Goodbye, Thanks, Sorry.

Well my people, here it is. The end of My Year in Italy. As you read this, I will be in take-off in my plane to Bangkok, the first leg of my journey home. I write this now, but schedule it to be posted later, just so no one gets confused.

It’s strange how it has crept up on me. I planned to write at least two more blogs before leaving, but alas time has made me run far too fast, and I find myself writing this on my last full day in Italy. I leave tomorrow at 1pm.

I’ve had a lovely last few days though, met some wicked people and had some very good times with people I knew already. I’ve just finished my last frantic pack, had to discard more items, but my suit cases are done and ready and I am less so.

I’m feeling just as jumbled as I did when I arrived, a sweet mixture of excitement, fear, eagerness, frustration and terror. Better than drugs any day. I’m going to miss this country, with its eating habits, history by the litre, tiny-wind-y streets, open air markets, good food at low prices, traditions, family, beautiful [if challenging] language, small distances, ridiculous governing and so much more. Ohyeah, and the people.
Though I haven’t made a mountain of friends this year, the ones I have met and stayed with have been responsible for keeping me alive and relatively sane.
Above all, my friend Silvia, the girl who told me to come sit next to her on my first day of school, told me what classes we had, who the teachers were, what on earth they were talking about, how much a coffee is in the school bar, taught me which teacher to back-chat, and which ones are a bit crazy and she has been my personal dictionary for all of this year. She has the most ridiculous, and best, laugh in the world, a sound I will miss with all my heart. I hope, some day not too long from now, we will sit together in Australia and do it all again.

And she has wickedsick tattoos.

Other people I need to thank include a lot of exchange students. Anna and Julia for being my besties for the first half of this year. Sierra and Edith for making this last four months so absolutely magical. These two girls, Edith who I said goodbye to in Città Alta yesterday and Sierra, who only just walked out my front door, are two of the loveliest creatures in my life. After months of being the lone exchange student in this town they reminded me what it really met to go out and explore the world, to live it, not just in it. The biggest hug doesn’t express enough love. I wouldn’t have made it without you. Emma, Katie, Jay, Dylan, Ben, Ryan and others from the first group of students, Kenny [!], Jackson, Charles, Sabrina, Ana, Marissa, Elly, Ariane, Edvard, Matt[...] from the second. The list of exchange students stretches into the future and beyond. My fellow Australian Darcy Danger and, of course, the most wonderful Merredith who began, and will end, this whole thing with me. We arrived here together and are taking the same plane tomorrow [now today, in a few hours time], which means we’ve been through some of the same stuff, have seen the same seasons and have discussed things together the whole way through.
These are just a tiny portion of the people who have made this year what it is, from other italians [including my school class, thanks guys!] to those I met in the places I travelled [Berlin [Lily, Helga, Sam], Rome [Michela, Sofia, Fede] and Paris[Jf, Raphaelle and family]].

Looking at this list now, and thinking about how much longer it could be, makes me grin. Though some hours have seemed long, some days a little dark, this year has been the best year of my life. It’s weird to say, because there have been so manymany struggles, but also because the usual cast of riffraff haven’t been there. I am looking forward to again being able to walk to my best friend Brianna’s house at 2am, have dinner with Kean, bake with Emily, cackle with Cara and do so manymany other things with the people who make my life as fantastic as it is. But know this, my people-of-this-year; you will always have a place in my life, whether we see each other every week forever, or never again. You’ve all affected me in some way and my life has been changed for the better because of you.

The last set of people I MUST mention are my two host families. Ohgosh, the love and thanks I send to these people is not enough, cannot ever be enough. My first family, Mariella, Duilio, Diana, Marco, Alessio, the Nonni, cousins and such, made a huge impression. I have  been so lucky this year with host parents and Mariella and Duilio helped me settle into Italy with love and food, copious amounts of nutella whenever I wanted, gentle reminders that I should study a bit more, jokes and hugs and just so much love.
Franca, Dario and Chiara took me into their home even though they have no connection to Rotary, Chiara isn’t going on exchange and I’m not paying them any money. Their home always comfortable, the fridge always full, the family always loving and willing to let me stay out or in, with friends or alone, these people enabled me to fully take advantage of my last few months. It has been such a joy to see a family so close and connected. I will be tied to these people, if not literary, then by the bonds we have built over the last few months. I know that some of you will be wondering why I’m writing about all these people you’ve never heard of. It may not be interesting reading, but I feel the need to thank them all publicly, just incase they don’t quite understand how much I love them all. Vi voglio tantissima bene.

Thank you all for following me for the past year, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to write for your eyes. The sorry part is me apologising for not writing more… I’ve been too slack. I’m not sure blogging is for me, I get too distracted.

I, here-by, close this blog. I do hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. In the years to come maybe I will write other things for other people, but I must say that this is the biggest writing under-taking I’ve ever undertaken. Besides year 12. Thank you all for the encouragement, praise, suggestions and presence this year, hope to see you all soon.

Lots and lots of love and respect,

-Elizabeth Farrant    [Formerly Lizzie Farrant. It's time for the change.]

Merredith and myself

See you soon.

The Arrivals.

So my parents arrived last week.

