NATALE (Christmas!) in Italia!

My Italian Christmas has already passed and I miss the Christmas-y feeling already. Even though, the weather here was unusually similar to that in springtime. At first it felt a little strange for me not being with my family on Christmas Eve (La vigilia di Natale) when we usually celebrate, but it the feeling dissipated when my host family showed me the way they celebrated my favorite holiday. I felt like I really was a relative, a part of the family at dinner.


L'albero di Natale e il presepe (The Christmas tree and nativity scene) were both up right after I got back from Amsterdam. It seemed to me that il presepe is a larger Italian Christmas centerpiece that the l'abero-the tree. It could also just depend on how I saw it, but accompanied by the tree, there was without a doubt always il presepe. In the house of mia nonna (host grandmother), there was only a presepe.

Il presepe in nearly every home!

My family's Christmas tree!

On Christmas Eve, we went to the relatives of my host mother, and we arrived around nine at night and left at two in the morning. Usually in America, we begin and end three hours earlier. It was super fun though even when your eyes start to close uncontrollably. The meal was delicious, but didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary cycle of cooking in Italia. We started with the antipasto of formaggio (cheese) and salsicce (sausages) and bread (there will always be bread, don't worry!). Then there was the primo piatto, which was ravioli or some sort of pasta, and then there was the porcetto sardo- buttery delicious pork.

The table is set! Let's eat!

Lastly came the fruit and dessert-tiramisù and un'altra torta (and another cake).

Cake with a mini nativity scene on top! Che bellina!

After dinner, we lit fireworks and Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) came for all the kids at midnight, but he didn't come from the chimney or when the children were sleeping. He just arrived and dropped off the presents and left during the party!

Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) brought me some delicious smelling soap!

Christmas Eve and we lit some fireworks (fuochi d'artificio)!

Before concluding the night, we played a game called "Tombola" which is similar to Bingo except you can win at different degrees. You win when you get two in a row, three, four, until you feel the whole board.

On Christmas day, we opened presents, all went to church, and everyone wished each other Merry Christmas or Tanti Auguri! with kisses on the cheek.

I gave my host sister a plane ticket for Christmas!

The splendid church in the little town where I live!

We had Christmas lunch at the house of my host father's relatives this time, but we even took a drive (abbiamo fatto un giro in macchina) afterwords and relaxed. Lunch was very similar to the dinner we had the night before, but equally delicious.

Il primo piatto-Natale

Pranzo a Natale (Lunch on Christmas Day)

Cosimina (aunt!)

Zio Ciccio...(my host uncle)

Me and my host sister!

Host cousin and host sister!

Host cousin!

Best host parents ever!

Nonna-Grandma

Marcella, my awesome and beautiful host sister!

We took a drive...

I even skyped with my family back home! 

The stockings are hung up, but we won't use them until the Befana (another Italian holiday on January 5th).  The Befana is an old women who delivers gifts to children.

I've never been felt like I've belonged to something this much after only three months. I feel at home now. At the beginning, it was like I had just moved into a different house and everything felt fresh. 2012 ends tomorrow and this year has probably been the most diverse and thrilling so far in my life. Right now, I can say I will have to return home next year, but in only a day I will be saying I'm going home this year...My indifference has now become not wanting to return home. I don't have to think about that for six months. I can enjoy my belonging to this place.

Un sogno dentro un sogno: Amsterdam

Ciao cool people! I just returned Saturday from Amsterdam where I went with my sister and eight of her classmates in a sort of gita (high school trip). I kept thinking about the theme from that movie Inception with Leonardo di Caprio (DiCaprio) and directed by Christopher Nolan: "a dream within a dream" or "un sogno dentro un sogno". This trip in Italy sometimes feels surreal and dreamlike, and then going to Amsterdam brought me to another surreality. Amsterdam was a lovely city and my host sister's classmates were fun company. I like how much simpler it is to become closer to people my age here. They seem more open to new friends and like saying hi to each other. The girls even link arms when they're walking together, and it makes you feel like you belong there with them.

The city was narrow house filled, a bicyclist's dream (I have a bicycle obsession), and full of English speakers. So many vices are legal in Amsterdam, and although I didn't delve into any I still found the city super thrilling, chilly, and relaxing (I don't think those adjectives work very well together! :). It reminded me of Berkeley (UC Berkeley), a city near where I live. Liberal. The trip itself was una bella pausa (a nice break) from school everyday. I think it even helped my italiano improve more than going to school everyday. I was constantly speaking with the other students, rather than listening to a professor talk for two hours about something awesome that happened 300 years ago.

