I got to sleep in thursday morning and packed my carry on size bag for a long weekend. My papa drove me to the train station where I took an hour long train ride to Milano. Luckily my friend Michelle from Hong Kong got on a few stops later so I wasnt alone the whole way. We got off the train and met with other afs kids and advisors. We walked outside the train station and there was a HUGE pack of afs exchnage students. It was so great to see everyone that I hadnt seen for a month. There was over 50 of us and we all took a double decker style bus and drove three hours to the beautiful city of Aprica. This town is lagit on top of a mountain and was really cool seeing all the mounatins and lakes on the way up. It was wicked cold in Aprica, lucily I bought some boots and a winter jacket to take up with me or I would have froze my bum off.


One activity we did was to get a big piece of paper and write our countries name on it. Then everyone would write down their impressions of that country. For the US people wrote down things like Hollywood, mcdconalds, new york city, fat people, fake blondes, stupid people, disney world, fast food, plastic surgery, big houses, big cars, celebirites, gossip girl, the oc, melting pot, lots of races, american dream... when we had finished writting we had to go to our piece of paper and say what was true and false about the comments. It was hard to explain to everyone that yes those things do exisist in the US but its not all common everywhere in the US. And a lot of it is around the world as well. A lot of people had comments for the US, Italy, Germany and China. And not much to say about Thailand, Norway, Finland and Chile. In another group there was a girl from Bosnia and a girl from Serbia . Now I have never heard of these countries let alone know where they are. So when they were speaking about their country not that many people wrote comments for them. Their piece of paper mainly said small european countries, near Italy, near Croatia, unkown to most people... It was kind of awkquard when I first asked them where they were from. When they told me and I told them I didnt know where their countries where they asked me if I was American. Sad I know. I asked some of the Europeans about these two countries and they said there kind of the lame countries of Europe becuase there so small and nothing really famous about them. Oh well...

Okays so during my last three weeks here in Italy Im discovering some of my talents. Actually make that talent. Ive discovered that I really like baking American desserts... a lot. Last week I wanted to bring some American culture to my Italian family and what better way to warm the heart than with food. So I started off easy and made brownies and they were gone that night. So then I thought mmmm whats a classic American dessert? And one answer came to mind- apple pie. I asked my mama how many pies she wanted and she replied "Oh I dont know 6, 7, or 8. As many as you can" Now im thinking that A LOT of pie!! So I went to the grocery store with my papa to buy ingredients. It takes about 7 apples to make one pie so 7 x 5 is 35. So buying 35 apples is kind of a lot... and cashier was looking at my like "crazy american..."
So when I got home my mama saw all the apples so she asked me why I bought so many. I told her that she asked me to make 6 pies. It wasnt til my host brother (thank goodness hes fluent in english) explained to me that she really ment that she wanted 6-8 apples in one pie. Yup thats right she only wanted one pie!!! Now im stucking with over 30 apples!! Mama mia... so far ive made 4 pies. And we still have about a dozen apples left over which ive been eatting for breakfast and afternoon snack. Three for my very large family (ive got a lot of relatives in this big house) and one for my afs dinner. Making pie from scratch takes about an hour to make and and hour to bake. So its takes a while and the pies disappear rather quickly.
Oh and your probably wonder about the coke floats. Now I really love rootbeer floats, but they dont have rootbeer here in italy... at least I dont think they do. (If anyone in Italy see rootbeer let me know!) so I opted for the next best thing- coke. So one night for dessert my family and I were eatting vanilla gelato and they were putting alcohol and coffee in their bowls. So I decided to put coke in my bowl, my family all thought it was wicked disgusting, that is until they tried it and thought it was very good. Oh and I made grilled cheese sandwhiches last night. Throw some ham in there maybe with a couple tomatoes and BAM you got a quick and easy dinner (thxs mom for teaching me). My family thought they were yummy and easy to make. I guess Im intoducing a lot of American traditions over here = )

And now onto other news, like school. As many of you know school here is really hard, a lot harder than your average public high school. So me being me, and knowing basiclly no italian Im not doing so hot in my classes. I think I would be fine if I spoke the language but unfortunetly I dont... yet. So with my English teacher and I sorted out my schedual. We talked about my classes that I dislike and seriously struggle in. I dont even think the word struggle works for my situation becuase to struggle is to be not very good at something because your having difficulties understanding. In my case I dont understand at all, in most classes all the info goes into one ear and out the other. Anyways my teacher and I decided that I should drop my math, science, philosphy and history class. Back home Ive already met all the requirements for science, math and history, and no one really takes philosphy at my old school except for the really smart kids. Im also taking 5th year english (im so good at english here that im skipping two grades! = p) and im pulling a true Duxbury senior move and taking two gym classes. Here we only have gym once a week for two hours. And during my blank classes I can go to the library to read, study, use the comptures and one the teacher will help me with one on one italian tutoring. Overall my new schedual looks great!!

