...Ice Skate in Vicenza?

The week after Padova, I went to Vicenza to go ice skating for another exchange students birthday. I was the first one there, so we went in a few stores in the center as we waiting for everyone to arrive. Then we went to eat pizza with all of Ellen's friends and the other exchange students. After lunch, we all went ice skating. The ice skating rink was out side in the center. I have no idea how it was still there, because it was fairly warm outside. I was really excited to go ice skating, however, the ice was the worst ice I have even seen. It had been there for about a month already and had never been cleaned so it was really hard to skate. We skated for a while and then we all decided to go shopping some more, well actually they shopped, and I walked around with them resisting the urge to buy everything. Later we headed to the station and everyone got on buses or trains to their host cities.

There are better picture somewhere, but of course no one ever wants to take pictures with two cameras and everyone says they will post them on Facebook so I can get them, but they never do.

 

...Padova?

The first weekend I lived with my second family, my host mom took me to Padova. My host brother lives and goes to university there and she had to go to clean his house. It's very different in Italy. Basically the mother does everything for the family, cleans, cooks and drives them everywhere. Because of this, I feel like the kids are less independent than I'm used to. Since there is another exchange student living in Padova I decided to hang out with her while my host mom was cleaning. Sadly, it was already dark so I didn't get to see much of the city, but we did go shopping. Padova probably has the best shopping I've seen so far in Italy, but of course I haven't been to Milan or Rome yet. As we walked into the center the first stores I saw were Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Rolex. Plus it had all the popular stores for teenagers: Zara, H&M, Stradivarius, etc.. After about 3 hours of shopping and dinner, we decided to go back to Sarah's house. So before I went to Padova, my host brother told me that they have a problem with the Russian and South African mafias there. And that they have Military police men in the bad parts of the city. So as me and Sarah are walking back to her house, in the dark, we came to a fork in the road. We could go right which was close to a busy road where there were a lot of people. Or we could go left through the park which was the shorter path, however it's also where the drug dealers hang out. As we are contemplating our choices, Sarah says, "My host mom told me not to go through the park at night, but it's shorter so we'll go this way". So we start walking left towards the park with no one around. As we walked, I was freaking out, because we are two young girls walking alone at night in ghetto Padova with our hands full of shopping bags and there were men driving by staring at us. After about 40 minutes of walking, we decided we were lost. As we turned around to retrace our steps, we see the Military police men with their big machine guns drive past us. That's when we started running until we finally found Sarah's street. About an hour later, my host mom came to pick me up and we headed back to Bassano at about midnight. Let's just say I wasn't that impressed with Padova.

 

Okay this is something I saw and thought was really strange. They have a 9/11 Monument in Padova, Italy. Like how weird is that. It even has a piece of the building in it.

...Wish me a happy birthday?

I want to start by saying that birthdays are really important in Italy, like everyone remembers when yours is and they make a deal of wishing you a happy birthday. So the day before my birthday, I went for pizza with some girls from school. The pizzeria was really close to my house so I just walked. However, when I got there, I started to get a stomach ache. I thought, maybe I was just really hungry, so I ordered a pizza and we waited. Unfortunately, when we got our pizza's and started eating it only got worse. So after the others had finished, we all walked back to my house where my host mom gave me some medicine. We sat down and talked for a while and after about 20 minutes, I felt better. After, we decided to eat the cake my host mom had made for me. After another hour or so everyone left and I went to bed. The next morning, we all got in the car and headed to my second host families host in Enego to have lunch together. I actually changed houses on my birthday too. So, I felt fine all through lunch, but after everyone left, I started to get a stomach ache again. As the night went on it only got worse. Let's just say I spent a majority of my night on the bathroom floor with my head in the toilet. Definitely not one of my best birthdays. The next day wasn't much better either. We had to go back to the house in Bassano and I still felt nauseous. Basically, every 10 minutes on the drive back we had to stop so I could get out of the car and throw up. When we finally got home, I went straight to bed and slept until the next day. I was sick for the remainder of the vacation. After about a week I finally felt normal again. It's not fun being sick when you're 3,000 miles from home.

Me blowing out my 17 candles!

 

...Celebrate the New Year?

So for New Year's Eve I went to a party with my friend Nicole. It was a really low key party so it wasn't that bad. And what I mean by that is that there weren't tons of people so I didn't have to awkwardly try to talk to that many people. Actually, most of the people there I had met one or two times before. So Nicole picked me up at my house, which wasn't that far because we lived in the same town, then we went to the party. The party was basically the same as parties in America. We dance, ate and played games until midnight. Then we went outside and set off fireworks and made a toast. The party finished around three in the morning and then we went back to Nicole's house. And that's how I brought in the New Year

Me and some of the girls from the party!

 

Our nutritious breakfast

(Now I know where those ten extra pounds came from, nights like these)

My new boyfriend Liam

I've probably said this before, but Italians really like One Direction. (Yes, I know my pajamas are cute!)

.

...Enego and Asiago?

