Okay so here in Italy we have very shortweekends compared to weekends in the United States! Here we have a little thing called saturday school. Yes saturday school, as in you loose a full friday night of going out and a full saturday morning of sleeping in. Two things I really enjoy! Now I would like to know who came up with the idea of having saturday school. Seriously I want a name becuase this isnt right! Italy is known for many great things like its amazing architecture, yummy food, great shopping... the list goes on and on but one thing that is not so awesome is saturday school. I know that Im really lucky to be here in Italy and I usually dont complaine but this really isnt floating my boat. School is very hard here, esp when you dont know italian. I come home everyday so tired, not becuase Im doing anything physical but that Im learning so much! I constantly feel tired and drained during the day. Today in school I almost fell asleep so I had to use the pinching myself method to stay awake!

Anyways Im writting very quickly today to talk about my first full weekend here. Okay so friday, I went to school, went to McDonalds for dinner with my papa and sister. And the people that worked there thought it was cool that I was an American eatting at a Mcondalds in Italy lol. So I was craving a cheeseburger and fries after eatting lots of pasta and pizza. The thing very different about McDonalds is that its more of a restaurant, and people arent ashamed to be eatting there. There are less choices, fries are more salty, they put a weird sauce on the burgers and charge you 30 cents for ketchup. Thats right, no more taking a bunch of free ketchup packets. After McDonalds we went to a town near my house and went window shopping cuz all the stores were closed.

The next day was Saturday and as usual I got up at 630 am and got ready for school against my own will. I kept thinking this isnt right, this isnt right... School was boring, but was only 4 hours so I got home, had a huge home made lunch and watched tv with my brother. Me, my brother, sisters and some of my sisters friend all decided to go to the local pool for a swim. The pool was wicked crowded with kids doing lessons. so there was only two lanes for free swim where intense older people were taking laps. After an hour of laps we took a break and went in the little kid pool. My brother decided to be funny and tell me all about how little kids pee and spit in the pool. Lets just say he went into such detail that I doubt ill be swimming in public pools ever again. Saturday night I went out with some new friends from school. We went to one of the girls town where they were having a festival. So there were music bands playing, people dancing, fancy cars for display, bars, pubs, and ice cream places were open. It was a lot of fun!!

Sunday morning my sister and I got to sleep in (YEAH!) til 10 and we quickly got ready to go out with the family for the day. We got chocolate pastries and orange juice to go becuase everyone else was up and ready. We drove about an hour to this town that was on a lake, a very very big lake! From the town we took a boat to this cute little island that had old churches and the most amazing view of mountains that had houses on the coast. If only we had rememebered to bring a camera. The island wasnt to big so we decided to walk around it, which was a lot more walking than we had planned or wanted. It was about 7 miles, and was over 80 out. And all of us were wearing jeans and t shirts. It was a very long walk and very warm weather with lots of hills but thank goodness for the view lol. After the walk we all got big ice creams and headed home to celebrate my aunt noras birthday with very yummy pastries = )

All in all it was a very fun weekend, I just wish it wasnt so short! Oh well life isnt always perfect so you have to make the most of it. Now I have to go and have italian tutoring. Oh and for future notice when I say brother, sister, aunt I mean host brother sister or aunt... it takes to long to say or write it that way and sounds silly. And I dont have any natural family here so its just easier this way.

My first week here was really cool, crazy and totally different than I imagined it would be! This has been the fullest week of change that I have ever had. Until next time...

Arriverderci!