A lesson that Ive learned this week is that if you need help, just ask for it. A lot of time while bring here I try to figuare things out on my own, like finding the right bus, or what my philosphy teacher is writting on the board or even where the sugar is in the kitchen to put in my wicked strong coffee. Im realizing that yes, its good to be independent and what not, but asking for help solves the problem a lot faster and easier. I wish I had known that earlier, then I wouldnt have walked 5 or 6 blocks instead of just turing the corner, or that I wasnt in philosphy, I was in history class or that the sugar in the the cabinet to the right of the stove.

Other news that has happened in the last week... honestly not very much. My family is really great, im so happy to be apart of their family. Some one told me they wish they could switch their family for a different one. I thought to myself I would never switch families, Im way to happy and comfortable with mine. I really have no complaints with them. Im making good friends, the girls from my class are super sweet and nice to me. Im really lucky to have me them so early in the game!

Onto future news, next weekend I have my first AFS weekend orientation! Im wicked excited its from thursday til saturday or maybe sunday. Yup, three days of no school! = ) And its up in the mountains and I get to see all my friends that I met in New York and Rome. I havent seen any of them for a month now. Its hard for me to get together with them becuase I live a solid hour away from Milan, where most of them are so its hard to commute there. The letter from AFS said that Im supposed to dress in my countries traditional clothes... so jeans and a t-shirt it is then! Also I have to preform a talent... mmmm i can make a mean apple pie lol. I dont know, ill probably end up doing a skit with a bunch of other americans.

A lot of people have asked me to tell them about some of my crazy adventures and expirence here in Italy. Unfortunetly I dont have any, yet. But the second something really out of the ordianary happens ill be sure to write a new blog post about it. Until next time...

Arriverderci!

Okay so I have been in Italy a little longer than two weeks but all the days are starting to blend together that it wasnt until today when I met with my adivsor that she asked me "so how have your first two weeks been??" Wow okay so time here has mushed togther into this big blob of new expiernces and repeated ones. Good thing I have this blog to keep everything in order.

Okay so lets see here... Not much new to report becuase monday-saturday grr saturday i have school and guess what?? I know have an extra hour of school. YEAH!!! hahaha i was wicked bumbed when i looked at my phone and was wondering why the last bell hadnt rung yet. Turns out that they start of slowly here with school and sneak in an extra hour or more each week. School is well.. hard and boring. Im hoping it will get better in time... if not oh well im in Italy so I really shouldnt be complaining at all. Im really starting to realise how much more advanced Italian schools are compared to ones in the US. I dropped down a grade so im in my third year and the students are a lot smarter than me. Hmm but the US does have better colleges and universities. School here compared to US schools pretty much have nothing in common. Except they both have a buliding, teachers and students. Everything else is very different. Im writting a list that is constantly being added of differences with school. Its only been two weeks so ill have a later post about my difference list. Its actually kinda interesting and funny.

In other news I had met with my afs advisor today! Also a girl named Michelle from Hong Kong who lives near my town. We met with our new Italian teacher who we will have lessons with on tuesdays and fridays for an hour and a half. After we met with the teacher, my advisor Chiara showed us around Trevilgio which has a bunch of really expensive outdoor outlits. Good for window shopping and gelato. Im finding that gelato places are everywhere. Its worse than McDonalds in the US- you cant escape them!! Oh and big yet patheltic news for me- I took a city bus all the way home by myself = 0 hahaha! In Duxbury, MA there really isnt any buses to take, you simply drive everywhere all the time. So when I go to italian tutoring I will walk to the teachers house from school and get lunch. then take a bus to a town. walk a block and hope on another bus to my town, and walk to my house. And when I say walk I mean 2 minutes of it. I love having buses to take me places, having sidewalks and gelato places. I makes me feel more independent. Im so tired of saying "mom... can you drive me to this place and can we stop at far fars" (a local ice cream place in my town)

I had a fun weekend, Federico picked me up after school on saturday and we went to Bergamo which is a mini city with great shopping and beautiful view of the mountains. He could only stay for the afternoon so Saturday night I went out with some friends from school. Very fun saturday = ) then sunday slept in, ate another huge lunch and went to island with the family. This island was so beautiful with this giant castel over looking the water, great little boutiques and shops. Oh and it has sulfur beaches which stink like rotten eggs but the water is soooo warm. In certain areas the water is naturally bubbling and steaming. Its very dfifferent for me to see older men wearing spedos and older women wearing thong binkies. Very European... ! I went with my papa, aunt, uncle and three little cousins. When ever we go out as a family ive noticed we kind of cause a lot of attention. First of all were a big group (10 people), three very adorable and loud little kids, half of us speaking in English, and me who looks completly opposite with my annoying light features. (why cant I be tan??) Anyways I had another great weekend in Italy!