I think it was a bit of a shock to all of us. Sure, we’ve been planning this trip for months and all knew it was happening, but actually having my parents in Italy, all of them, not just their faces on my lappy screen as we Skype, was weird. I don’t think I believed they would come until I saw them, and even after that I kept expecting them to disappear and for me to wake up suddenly in bed. At one point [on the bus back to Milano centrale] I said to Dad ‘Sorry if I poke your face or something occasionally, I don’t really believe your real’. It was a dramatic meeting, but not really in a good way. Everything was going fine, I made food and bought drinks for my class as it was my last day of school that day, I had all the trains planned out and had written all the schedules down in my diary. I was on a tight schedule, so I’d planned everything out perfectly, the worrying and defining details being how long they took to get their bags. I put an apple, water and two small christmas cakes in my handbag for them both if they were hungry after their flight from Dubai. I got to the Bergamo train station very early, got my tickets to Milano, then another one to the airport [which is another hour outside Milano], in short, I felt organised. Felt being the important word here. I arrived and Milano Centrale only to find that the trains to Malpensa airport that I thought I’d seen in the station before seemed to have been imaginary. They weren’t there. There were no trains to Malpensa. I was dumbstruck, but recovered and began asking people how to get there. I was directed to the bus station outside, where I got on the first bus in line hoping, foolishly, that it would be the first one to go. Wrong. After 20 minutes of agonising wait we set off. I was kind of panicking at this time, not wanting to be late to the airport. One of my favourite things ever is seeing people coming out of airport gates, I’m not sure why. It just means the beginning of something new or, in this case, something old,  an 18 year old relationship. I was excited, but terrified at the same time. Yes, I was seeing my parents again for the first time in 11 months, which was awesome, I’d missed them like heck and had looked forward to seeing them again from the day I arrived here. But. I’ve changed. I don’t know how, but I’ve been told that’s what happens when you go away to a strange counrty for a year, having to look after yourself a lot more, learn a new language and generally work stuff out. So I was worried about that, how I’ve changed, if they would still love me blahblah. So, there I was, late, sitting on a bus which turned the opposite way to aaaaaall the other buses when it first left the train station bus-port, which fiiiiiilled me with confidence. I finally arrived after an agonising hour and a bit, at Malpensa airport. Gee, though I, it’s a bit small, I thought it would be bigger. But, not wanting to miss my parents, I forgot that and rushed to the arrivals area. I had messaged Daddio on the bus, so he knew I may not make it in time to see them out of the gate, but I’d hoped to be there. I smiled widely when I told him I was there, and he said they were still waiting for one more bag and would be out in a minute. I made a wild dash for the loo, wee-d in record time and was back at the gate, eagerly awaiting that brilliant moment when you see the face of someone you haven’t seen for ages, then that contained ‘don’t make to much of a scene’ run around the barrier to hug them. I waited. Theeen waited some more. Finally I got a short message from Dad saying simply, ‘We’re out. where r u?’ Stepping back from the rail, frowning and confused, I rang him to confirm this and we had a short conversation in which I realised that a) no, they were not outside anywhere that I could see and b) I was at terminal two, while they had landed at terminal 1.

Bugger. Buggerbuggerbuggerbbugereurbeuebwfbsukgbsgagjkbag. Elizabeth Farrant = 0, mildly funny story collection = +1. I went outside to find the free terminal bus that I had read about while I was searching Malpensa. I went up to one small bus with a few passengers and asked if it was going to terminal 1. The driver looked at me and said ‘Well, there is a special airport bus you can take, but you know I’m driving over there in just a minute, hop aboard’ I looked at him and his merry crew of travelling Italian men, their cherry faces and way too many suitcases and said sure, how much? For a worried little girl like me, no charge at all. So I settled myself on one of the only free spaces left [the back of the bus was unreachable due to huge cases in the isle] and began talking to them all. We had a jolly time, and they helped me feel much better, laughing at my mistakes and joking that my parents may have given up and gone home already. Their next trip, they told me, would be to Australia and they would definitely stop by Perth. By this time we were at the correct terminal, or so I hoped. I thanked the driver and his merry men, and runwalked to the gate Dad had said they were near. Malpensa airport isn’t small, it’s actually huge, one of the largest in europe and the largest in Italy. Terminal 1, that is. Finally, after hours stress and strain, weeks of planning and preparation, I walked towards gate 6 just as my mother was taking a walk around. We hugged very hard for a while, as the worry and joy leaked out of my eyes in the form of water, then I walked around to give the same welcome to Dad. Finally. Ten months and three days without them, the distance shortened by the genius of Skype but nevertheless painful. It was, as I will elegantly put it, weird. This is my country! I know this place [or some of it] quite well! The language is understandable, the food is recognisable and the culture .. well, there’s just to damn much of it to say anything. I felt like a whole part of my life, my brain, my… me, had been invaded by another part. Sure, I saw two Australian friends in Berlin, but they didn’t come to Italy, I didn’t show them around my city or introduce them to my host parents. I did this, and more, with my parents in the two weeks[exactly] it has been since they arrived on the 3rd of December. it’s weird, but also fantastic. now they know what I’ve been seeing this year, the shops I’ve gone to, the stuff I see and do everyday. Pictures may say a thousand words, but a thousand pictures can sum up a year of life, not even close. We walked around Città Alta, caught buses, drank wine, saw art, visited churches, met my friends, took trains, aet huge meals, shared stories and survived the first terrifying trip from the Hertz car garage through Milano Centrale to the Autostrada. It has been a full two weeks. I won’t tell you everything that went on, that would take to long and I’m sleepy, but I’ll explain the bones of our trip, why we did it and, in Jed Bartlet’s words, What’s Next.

