how wonderful it was to see my inbox with about 7 new emails when i checked them at school on thusrday. however, i must say it was difficult, and very embarassing, as i was almost crying reading some of them (mum and dad! sage!), and i was surrounded by a whole class who kept glancing at me strangely. lol.
i guess i will start with the sad stuff first. to all of you who say you hope i am not missing you, i am sorry to disappoint you, but i am. a lot. however, so far it hasn't really been like i thought it would. i have had only one time where i was really really upset, and that was yesterday afternoon, but i will get to that a little later on. so while i have cried a few times, most of the time the homesickness hasn't really been as cripling as i expected. it is almost as if i am still waiting for it to hit me. i think that perhaps it might when i have been here a while and things start getting more routine and less new and exciting. having said that though, i should also mention that i think about home almost every single minute. sounds a big cliche i know, but i can really, honestly say that i dont think a minute goes by when i am not thinking about one or other of you, or of the beautiful sunshine, (god it is cold here), my room, my house, yeppoon high, band or whatever. i am already beginning to yearn for the space we have at home. i am telling you all now, next time you step outside and have a big wide road to cross and a huge backyard and at least 5 metres between your house and the next, appreciate it! here, all the streets are incredibly narrow ( i cant believe they can fit two lanes in) and everything is all packed in so close together. i have never been one for cities i suppose, and every day i miss the beauty, space and sunshine of yeppoon. it is so true that you don't know what you've got til it's gone, so domenic, appreciate the beautiful days! dad, in your last email you said that you can't imagine cold, well it has been less than a week and i can no longer imagine heat! however, i must say that it is much warmer here than it is in germany by the sound of it (see alicias blog if you don't know what i'm talking about). it was a whole 4 degrees here when i got off the bus today, which in comparison, is pretty warm.
it was saturday today, and yet we went to school. I don't think I will be able to get used to this, no matter how long i am here. it didn't feel like friday yesterday because i knew i had to go to school today. i got confused today about what day it was, because i am just not used to going to school on the weekend. we only go to school from 8am to 1:15 pm, but really i would much rather do 9 til 3 and have saturday off! so while you are enjoying your space and sunshine, enjoy your weekends for me too!
despite those complaints, for the most part i am doing well i think. as i said, i miss you guys and thing of you very very often, but so far i mostly smile when i do, rather than cry. it has been only the days when i am very tired (as i was on tuesday when i wrote the last blog and yesterday) that i have been very sad. the rest of the time, especially if i am occupied, it isn't so bad. school has been up and down. yesterday was a bad day, but that was probably mostly due to the fact that i was very tired, having been out late the night before, and i had a headache. yesterday i had my first meeting with Roberta, from AYUSA, the exchange company i am with over here. She checked my passport and return tickets and stuff and then began to ask me some questions about my stay so far. I am sure it must have been hard for her to believe that i really HAVE been having a good time, when i was choking back tears. She understood though, but of course once i started, i found it very difficult to stop, and was probably crying for more than half an hour. But so far that was the worst it has been. And luckily Maddy, a girl I met on the plane, arrived to have her documents checked and once that had been done we talked for nearly an hour I think. It was sooo good to see her, and to swap experiences and most of all, to speak in complete sentences, at a normal speed, in a normal accent, with absolute certainty that she would understand every single word i said! That really cheered me up and I went home feeling much better, although still exhausted, and I fell asleep before dinner again.
It hasn't really been too hard to communicate so far, especially at school, because all the kids i havemet speak english really well. Having said that tho, it isn't perfect and thier pronounciation and accent is both humourous and at times frustrating. It has also affected me in that I am already speaking with an accent without thnking, and saying things such as 'also me', and 'tie-red' and 'where is the car' instead of 'me too' 'tired' and 'where the car is.' And for some unknown reason (sorry sage) I have started saying 'Ya' in manner of 'I am Inga from sveden, Ya' instead of 'yes' or 'si.' I think that when I come home I will not be able to speak correct english anymore, and my accent will be Italian!
The only other thing I have done worth noting so far is that I went to a real pizzeria on thursday night. Until then, the only pizza I had eaten here had been just like the pizza from australia, except it was square and had less toppings. On thursday night however, we went shopping and i bought more jumpers! and there was an awesome disney store - I have never ever seen so many soft toys in mylife! After the shopping we went to the pizzeria for tea (at 9pm) and for those of you who dont know, in italy, they serve each person a whole pizza. I knew this and so was expecting it, but it was still bigger than i expected. It was absolutely delicious, on a thin base with only cheese and tomato/herb sauce and mushrooms, but I couldn't eat it all. I didn't realyl expect to, and I was rather proud of myself I must say, to have gotten through the 2/3rd that i did, as well as eating bread and softdrink before it arrived. We took the rest home and I ate it for dinner last night. Yum yum yum, i absolutely recommend real italian pizzas, yum!