I finally feel like im getting into a beat here. I have a daily schedual which tends to change when i dont expect it. Being an exchange student means going with the flow... Overall Im happy, and now healthy (my little cold had gone away) So im all good here. = ) Until next time...

Arrivederci!

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!

Okay so I had my first week here in Castel Rozzone, Italy = 0 !!

So on Monday, September 14th I had my first day of school at my new high school. Luckily my host brother and sister go to the same school. So that early monday morning we did our two minute walk to the bus stop. Now when you think bus and school you probably think big, emarrassing yellow school bus. But this bus was the kind that are super long and you see in the city. Okay so we took the very crowded bus to school, and my host brother should me the meeting spot for after school (which i forgot where it was cuz all the hallways look the same) and my classroom. Normally I would be doing my senior year but since italian schools are more advanced I am in my 3rd year of school. Its okay becuase I am young for my grade I rather be taking "easier" classes. Luckily I wasnt as neverous as I thought I was going to be. So I walked into the classroom and only half the students were there and they all just stared at me... and didnt really say anything... wicked awkquard! And I dont speak Italian yet so I could kind of introduce myself to them in italian. Luckily a really nice girl came over to me, who spoke english and introduced me to everyone. And told me to sit with her and her friends. My first teacher came in and just endlessly started talking in italian. She didn roll call and noticed that she had a new student. She asked where I was from in english and then continued talking in italian. For majority of my teachers this is what happened at the beginning of class.

So these are my classes:
Science, German, Gym, History, Art, Philosphy, Religion, Enlgish = ) Italian, Latin, Math, and Spanish.

Okay so Science, History, Philophy, Religion, Math, Latin, and Italian dont make any sense to me at all. They are tought in Italian and the teachers talk really fast and basiclly lecture for an hour, some times two hours!! Imagine two hours of math (omg!!) I thought I would at least understand math but no, the numbers look different. For example the 1 looks like a 7. The 4 looks like a triangle. The 5... I dont know what the 5 looks like, just a squiggley line. And the 9 looks like a g. And they way the solve problems.... no idea how they are doing it. The teacher just picks a student and for 20 minutes they are at the white board doing a long problem. At home with math class the teacher takes 20-40 minutes explaining the lesson and how to do problems then we do a worksheet for the rest of class. I have never had a religion class in school before becuase I go to public school. Here they can teach religion buts it your choice to listen in class. The teacher was actually a priest and half the class did other things that hour. I tried to follow what he was saying but at always i didnt understand him... yet.

German class is kinda hard too, the teachers saw my last name which is hofmaier and she sais oh your german, do you speak german? And of course I dont, and that looks bad... Im guessing Im not the only American who doesnt know their nationalities language. Esp when your a european mutt like me and have many different nationalities like german, irish, french, english, austrian.... I think that I would like to learn German when I come back home, its a cool language but right now I really need to learn Italian first!!

I have been taking Spanish for a few year now. My spanish isnt horrible but it isnt as good as the other students in my class. The first day of class we had to each talk about what we did this summer and our goals for the year. Not to hard, but I couldnt understand fully what the other students were saying. And they know a lot of vocab words that I havent learned. And the students can speak spanish so fast. My favorite class is English as sad as that it. Its the only class I understand fully because the teacher is British. She helps me learn new italian words and wants me to do some creative writting and read some English literature instead of American Literature, which I like so that class is good.

Oh and I have school on Saturday! There goes my friday nights going out and saturday mornings sleeping in. School this week was only 4 hours (8am-12pm) But next week it will be for 5 hours. My school in Italy is a lot smaller and the students are there just to learn. There is no school sports teams, mascots, or spirit. Its very serious and kinda boring, but not everything in life can be fun. I basiclly dont understand what is going on my most of my classes right now. Kind of feeling like a fish out of water. At least im a senior and I only have to pass english literature and gym to graduate which wont be a problem here becuase they are my easiest classes.

Ive only been in Italy for a week and I have already had a cold. Kind of a bummer and its ironic that the last time I came to Italy I got a cold as well. Maybe its something in the air my body isnt used to. No worries though, my mama bought me some serious meds that made me feel all better even if they tasted nasty.

Tonight Im going out with some new friends from school so ill write more about my short weekend in my next post.

Oh and good news for me, I have another exchange student from Southern Cananda living 2 minutes walking distance from me. He speaks english, and is a senior but is taking 3rd year classes too. We both kinda in the same boat lol. Until next time...