The first few days were just in and around Bergamo. We ate dinner with my second host family on the Saturday night. I must say it was strange to hear my host parents and host sister speaking english. It felt all wrong! I kept wanting to say ‘It’s ok! I can speak Italian!’, but then I’d remember they weren’t exercising their linguistic skills for me, but for my rents.

The next day the four parents and I headed to Verona, after France [host mum] asked if we wanted to go. It was a very lovely day in the city, we saw the Arena, towers by the dozen and quite a few markets too. The only vaguely disturbing bit was that I felt as if I had two sets of people I had to ask permission from. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t ask much of my parents anymore and my host parents have made it clear it’s really not necessary for my to ask them about every little thing, but it was still a strange sensation until I worked out, in my head, the balance of power. I decided that as I’m a big girl now, I just won’t ask anyone anything, and will do what I want. Easy. We climber to the top of the main tower and saw the wonderful sprawling beauty of Verona, which still amazed me though I saw it meer weeks ago.

I should explain at this point my parents accommodation. Weeks ago I asked Franca to help me find a b&b or hotel for them for the few days in Bergamo. She is a wonderful planner, one of those people who actually enjoys planning trips and finding places to stay and roads to take etcetc. We went onto one of the many internet sites there are to help with this sort of search and almost at once came upon this bed and breakfast in Città Alta called Botton D’Oro. After looking at  other places we both decided that This Was It, the perfect place, perfect price and extremely lovely rooms. Franca called the woman and organised it there and then. I could hear the whole conversation an came to the conclusion that the woman who ran the place was very nice, an assertion that was confirmed a week or two later. I ran her to tell her we would be arriving in Bergamo fairly late, their plane arriving at 8 and then an hour to Milano then another hour to Bergamo. She said to me she’d been meaning to ring about the room. I panicked at this point, wondering if she’d double booked or something equally as problematic, but she wanted to tell me that instead of just a room, she was going to give my parents, at the same cost, a whole apartment. This would give them more independence, their own bathroom, a kitchen incase they didn’t want to go out and, the best bit, a bed for me incase I wanted to stay too. I think I fell in love with her a little at this point, or at least made up my mind to create a statue for her or something. My plan was perfect, and I hadn’t even planned for it. The woman, Sabrina, actually ended up picking us up from the Bergamo airport, which is a little way out of town, because we had to take a bus back which didn’t go to the center, due to the fact trains in Italy a) are scary after about 9 and b) don’t run after about 10. That was way out of her job description, but she happily did it and helped keep my blood pressure lower after so many of my carefully laid plans to do with public transport fell through. She entertained us, gave us extra things by the dozen and was just wonderful. I highly recommend her and her bed and breakfast.

In our few days in northern Italy we also took a day trip to the nearby town of Brescia where my Merredith, another Aussie Rotary student who I flew here with, lives. We had a gorgeous day with her for many reasons. Brescia is a beautiful city with Roman ruins and a big castle with incredible views and things to see, but it was mostly the fact that Merredith is just so damn-ed great. All four of us had a few intelligent conversations about what has changed this year, but she and I also had several ridiculous conversations about not much at all. She entertained us thoroughly and was a delight. Not that I didn’t know this before, we’ve seen each other at many points during the year and they have all been humour filled and joyous, but I guess this time it was just that little bit more important, because it wasn’t just me that was being shown around, but my parents too, who are fussy people who hate almost everyone and make friends rarely. She did a fabulous job.

The day before that we went to Milano for the day. I must admit that it’s not my favourite city. I don’t know if it’s just because I don’t live in the city in Australia and Milano seems to big, but it just ain’t my place. We saw il Duomo, walked through the gallery etc and had a good time. The highlight of the day was going to see the Last Supper. The way this came about was, well, because of facebook. A few weeks ago there was an advertisement about the Last Supper, which got me thinking about where it actually was in Milano. I found out, sent mum an email asking if she wanted to see it, then promptly bought the tickets. After being herded like cattle through automatically opening and closing doors we arrived in the room in wich this artwork is. I hadn’t realised before, but this version of the last supper is actually pained onto a wall. We had a wonderful guide, a curl, black-haired woman from Napoli who had the most gorgeous accent who explained the number of times this painting has been damaged and covered and nearly destroyed. Because it took him a few years to paint, Leonardo didn’t use the proper fresco style, which is painting onto wet plaster, which holds the paint better, which meant many of the colours had faded and the paint had cracked off.  We were told that only a few years after it was finished there was reports of the painting cracking. The building it’s in was then used or many different reasons: a barracks for solders, stables and, in 1943, it was even bombed and a lot of the original building was totally destroyed. over the years it has been painted over and re-touched, graffiti-ed by the soldier and damaged by temperature changes, smoke and numerous other things. It took 22 years to restore. It was pretty amazing to see, and finding out that every single thing on the table is a symbol made it more amazing. It’s hard to believe that from one painting we can find out so much about the time it was painted, the artist, his employers and much more.