A few days after Christmas, I went to the mountains with my second host family. They have a house in Enego that I had also went to the first week I was in Italy (yes, the same place I got locked in the bathroom before). So my host second host dad came to pick me up at my first house and then we headed to the mountains. As we drove I learned a lot of history about the mountains. We even stopped to see a fort used in World War 1.

One of the trenches near the fort.

The view of the valley from the fort... Yes, we were actually in the clouds!

The outside of the fort

The fort on the inside... I'm not sure how far it actually goes because it was dark and I didn't walk through the whole thing.

A big gun inside the fort

 

Round Rosie went with me this time!

 

The view from my window.

 

One of the things I love most about Italy is that I get to see and be in these places that we learn about in school. The places where history was made, the same place important people stood only a few hundred years ago. Around every corner there is a new story to be told, something new to learn. My host dad also took me to see this statue of the lion of Venice, which was the symbol of the Venice empire. When Napoleon had come to destroy this statue, the people of the mountain had hid it and saved it. I was just in awe as I looked at it, I mean Napoleon had looked for and tried to destroy the same statue I was looking out. I mean how cool is that! When we finally arrived at the house, we ate dinner and then after dinner we headed to the town theater to see a little concert. The next day after we ate lunch, we headed about an hour to another town in the mountains called Asiago. Now, Asiago is a tourist town, but not to long ago was the location of a major battle in WW1. Like most other the mountain towns, Asiago was originally inhabited by Germans and Austrians. During WW1, the town was almost completely destroyed, but was beautifully rebuilt. To add some more awesome history, Earnest Hemingway had fought in the battle in Asiago (also, his town house is in the villas just outside of Bassano)! Asiago is also famous for Asiago cheese, which is probably my favorite cheese I have eaten here so far. As it started to get late, we headed back and stopped in a valley that runs exactly from North to South or East to West (I can't remember). In this valley there was this giant rock with designs drawn on it from some ancient religion. I don't really remember the facts very well because it was explained to me in Italian, but it was really cool to see and I think there are 2 others that form a  triangle with the one I saw for something. Finally, before we headed home, we went to the very top of the mountain to see the snow. Yes, I got to touch snow at least once in Italy! Later when we got home, we ate dinner and then headed to the church for a Christmas concert. The next, day I slept most of the day and then after lunch headed home to Bassano.

The rock, it's hard to see the designs in the picture

Beautiful nature

The valley

 

 

...Have a Merry Christmas in Italy?

Okay! So for my Christmas eve, I slept for most of the day. I know, really exciting right? Anyways, when I woke up around noon, I took a shower and ate lunch with my host family. After lunch, when everyone went to their rooms for their daily nap, I had one last present to finish. The day before when I went to the mall with my friends, I had bought permanent markers and two coffee mugs. I don't know if you've heard of it, but you can draw on mugs with sharpies and then bake them and it's supposed to last forever. So I was a little scared, because they don't actually have sharpies in Italy and I didn't know if other permanent markers would work. So, I drew my designs on both of the mugs and put them in the oven to cook. After they cooked for half an hour, I let them cool and then tested washing them. Fortunately, the designs seemed to be permanent.

 

 

 After that, I spent the rest of the afternoon helping wrap last minute presents and listening to Christmas music. I just want to add that since the first of December, there was Christmas music always playing in the house. At about eight o'clock that night, We all headed to my host grandparents house for dinner. We started off the night with a toast and then all headed to the dining room to eat. I forgot to get a picture of the table before we all ate, but it was set really fancy with like two forks, two spoon, and about three glasses for each person. So the first plate was served and we ate tortellini in broth. Then, for the second plate we ate cooked spinach (which tastes like eating grass), mashed potatoes, and cow tongue. After the second plate, we all took a little break. After about 20 minutes, everyone headed back to the table for the third plate. This time, I was a little less pleased with the food. There was this meat that I was told was like a mix of different meats together which would have been okay except that when I actually saw it, it looked like raw ground beef only really light pink. When I took a bite, the texture wasn't much better. On the side, there was also sauerkraut  and something else similar. After everyone finished we had the first dessert which was cookies to dip in the Champaign and torrone. After we finish all of those, We then had panetone. So panetone is like this giant like cake-like thing with raisins inside, and its really dry. I honestly hate panetone and can't tell you how many times I had to eat it in the month of December. If you've never denied food from an Italian, I will tell you, it is one of the hardest things to do! After that, we all headed to the living room to open our presents. Then by the time we finished, it was about one in the morning and we headed home.

 

The next morning, I woke up at about 8 and got ready because I was going to my counselors house for Christmas lunch. They picked me up around 11 and we headed to their house in the mountain. It was a lot more relaxed than the night before and we ate a lot less food. My counselor and his wife have 2 sons who both came home for Christmas ( one live in Brazil and the other in San Francisco) and there was also the girlfriend of one who was also American. She didn't speak any Italian and it was kind of interesting to see. As I watched her I realized how similar we were and how far I've come since I got here. After we ate, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and playing card games until my host parents came to pick me up around six.