Okay so yesterday (sunday) I went skiing for the first time... in Sondrio! So Sondrio is a city in the mountains in northern Italy. Its near the city Aprica where I went for my AFS orientation camp back in october. So early Sunday morning about 5:45 am my papa come into my room to wake me up and tells me I have about 15 minutes to get up, dressed and ready to leave. Luckily I have the weird talent of being able to spring out of bed early in the morning but pulling myself completly together in 15 minutes is a slight challange for me.
So I went into the kitchen in my pjs and looked at the kitchen table and saw piles of ski clothes. My package with my ski clothes hadnt arrived yet so my mama had pulled clothes out the night before for me since I went out with friends. Anyways she had a salmon colored pink onesy snow suit for me. The pink suit would have looked cute on a girl of say 5 or 6 years old. But on me I just looked like the doll Barbie esp with my blonde hair. I hadnt gone skiing before so I was kind of a lost soul on what to wear under the ski suit. I ended up throwing on some leggings, yoga pants, long sleeve thermal, and a black lacrosse pullover that said Hofmaier on the back, black ski cap, aviator sun glasses and uggs.
The car ride to the mountain was a little over 2 hours. I slept majority of the way. When I woke up we were driving up a narrow widney road and were surrounded by mountains and snow. The view was amazing! As we were driving up I could see all the cute little snow covered towns. As we pulled up to the mountain I had some serious butterflies in my stomach. I was so nervous, scared and excited! While my host dad was strapping on my brick like snow boots onto my feet I was just staring at the slopes- they were huge and so steep! As we walked up to the slopes with skiies in hand I felt like a huge fish out of water. I struggled with the whole push youself while on skies using your polls thing. And with my pink onesy suit, blonde hair and strong american accent I also stuck out like a soar thumb. It felt like everyone was just staring at me like where the heck are you from and your definatly new at this.
Since we got there early (8:30am) there werent a lot of people. So my papa took my down the bunny slopes a few time. He said I was a real natural and that I was doing great! = ) After going down the baby slopes twice he took my to the more difficult slopes which I didnt really have a problem with. I didnt fall or feel like I was going to fall. It all just seemed so simple, easy and really fun!
When the clock struck 10 am all the sudden there was tons and tons of people on the slopes. Most were there for ski lessons like me. I was put in a beginners group where we went 5 feet up the bunny slope, went down and stopped and repeated. After about 10 minutes they moved me out of the group and put me in a more advanced group. I had two women and a man who were in their late 30s and were like "oh we never tried skiing so we might as well try now." My teacher or any one else in the group didnt know english- lovely, but was really nice to me and told me I was doing a really awesome job esp since it was my first day. They also didnt know the city of Boston so I just said it was near New York. They kept asking me if I lived in Manhattan lol.
After ski school my papa and I got lunch- spaghetti and meatballs with cokes. Yummy! I was super tired from my first day of skiing so we went home a couple hours early. Probably a good thing since the slopes were packed and it was going to rain later that afternoon. I slept all the way home. When we got back to the house my papa was boasting to the rest of the family on how great I did on my first day and how he was so proud of me. = )

Overall the day was great, I love skiing! It was really nice weather, the sun was out, and it wasnt to cold or windy. The view of the mountains was breathtaking and of course I forgot my camera... again. I will make a huge effort to rememeber it when we go skiing again in two weeks.

Nothing really big or exciting happened last week. Just school which Im doing really good at since I got back some exams from my English classes. I got a 10, 8, and 7+

On Saturday night I went out with my friends where we went out for pizza. Now every couple of streets you will see a pizzera and to me they all look the same. This one was very different. At this pizzera they made pizzas that were the size of an extra large pizza just for one person! They were HUGE! They didnt even fit on a large plate, they sides had about 4 inches hanging off. And the toppings you could get were crazy! For example my friend got a pizza that had sausage, pepperoine, ham, mushrooms, peppers, onions, mozzerla cheese, peas and two sunny side up eggs! And everyone but me was able to eat the monster size pizzas alone and had room for dessert! After that night Im almost 100% positive that Italians are born with two stomachs or maybe they have really fast metabolisms. I dont know how they can eat so much and stay so thin!

This next week is kind of a sad week for me. My good friend Fred from Canada is going back home because hes only here for first semester. Also my friend Akiralie is going back to Australia since shes here only for her summer. Im really sad that my frieds are leaving. When Fred leaves ill be the only exchange student in my town and at school. Im really going to miss him even though he sometimes gets annoying. I wish Akiralie lived closer to Treviglio and was staying longer so I could have gotten to know her better! Theres nothing big to look forward to this week, just school really. Maybe ill get some baking done since I havent made anything for a while Even my family says they miss my brownies and cookies. Were not going skiing this sunday but the one after and next time my brother and sister will come too. Hopefully my ski clothes will arrive by then so I wont have to wear the barbie snow suit again! Until Next Time....

Arriverderci!