I’m going to post this now. It’s a bit rough, but I want to give you guys something to read. I will try to write about our amazing trip south to Molise, it was .. indescribable for many reasons, all of which I hope to explain in the next few days, though it’ Dad’s birthday tomorrow, then I have a concert that night, sunday I have to go to mass and then a lunch and sunday night we’re having dinner with my first host family. Oh, then monday morning we go to France, so forgive me if it takes a little longer. But, for now, good night!

Things I love about Italy/this year.

I love the I can miss two trains to go to lunch with my old host family and all my host mum says is that maybe we should re schedule for later this week.
I love that I can walk into the centre at 11am and purchase a cup of vin brulè, warm wine infused with cinnamon and spice and all things nice.
I love that I know weird little things about my city, like where I can buy great 30c pens.
I love that if a friend from England wishes to come visit it’s not expensive.
I love that I live in a city that has an airport that RyanAir uses.
I love RyanAir. I love that I can catch a train from Milano at 9pm, arrive in Bergamo at 10pm and slowly walk home through rain cleaned streets listening to music that feels like it’s filling up my soul.
I love that I can ask my host mum if a friend can come stay and she doesn’t think twice before saying yes.
I love that I can begin talking to stall holders while frantically searching for my camera, and that they turn out to be extremely nice and pleasant.
I love being called bella and signorina.
I love that I can talk to people in a language that isn’t mine.
I love that I can find a woman one street away who fixes my back and is right about how I sleep and what emotions I feel, just by touching my toes, all at the same time.
I love that every day after school I see a woman going on a walk with an older woman.
I love that we now know and greet each-other.
I love that the old woman walks much further than she used to.
I love that I have been so incredibly lucky with host families this year.
I love that fresh food here is a given, and doesn’t cost any more.
I love that whenever I walk home after school, the delicious scent of Italian lunch wafts through the air.
I love that everywhere you go there is something totally different about the town, the language, local food, surrounding environs… usually all of the above.
I love how, regardless of age, old italian men hit on women, in the classiest way.
I love that pizza is so good and so cheap.
I love that brioches are so good and so cheap.
I love that every single Italian stereotype is true.
I love that travelling for an hour, the same time from Midland to Fremantle, means you end up in a whole new city, state, or even country.
I love that this country is everything I expected, but at the same time I had no idea.

These are in no particular order, just how I think of them. There are things I don’t like, but why reflect on them?

This is something I worked out and wrote in class the other day, just so you can see how many high jinks I’ve been up to this year.

This year/since January 15th I have:

stayed in twenty-two different houses/places/rooms,

been to three different countries,

spoken/learnt bits of five different languages,

taken eleven different air planes,

used nine different forms of transport,

accumulated thirty-three new/old/bought/gifted/stolen books

seen fifteen towns/cities in Italy

and another six around Europe

met people from eighteen different countries

This post is a bit all over the place, but I think it’s ok. The Rome and Paris one is coming soon. Here’s the two stall holders I mentioned. I went back to get a picture of their amazing produce and they endeavoured to get me to go out with them. I politely declined.

Good evening to one and all.

Just so you all know…

I’m currently blogging like a whirl wind. If I haven’t posted something by tomorrow, you may throw things at me.  Look back in a few hours, I may have my Paris/Rome adventures up.

 

Thank you for being so patient.

 

-e

Paris and Rome. Life is tres/molto hard.

Darling ones! It has been too long! I know, my fault, but I must live life before I can report it back to you.

After I asked for blog advice, I got some  great answers from everywhere, family, friends and even people I don’t know. It was all very encouraging, and I intend to follow the advice. Don’t worry, I won’t be radically changing anything, I’ll just add a page about the exchange, change the background so it’s readable and maybe throw a whole lot of pictures up for those who just wish to see them. It will take time, however, so bear with me.

In a recent email a friend of mine said this: “How was Paris? I want to hear much more than what your blog said. I am cranky-pants about lack of French news. I want to know about every croissant you ate and about every Frenchman who twiddled his moustache and raised his eyebrow at your curly-haired-smiley-face.” So I have decided to tell you a little about my trip to France, just to keep her happy. In this post I shall also discuss my 12 day jaunt to Rome, my change of family and the re-start of school. Settle down, grab some tea and biscuits and may I suggest looking up and playing Johnny Flynn’s new album A Larum for lovely listening.

I flew to Paris on the 28th of July to see a friend of mine who stayed with family friends last year. Jean Frederic [Jf] met me at the bus station after I sat on a freezing bus for an hour from the airport into Paris. One of the downsides of flying with a cheap airline like RyanAir, they never land at the closest airport. On the up side I paid not much at all for tickets. I stumbled off the bus [after waking at 4 am] and we caught the metro then a train to his place so I could work out with way was up and eat some lunch. I was then unleashed on Paris as he had to go to work at midday. I reestablished a habit I’d formed in Berlin; get off metro, walk around without a map or any sense of where you’re going, and see things. It’s fun, and the best way to see a city, in my opinion. The sad thing is you can only do it in large cities, trying to do this in Perth and randomly choosing a train stop with result in either just sheer boredom from only seeing houses or sheer boredom from walking across the whole city in about an hour. Anyway. The first day I went down the back streets that led off the Champs Elysees, along the river and generally walked until I had to sit down or I would fall. Paris is… Beautiful. All wrought iron and tourist pleasing French-ness. I walked until my feet ached, then sat down to a coffee and a croissant, then got up and did it all again. It was wonderful. For the entire duration of my stay I had the ‘I wanna step out down the Champs Elysees ‘ song from Funny Face [Audrey Hepburn] STUCK IN MY HEAD. ONE WHOLE WEEK. It was nice and made me feel excited to start with but after three days…
That night I met one of Jf’s best friends and had dinner in front of Notre Dame. In Europe you tend to stumble upon famous/beautiful things without meaning too. I like that.