And so, after making you all jealous, I will have to end this because i have just about run out of things to say. i only ask you again to enjoy our sunburt country with it's sweeping plains and jewel sea! how i miss the sea. josie, i wish i had been on keppel with you, it sounded like it was so beautiful. and no, i haven't got any photos of keppel, so if somebody would like to send me some that woudl be great. :)
thinking of you all very often
love always
ellen
i am arrived
hello
well i have arrived
i have so much to say and just cant seem to get it all out. well, on saturday i left on a plane from brisbane to sydney and it was hard. lots of tears at the airport but once i got on the plane i was ok. the flight to sydney was fine and we managed to get to sydney international airport wihtout too much hassle. once there, robert and i met up with the other exchange students, most of whom where going to italy. to my delight, i foudn that at least one other girl was travelling to frankfurt and then verona once we reached vienna. it eventuated that there wre three of us who travelled that route, which was a great comfort to all of us i think, that we were not alone. the long flight from sydney to vienna was interupted by a stop at kuala lumpur to refuel. it took us about 8 hours to get there, and unfortunately it was only with less than an hour to hour stop that i finally felt tired enough to sleep (which was about 2am home time). so i didnt sleep until about 5am home time, once we were back on the plane again, and it was very very uncomfortable. the stop in kuala lumpur was good cos all of us exchange students (nine in total) got to hang around together and get to know each other. fergus, there was one guy, sam, giong to france, who reminded me a lot of you. he plays bass and likes jazz (and that dead american bass guy who played the fretless bass....jaquim historias? anyway, i kind of knew who he was talking about) and was just very much like you, so we got along.
on the plane i slept for maybe 5 hours, but it was very interupted and when i finally woke up for good, i was all stiff and sore. sage, i flew austrian airlines, and they did have the tv in the back of the seat in front of me but most of the movies wre crap. however, i did watch the end of the tigger movie and the song at the end made me cry, cos ti was all about feeling alone and having yoru freinds a long way away, which was exactly how felt. i was very embarassed for crying on the plane but maddy, the girl next to me made me feel better. the flight from vienna to frankfurt was gorgeous cos it was like a sea of clouds below us and as the sun was just coming up everything was all pink and orange - just beautiful. and when we got to frankfurt it was -4 or 6 degrees and ws just soooo cold. the worst part was when we got on the plane to verona, cos we had to get on a bus from the airport building to the actual plane and then stand outside int he freeeezing cold for about 5 mins until we all got on the plane. of course none of us had been expecting that since at all the other airports we never left the buildings but instead went down thost little tunnel things to get onto the plane. also, it was a tiny dash 8 type plane and was rather scary compared with the other planes that had been all big and i felt much safer on them. anyway, when we reached verona we parted and i met my host family. elisa, my host sister, speaks very good english so she has been the translator so far.
well italy is in many ways very different from australia, but in some ways it is very similar. the first thing that hit me was the cold! it is about 2 degrees right now i think (outside that is) but i even get cold inside. i am wearing 4 layers inside and when i go out i now wear an old jacket of elisa's cos the one i have is not warm enough at all (sorry mum). the other thing that struck me pretty much immediately is that they drive on the wrong side of the road!!! elisa can drive and already we have been out and about a fair bit and everytime i go to the car i go to the wrong side. lol.
on the first night, despite my being absolutely exhausted, elisa and i went to the piazza, or square. there is a big castle but i have not been inside it yet. there is also many shops and we just had a look around with some of her freinds. when i finally went to bed it was only about 8:30pm sunday here, but the equivalent of 5am monday in yeppoon. so i was pretty tired, considering i had only had about 5 hours of bad sleep between about 7am saturday and 5am monday. then on monday i treid to call home which was a big hassle cos my phone card thing woudlnt work. eventually i got through using a phone in a shop that was owned by elisa's boyufreind's mother. sorry for crying mum and dad and naomi, i was just relieved. but i really have had a good time so far. on monday afternoon elisa and her friend ele and i went to modena to some markets. we also went shopping for some new jumpers for me, as i needed something a little mor suited to this climate. everything is so close here, and everytime i get in the car i know it wont be long until we are in a completely knew town. from carpi, modena was only about 20 mins drive. and markets were realyl cool. big and exciting, and reminded me of a the show a bit, cos there were lots of food stalls, but of course no show bags :) we also went up into the tower of a realyl old church. it was fantastic! so very old and just gorgeous and the view was awesome.
i went to school today and it was interesting. as i cant speak italian i thought it would be realyl hard, but most of the students seem to speak really good englihs. the teachers are another matter. there are two english teachers, one of whom is actually from england, and i had two english classes today in different grades. they asked me lots of questions and in one class we watched a bit of a movie with michelle pfiefer so that was good. and then i finished the day in a spanish lesson, where i understood nothing at all. and all of this was finsihed and we were home by 1:30pm which was so strange. it felt like so late in the day and i was exhuasted. at the moment my host mum and dad are at work and elisa is at a tennis competition in another town so i am home all alone. i think i will go and watch a movie and probably sleep, as i am still completely exhausted.
hope to hear from you all soon
love always
ellen