Mi piacciono le foto (I like photos!) do you? Here are some from the trip:

C'è freddo! (It's cold!)

The clog or Klomp from the Netherlands! Here's more about it: Click for Klomp!

La città delle biciclette!

The group! My host sister (Marcella) is taking the photo! (I'm wearing an overly bright red jacket!)

Elisa, Marcella (my host sister), and me

Siamo ritornati! All'aeroporto ad Alghero

Otherwise frigid weather is slowly infiltrating Sardegna, and my follow exchange students and I have been forming a better relationship with italiano.

In other news...I might change schools in a little bit. Right now I'm at the Magistrali, but maybe I'll change to the liceo scientifico of the city...  It's difficult to decide whether I want or need to change my school. Sometimes I like my current school and other times not so much. Especially after three months you build a sort of comfort zone around your current situation. We'll see how things proceed over the next few months... That's another thing this exchange program has been making less complicated for me and many others... Our problematic and stressful days (bad days) don't seem so terrible. We can go with the flow of our lives this year. After all the embarrassing moments (at least once a day one will occur), we can finally say "fregatene, non importa" (forget about, it doesn't matter). I don't find myself being humiliated or self-conscious very much anymore. I can take the imperfections of the day with a smile.

E poi dicembre inizia!

Well, November passed and left a sort of normality. I feel at home here. This is my room (at least for another seven months) that I'm writing this in.
I'm still looking for changes in my school. It's been a drawn out ordeal, and sometimes I feel like I want to go to my current one (Magistrali - different programs you can choose to study including: economics and human sciences) and other days I just want to go to liceo scientifico (scientific high school that focuses more on math and sciences).
Tomorrow I'm leaving for Amsterdam with my host sister's class. Facciamo una gita (We're going on a trip in high school with the class). It'll be a pleasant pause, but I'll still be speaking Italian and with Italians. At least for the rest of this week, school won't worry me.

Oh by the way in November, I performed songs in Sardo (the Sardinian dialect) with the local choir of my town and also songs from Senegal to entertain at a day recognizing foreigners, witnessed an Italian student strike (which seemed to me more like a parade), took a DJing course at my school, and gained a greater ability to understand Italian (Wow, 60 % overall now!). Why doesn't everyone want to be an exchange student?

Stolen from facebook! All the exchange students in Nuoro (from Thailand, Iceland, Chile, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dominican Republic, and America), a few volunteers, and some of the Italians who went abroad with AFS last year (to Sweden, Germany, America, Thailand, and Argentina). Being an international group is awesome.

Non c'era scuola e...

Halloween passed in Italia and I didn't go trick or treating or pass out candy. Many people here just go to parties or discoteche. The children "trick or treating" go from house to house the following morning or afternoon after Halloween. I went with my host sister to a discoteca for the first time. In America, you can only go to a similar sort of place at eighteen or twenty-one. It's not as risqué or horrible as an American parent might think. I actually think it was a distresser from Italian school. This discoteca was in San Teodoro which is right on the beach. However, one doesn't go to the beach when one travels in pullman from 18:00 to 21:00, and then stays in the discoteca until five in the morning and takes the pullman back to Nuoro at nine. I know I was shocked too. These Italian parties start at midnight sometimes. It was thrilling with all the lights and deafening music, but I couldn't handle it every single day. If it were summer and I was in San Teodoro, I think I would much rather have gone to the beach.

Look!

The beach towns in Sardegna are filled with turisti (tourists) during the summer months, which I haven't yet to see.

We were able to go out on Halloween night only because there is no school from November 1st until the 4th. It reminded me a little bit of Thanksgiving break without the huge feast. The town in which I inhabit here, had a festival over the weekend too. A bunch of people of this Italian town set up tappas (stops where they sell various types of traditional sardo stuff). I ate lumache (snails), lingua (veal tongue) in a sandwich, and french fries. Everything was surprisingly delicious, and although some people cringe, I think my dad would love it. Super healthy.

Sara from Bosnia and I eating lumache!

Delicious snails!

More issohadores!

The reason I'm able to write this at a time when I should be going to school is because I went to a laurea (graduation) yesterday (Monday) in Cagliari. I didn't go to school yesterday or today which elongated the break from school that everyone already had. I'm not sure what the English equivalent is, but my host cousin was getting her second degree in engineering. All of her family went to the aula magna (ampitheater) all'Università di Cagliari and watched her present her thesis in the form of a powerpoint to the professors. Then afterwards we all threw confetti and blew bazookas as she walked out with the maximum possible grade 110/110. Photos, then delicious food, then delicious dolci sardi (sardinian sweets), and fun. They celebrate so much more here for college graduation, not just the walking up to the platform, handing of the diploma, and applause. It's like a twenty-first surprise birthday party in Las Vegas or something. I think you would have loved it.