The second morning I had to find my own way the whole day, because Jf had to work again. It may not seem note worthy, but he made me the cutest breakfast in the history of breakfasts. Just look at the pictures and you’ll understand…

See?! Every thing was labelled and lovely. He had written ‘milk and juice in the fridge’ then I opened the fridge and he’d labelled the milk and the juice! He’s either lovely or just thinks I’m a little thick…

That day I walked even more, and had planned to see the Eiffel Tower. I saw the queue before I saw the tower. It was loooooong. Ridiculous. I’m one of those people who prefer the non-touristy things, so I looked, took some pictures then left. Yes, it’s nice and big etc, but I wanted to see the real city. This is the reason I spend so much of my time in these cities down back alleys, trying to escape the normal stuff.
That day I met Jf at his work place, La Defense Grande Arche,  and one of his friends. We ate at an italian restaurant [?!] then sat and talked politics, as normal 18 year olds do. Hearing about France and the government, Sarkozy and french political history was cool,  everyone just seems so much more passionate and angry and righteous in Europe. After that I took his friend Morgan shoe shopping [ you must buy shoes in Paris!] but to no avail. My feet are just too huge. That night while making dinner a funny but worrying situation presented itself. The family lost their grandmother. No, she didn’t die, not that kind of ‘lost’, they literally didn’t know where she was… This wouldn’t have been funny at all, just worrying, but Jf had such a deadpan way of explaining things to me that I just had to chuckle. His father walked into the kitchen, spoke to Jf and his [veryvery lovely] sister Raphaelle then Jf just turned to me and said in a totally straight voice ‘We’ve lost our grandmother’. Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, you kind of had to be there… Damn you wordpress, why can’t you let me attach memories to my blog as well as pictures?!

That night Jf took me to Montemartre, the little city on top of the hill. This tiny place was so full of life and light and good icecream and Sacre Coeur and just awesome. We walked around and saw a great street performer, looked at the shinning Eiffel Tower and had fun. It’s a beautiful place, one I want to explore more another time.

Friday the 30th I had a day with Raphaelle, her boyfriend David and his mother. We ate Tibetan, walked in gardens, saw the Senate building and other important buildings like Comedies Frances and the Opera. Raphaelle became very mysterious and said she had a surprise for me as we entered a huge shopping complex. I sighed, expecting to see more beautiful clothes that I wouldn’t be able to resist buying, but it turned out to be much better than that. This building had a roof, which gave a full view of Paris from above and took my breath away.

Pretty, no?

That evening Jf and I graced the halls and pyramids of Le Louvre. Wow, it’s huge. Thanks to his work place and an identity card, we were able to get in FREE. I love knowing such well connected people. I don’t really know what I’d expect of Le Louvre. It’s a huge courtyard, with a three story building in a U shape, and the glass pyramids in the middle. You line up, step into one pyramid, get your bags ex-rayed then descend into the welcome area, full of people and information desks and pamphlets. Then you must choose where to go: Richelieu, Denon or Sully are the options, each area containing different historical periods etc. Jf and I stepped towards Denon, predictably, because it is the section that houses the Mona Lisa. We had some moments of confusion earlier in the day as he said to me ‘you have to see the mona lisa’ but in a heavy french accent, so I didn’t understand which painting he meant. He was then agast when I said I’d never heard of it. Then we worked out that I just didn’t understand, and balance was restored. It’s true, the Mona Lisa is tiny, and you can’t get close and it’s just a painting. Say it with me, it’s just a painting. I saw many other much more beautiful paintings. Jf was amazing, using his years of Latin at school to translate the words written on the frames of the paintings. I saw some very famous paintings, some enormous paintings, marvelled at the general splendour of the building and was overwhelmed. It’s had to take it all in, I could never spend more than maybe three hours there, it’s so hard to absorb it all, there’s just too much. After Le Louvre, we went for a jaunt in the Tuileries Gardens, which were pretty, though it was night time and dark… Even though I have a bit of disdain for the Eiffel Tower, it does look nice at night, all lit up and sparkling every half hour. Paris is beautiful by night also, looking up the Champs Elysees, the various palaces all lit up and a romantic French sparkle in the air.

Saturday was a day full of promise so, after a well earned sleep in, Jf and I set off once again to tackle the many buildings of Le Louvre. Walking down Rue Rivoli Jf suddenly said ‘hold your skirt’ ‘what?’ said I. *whooosh* when my skirt and flashed eeeveryone around. We just had to walk over the grate covering the metro… Further down the rue we came to Angelina’s, one of the places I’d been told I had to go if my life depended on it. I now know why. Macaroons by the thousand! Chocolate! Coffee that costs wayway more than it ever should! Fancy-ness! Lots and lots of monied people. Cake and frills and… nice things. Jf bought himself a little cake and 2 macaroons and I bought some chocolate for my best italian friend whose birthday it was the next week. 5 euro for not even a full sized block of milk chocolate. [She said it was amazing though] We then went and sat in that famous bit where .. hang on… *pulls out Paris map* Place Vendome, where the Ritz is and many other expensive shops are. We sat and ate while wondering who was staying in the Ritz at the moment. There was a small crowd around, but I had no interest what so ever. That evening we paid a visit to one of the Palaces, Concorde, at the end of the Champs Elysees. We dressed up and walked in trying to look like rich kids on holiday. It was amusing. We had a great time, walking around this now-hotel and marvelling at the prices of the cocktails in one of the many bars. It was 22euro for one, which is $29.95 in today’s money. Ridiculous.