Arriverderci!

Okay so I have arrived in Castel Rozzone, Italy yesterday! It took my 4 days to get here, I took trains, planes, buses and cars but i am finally here! It was a wicked long journey, over 4,000 miles but i made it in one piece. so basiclly this is how everthing went down:

September 9th:
I got up really early that morning to get a ride to school with my friend peter. i had some last minute things i needed my school to sign. after that my mom picked me up from school and we went to get a state id card from the dmv. and of course it had been a long weekend so the dmv was wicked packed. it took us two hours to get the piece of paper!! while i was waiting my mom got euros for me which look like monopoly money. by the time we left the dmv it was 11 am and my flight was at 2pm. i made a quick grilled cheese and headed off to the airport with my mom and sister. sadly it was my little sisters birthday so i felt bad leaving her but i knew the second i left my mom would take her out shopping. I was really happy to see my friend emily from marshfield was at the aiport too. we got to sit next to each other for the 30 minute flight to new york city. normally it take 30 minutes from boston to new york by plane. for us it was 2 1/2 hours because obama decided to land in jfk right as we were taking off. and we could take off until he left. When we got off the plane afs voluneers and other kids from around the country were already there. I claimed my very overweight bag (75 pounds) and headed to the hotel. At the hotel we had two days of very boring orientation.... wont go into detail

September 10th:
All the afs kids from the usa flew together to zurich from new tork that evening. there were about 40 of us. and only two volunteers. check in wasnt to much a problem, exept i had to pay $150 for my bag cuz it was twice the size it should have been. anyways we had a six hour flight to zurich. luckily the food was good and we had tv and i got to watch movies during the flight. but it was inpossible to sleeps cuz we had no room. so we missed a full nights sleep.

September 11th:
Yes i elizabeth hofmaier flew on sept 11th but we had no problems exept two of the kids left their passports in the air plane so that was actually a huge problem lol. we had a four hour layover in zurich, so we just hung out, ate chocolate and drank coffee. We had a quick flight from zurich to rome which was only an hour and we got see a lot of italy via plane. i got a sick picture of the alps from my window seat = ) When we got to rome afs ppl meet us and we got our bags and met up with the japanese exchange students. Now the walk from the aiport to the bus was extremely long, esp when you have a 75 pund check in bag, 20 pound carry on and a 10 pound back pack!! We all tried to stay awake on the bus ride to the hotel but we were all sooooo tired that we ended up falling asleep for that hour. When we got to the hostile we dropped our stuff of in our rooms and took quick showers. When we came outside there were 400 exchange students from around the world! They came out of no where!! It was soo overhwelming with everyone there, speaking different languages. But everyone was really nice to us! We were the last country to arrive so we had missed the rome orientation ( no complaints) I went to bed kinda early cuz i had only gotten 2 hours of sleep for the last three nights.

September 12th:
All of the exchange students had been broken into groups depending on where they were going. We were all leaving that morning to meet our host families... finally! People left from 6am-3pm. i left at 1030 so it wasnt to bad. there were about 50 students going to the milan/bologna/florence area. We all piled our stuff onto the train and had a 4 hour ride. wasnt much to do so i ended up playing uno, coloring in coloring books and reading 17 magazine. my ipod was dead and there was no internet connection = ( after days of traveling we finally made it to milan!! i was feeling so gross from the long ride to milan and carrying all my stuff. 10 minutes before we arrived in milan the afs ppl told us we had to introduce ourselves in italian to all of the hosting families thats a lot fo ppl!! okay so my italian sucks so the afs ppl wrote down the four sentances i had to say. they where:
ciao, me chiamo elizabeth
sono americana
vado a treviglio
dalla famigilia spreafico
hi, my name is elizabeth
i am american
i am going to trevigilo
i am stay with the spreafico family
I had the sentances down perfectly but the second i saw all of those people i got wicked nervous and froze after sono americana... alot of the kids did so the afs ppl would whisper our next line lol. I was sooo happy to finally meet my family after talking to them for the past few months! I have a mom, a dad, an 18 year old host brother (alessandro) and a 14 year old host sister (ottavia) and three cats. little did i knew i was entering an episode of full house. when we arrived at my house i realized that i have an aunt, and uncle, three little cousins and a grandma. They all live in a big beautiful house and each family lives on a different floor. They are all extremely kind, sweet, loving, helpful and fun. I know that I will fit in great here and will love it all. Tomorrow is my first day of school and im wicked nevervous!! If i was fluent in italian i think i wouldnt have any fears about living here. I hope to learn the language very very fast!! I miss my home, family and friends but im trying not to think about it cuz it makes me very sad knowing i wont see any of it for 10 months. Until next time...

Arrivederci