Laurea food!

Here are some dolci di Sardegna, I noticed they are made up of a lot of almonds and aren't usually extraordinarily sugary:

I'm pretty sure these are called "Tiliccas".

Check out more from Sardegna!

Sometimes, I wish my family back in America was here with me because I keep thinking how much they would have enjoyed all this. Walking around at Sas Tappas and seeing Sardegna would be pretty awesome with them, but I also have to think about who I'm with now. It's more difficult than I thought to appreciate something like this without someone you've known for a long time, but us AFSers, we can do it.

We made pizza!

Oh I almost forgot, I went to a chinese restaurant! There are actually quite a few of them in Italy!

Simona!

Del pane caldo

Since the last time I've posted - well you know what to expect from me after those words - I've felt a lot.

I want to start off by saying that after a few not so lovely days, yesterday there was warm bread on the table. Genuine bread that's just been baked, less than ten minutes out of the oven. Then I ate it with nutella for colazione (breakfast). It comforted the cold morning.

PANE!

I ate half of this package.

Yes, I did feel the culture shock that I had been anticipating, but it kind of dripped into my emotional state. Feeling homesick and downcast for no reason seems to drift in and out. Sometimes I feel so extraordinarily gleeful to be here and at other times I miss driving cars, talking to my dad, holding my mom, and the rest of my family. These past three happy days have been getting progressively further and further away from sad feelings. Probably because school is finally (FINALLY) getting organized (I hope!) and italiano is chunk by chunk finding its way into by brain. 
Thank you Wikipedia authors, you can read more about this "stage" in an exchange program here:
Culture Shock

All the Sardegna AFS students had their first camp this last weekend. It was wonderfully fun. We even went to the sea and went swimming. I think that bonding is so much simpler with other exchange students. We always seem to have something to talk about. Either about our experience here or what life is like in our own country. Almost every continent is represented by an exchange student here in Sardegna. I now know at least one person from Japan, China, Norway, Iceland, Bosnia, Thailand, Mexico, nearly every country in South America, France, Iceland, Finland, and I can't remember them all. These international friendships make me so very happy.

Some other exchange students from my local chapter.
From left to right, Me-America, Karitas-Iceland, and Da-Thailand.
We're friends. :)

At school, I wasn't very content at first because of some of the classes I was put in, but now I've slowly crammed myself into a place here. I will change classes for certain subjects which not very normal in Italy as usually only the teachers move. Getting textbooks is also making me extremely happy. I had to purchase more than eight books and received another couple from the school. Too many. At least, Intercultura (AFS Italia) pays exchange students back for books if they can't find them elsewhere. New books are so thrilling, but reading the required material in italiano takes hours.

History book, completely in Italian!

I've gotten far enough into the school year to where we are having our first interrogazioni. "Interrogations" are when the professor asks you questions and you have to respond orally in front of the class. It's super frightening and they seem extremely difficult.  Especially if you aren't fluent in Italian. The students in my class don't seem nervous at all to stand in front of the class though. At least, I get to be interrogated last, but I don't think it will make much of a difference.  I already took a verifica: or questions and big spaces to elaborate, no multiple choice here. You have to know your stuff.

At my school, we also had a pubblicità (assembly to advertise) for Intercultura. It's strange being on the other side and telling people about my experience in Italy. A bunch of students took pamphlets and I hope they go with Intercultura. I think high school exchange programs are more common for students to take part in here.

So I'm inevitably trying to find an Italian inside of myself. I still am so accustomed to putting on a seat belt in the car that I put it on even when I don't have to. You only have to wear a seatbelt in the front of a car in Italia. My dad would not approve. People look at me oddly when I accidentally forget that I don't have to wear it. The same would happen in the US if someone wasn't wearing it.

Today was the birthday of my host father. I wrote him a card and we all sang "Tanti auguri!" (happy birthday!). It was a really lovely day.

After this, I'm going to go open the package my parents sent me. It's sitting in the corner, a tinsy fragment of home. I'm still here, that Sabrina that grew up in the Bay Area, I'm just trying to add another element now.

Finally! RASBERRY (lampone) GELATO! That's my fresh element: gelato.

A piece of Nuoro...