Sunday was one of my favourite days of this week. Jf’s parents, incredibly kindly, decided that I should see some more of France and tried to organise a trip to go and see one grandparent out in the country side. These plans fell through, and instead on Sunday morning Jf, Raphaelle and I woke very early to catch a train to a town on the coast called Deauville. I was in heaven, beach is not easily accessible where I live in Italy, so I got to run around and kick sand and get numb feet in the chilly water of the English Channel. Lunch on the beach with two lovely french people, then a walk around a very idyllic french village, a wonderful day. It rained a fair bit, but there’s stuff to see. Deauville, for those of you that don’t know, it right next to the two of Trouville, an equally as pretty town also with beach and attractions. We walked around and around alllll day, ate crepes and drank apple cider. I bought a designer coat/dress with i love [on sale too] and generally had a brill time.

Jf and I had an at home day on Monday. He had just finished working 5 days a week directly after finishing high school with no holidays, and I was generally weary. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit and watch movies with ridiculous frenchmen. You should all try it some time.

Tuesday it was off to Versailles. Ohgosh. I’d heard before that I might not like it, some people think it is too gaudy, but I loved it. It’s so… french! Gold everywhere, totally over the top, priceless art work in every room and a feeling of total self absorption. I could just imagine Louis ‘the sun king’ strutting from room to room. The art was breathtaking, the beds enormous and the gardens… sigh. The gardens.

If only I could have gardens as large. If only my gardens had huge speakers in them, each pumping out gorgeous classical master pieces.

Ok, so I’m totally bored with this post now. I started it on the 9th of September… It’s not the 26th of December. I give up. You may all have this bit to read while I continue writing about my trip with my parents. Things are going grandly for me at the moment. We’re in France, in the house of some friends having the best time. Sadly my laptop kicked the bucket two days ago, so I’m borrowing Alexs, the son of the family. He has been very kind, but I’m not sure how much else I’ll get written in the next few days. Anyway, I get back to Australia on january the 16th, just come visit me and ask some questions.

Take care for now my dears, Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Quick question. And stuff.

Ok people. I need some advice.

I know for a fact not many people read this blog, which is fine for me, I don’t write for the masses, just those people who love me enough to care how I am. I’m having a bit of an editorial crisis at the moment to do with content. Today I sat down, determined to write something for you all that was interesting, but I honestly don’t know what you want to know/hear about. Would you like to hear how I am feeling? More about ME. Or do you want me to describe the places I have been and things I have done, but not get too egotistical and focus on myself. Please, advise me. One friend told me about their blog, where they, while in Italy on the same exchange, wrote about their experiences, the things they saw etc, not so much about them. They did this with the reasoning people would get bored or think this person was ‘up themselves’ for writing solely about themselves. I think that if people got bored a change in writing style may be needed. I believe that the four people who take the time to read this blog, two of them being my parents of course, read it because they want a way to see how I am, yes to hear what I am doing and where I’m going, but also to hear how I feel about it.

What do you think? Feel free to comment on here or email me at l.farrant@hotmail.com with advice if you think it’s too scathing to write in public. Know this, I can take criticism too, I’m not going to run off crying because someone says they think the way I write is terrible. I have more self esteem than this. I will either take the comments on board and do what I can to fix it, or just yell ‘YEAH?! WELL, WHO WRITES THE BLOG? YOU OR ME BUDDY?!’ A solution either way.

Now, some actual information on me.

I am off to Rome tomorrow evening for 12 days. I will be staying with my old italian teacher and her gorgeous daughter and I predict the time to be filled with hilarity, bad roman food, ruins and an absurd mixture of english and italian. It will be fun. When I arrive back in Bergamo at 7:45pm on the 7th of September I will be greeted by my new host family. This is terrifying, mainly because I have actually only met one member of the new family, my host sister. She seems lovely though, so I’m hopefull.Right now I sit in a room dominated by two huge suitcases, ready to be transported to my new home [an apartment close to the center of Bergamo] which is all very exciting. I have been in this house for seven months now. Yes, you heard me, seven months I’ve been in this country. Frightening.

Yesterday was my host mothers birthday, which I remembered half way through the day. I left the comfort of my room to go in search of a suitable gift. Now, I live in a small town with not many shops, mostly corner stores that sell cigarettes and coffee, so I didn’t have a huge amount of options. Over a month ago I began walking every evening around my town as exercise, but also because I felt ashamed not to know more about it. It was then I spied the local flower store, so it was there I headed to see if I could choose nice enough flowers for my lovely ‘mum’. Quite a few euro later I came out with an arm full of colour. Basically I told the woman ‘These roses are nice, can you add things to that? I really have no idea what I want’ So she did. And it turned out ok. I felt pretty good that night when I presented the flowers to her, she seemed delighted and as far as I could tell I was the only one to get her anything. She made a point of saying loudly ‘Oh! I have never been given flowers before!’ whilst looking pointedly at her husband. This lady is genius, truly. Anyway, the point is that so little can give someone so much. She continued to stare at the flowers all night and made my host brother take a picture of them and thanked me continuously. She even tried to give me money back for them. [She actually hid the money on my desk, but I found it and will not accept it. Honestly, don't people accept gifts anymore?! ] All I’m saying is that recently I’ve seen some people be undervalued, and it has got all up in my grill. So tomorrow, or whenever you read this, please do something for someone you think deserves it. A husband or wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, sister, brother, distant cousin twice removed, stranger on the street… Just something to someone so they know they are appreciated, ok? Good.

I currently have Van Morrison’s ‘Sweet Thing’ on repeat and have been listening to Astral Weeks for the last few days. It’s a beautiful album that never fails to make me happy, romantic and giggle out loud as I remember my father, usually while cooking something, attempting to sing/wail/shout along. It never ends well, but it always entertaining. It’s a good album, you should listen to it.

Summer is coming to an end here. After my days in Rome I will have less than a week to sort out my stuff, move into my new room, settle in with my new family and learn more italian before school starts again. I have had the most amazing summer, travelling around in three different countries, meeting people who have changed my life, being super lazy, reading, sleeping, eating then waking up and doing it all again and generally have the best time. I went to Paris by the way, I haven’t written about it and I probably won’t. It was lovely, I saw everything I needed to see and more, stayed with a lovely frenchman and his family, drank 2 euro cocktails in a palace and had that song from ‘Funny Face’ stuck in my head the entire time. It was magic. Now Rome, then school and beyond. I arrive back in Australia on the 16th of January. Be prepared.

Remember, do something for someone else today. In the immortal words of Morrison:

And I shall drive my chariot
down your streets and cry
‘Hey, it’s me, I’m dynamite
and I don’t know why’.
And you shall take me
strongly in your arms again.

Be good.

-e

Berlin

The scene is a back street in Neukolln, Berlin. A five story white apartment building throws off heat waves as the sun beats down. The small front door opens, and a five-foot something girl cautiously steps forward. She looks up and down the street, then places a pair of large, vintage style sunglasses on her nose. She steps onto the side-walk. She listens, she waits. All of a sudden, an echoing roar is heard from all sides. She stiffens, sensing danger, but holds her ground. The roar intensifies, and is punctuated by the noise of fireworks going off. After a minutes or so, it dies down. The left hand of the girl changes, the little finger flicks out from under the thumb that restrained it. 4. She waits, cat-like, poised to run, for longer, occasionally checking her phone to see the time, because no one uses watches anymore.
‘Three, two, one-‘ She says, and immediately, the roar is heard again, but this time, it’s bigger, and soon thereafter, car horns can be heard. This is a dangerous time for people such as she, but to see the creatures making such a noise, one must be strong, and fearless. Her head whips around to view the first lot of specimens as a carload of young German males appears at the end of the street, horns blaring and radio thumping. It drives past swiftly, leaving behind only the smell of sweat, beer and some obscenities still ringing in the girls ears. More cars like this one are driving on the street further down, a larger street that has seen scenes like this one many a-time before. The girl still stands on the sidewalk, but is slowly inching towards to door, lest any of these footballious-germanious decide she is cute enough to bother, or throw one of those ridiculously annoying horns at her. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to give football fans things to make more noise with will be dead, this time next week. The parade of sweaty, alcohol soaked, flag clad, chant singing men, and women, continues for hours, as Germany celebrates a rather obvious win against the English. There is a well-known rivalry between these two, so extra shots of ‘wodka’ are drunk, more 80c beer is bought and more people will wake up seriously hung over tomorrow. ‘Bring on Argentina’, say the usually not at all patriotic Germans, lifting their various beverages high, ‘The World Cup will be ours this year.’

Sadly, that was not the case, as I’m sure you all know. Yes, Germany beat Argentina, but then fell foul to the full force of Spain who went on the, finally, win. I have no idea why I wrote all that, but a movie scene of that variety has been playing in my mind ever since, well, it happened. Yes folks, I went to Germany, Berlin mostly, during the world cup. And, lordy, I can safely say, Germans are mad. The three weeks I spent in Deutschland were, honestly, the best three weeks of my life. So far; I hope that some experiences I have in the future will be either equal to, or better than this.

backpack = 12.5, hand luggage =  5.7  clothes = packed. shoes = packed. passport, ticket, bandaids, suncream, presents, towel = packed. and many other things. phew. i think… i think i’m ready… Welcome to the Great Backpacking Holiday. Elizabeth, this is what the real, unhoteled, stranger filled and money stealing world looks like.

This was a facebook status I posted the day before I left. I was terrified, but also extremely excited, a mixture of emotions I’ve become very familiar this year. For the first time in five months I would be seeing a close Aussie friend. At the time I thought only of seeing said friend, the lovely Annie, and not much of what I’d actually be… doing… So I didn’t research anything, only vaguely remembered that the Reichstag was in Berlin and basically ignored the whole ‘Germany’ bit. It turned out fine, Berlin just tends to throw things at you that you can see.
I’ll begin from the beginning, then tell you about the middle, and then, if I haven’t died of old age and my fingers are intact, I’ll explain the end. A nice, linear progression.

After my ryanair flight was delayed a bit and finding out that Annie thought I was arriving at 12 at night, I got on a plane, flew a bit, and arrived. No passport stamp for me, the EU is basically one country – once you enter one travelling between others is ridiculously easy. Which is good to know, in case I have to run from the law anytime. After walking around a bit at the train station and then just getting on a train to do something, I arrived at the Sonnenalle S-Bahn station, where Annie was waiting, we had a movie style greeting in which I threw my pack to the ground in order to hug her better, and then walked home. I spent the next week exploring Berlin with a cast of characters from all corners of the globe; five aussies, five or six swedes, millions of kiwis, one irish lady and a few germans. On my second afternoon in Berlin, after Annie and I met up with another Australian friend Ben we went with his friends – one aussie, one german and a swede – [good lord this is turning into the worlds longest and worst joke] to a park near the river Spree. While sitting on the grass, playing guitar and relaxing three men wondered over and asked where a good place for them to busk would be. Annie promptly said ‘Right here. Sing us a song?’ So they did, a Russian folk song, in Swedish, because they were from Sweden. Jens, Joakim and Henning turned out to be severely lovely, so we adopted them.

We went to a lake with them the next day, jumped a fence, swam, played chess, lay on the grass for hours, sang, serenaded the people next to us and accidentally sat in the middle of the nudist part. Oops. These guys were amazing, plays songs, doing acrobatics, Jens was even so cool that he has his own magic show! I turned into a complete child as he did card trick after card trick, freaking me out again and again. One morning we all ate breakfast on some grass near a church and a group of school kids came along and began drawing the church. Jens and Joakim started doing some tricks and suddenly one teenytinny girlchild was standing on her head. I…wow. Many laughs were shared with those kids. After one particularly amazing dinner made by Australian friend Maddie and her Swedish boyfriend Mikael we all sat around and made music. It was three days of magic moments. I remember turning to Annie at one point, when we were sitting by the lake listening to Jens sing Bob Dylan songs extremely well, and saying ‘Annie, this isn’t real life, we must be in a movie’ or something to that effect. It’s incredibly hard to describe my experiences in enough detail for you to understand, so many things aren’t write-able. I shall try to show with pictures.

Annie and I also frequented the local [30 minute walk away] turkish markets. The food was fresh and cheap, we were hungry and poor. A beautiful mix. We did tend to get carried away, one time we bought apples, grapes, mangos, carrots, cherries… and other things I believe, but cannot remember. Wild healthy food times, which were then ruined by 2am kebabs.

After a few days of staying with Annie and her friend Hannes I decided to seek other accomadation and talked to a Kiwi couple to see if it would be ok to stay with them. Judith and Sam were happy to have me, so I packed up my pack and took the, now familiar, U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor.

I was worried and nervous because when I first arrived I a) walked for ages because I couldn’t find the house and b) there was no one home when I rang the doorbell. It’s ok though, Sam was just out getting milk. I arrived, dropped my stuff, met their equality as nice friend, then left for the afore mentioned dinner at other Aussie friends house. Aaaaaaand returned at 11am the next day. Oops. This may have had something to do with delicious middle eastern food, good music and general awesome. I bought them a cactus. Because I’m lovely. Because I thought it would suit their decor. Because I didn’t want them to be angry with me… [A cactus?! Why not flowers, or something more NORMAL. Chocolate, a puppy! Mother, I blame you!] All Sam said was ‘Morning! Have a nice night? Have you had breakfast, because there’s some toast if you want some. Thanks for the cactus!’ Sighofrelief. We [by we I mean them] then made Afghans and ginger cake and other things, then took them to a special meeting of the local community garden. It was so cool! Just a big garden, all divided up so people could have a little bit each and plant whatever they wanted. I left early to go home and, predictably, got lost, which is how I spent most of my time in Berlin, no map or anything. When I finally made it home we baked more things, had dinner cooked for us by another kiwi friend Martin, got frocked, then walked 500 meters to a friends apartment for a party. It was a big one. Like, couldn’t actually dance at all, couldn’t really go anywhere, kind of big. So, I sat in a corner of the kitchen and talked all night to an Irish woman and her Kiwi boyfriend, who I would have happily married. The night was a good one, including good music, french champagne and the guy Martin who came up to me no less than four times and apologised for dinner being so salty. [He was drunk, and I had to keep reassuring him that it was fine or he may have begun crying.] I then spent the next few days staying with the Irish lass I met that night. Her name was Nine. Really. Can you imagine the confusion? Especially in Germany! ‘Hi, what’s your name? ‘Nine’ ‘Oh, sorry, I was just asking…’ ‘No! Nine, not nein!’

After our Swedish/markets/nosleep times, Annie headed to Fusion Festival, and I caught the train to see some friends. My first stop – after seven hours – was to see my friend Kyren, a fellow Aussie on exchange in the town of Solingen. I had a great time in the two days with him, catching up on news, trading music, talking about how mad Germans are, going to Düsseldorf for a few hours and meeting his lovely host family. From there I caught the train to Bonn. By this time I had learnt  many things about having a big bulky pack on crowded public transport systems: It sucks. I had a 15 kg pack and a small backpack which I had to stop people from either stepping on or tripping over. Gah! I know now. I was heading to Bonn to stay with a german lass who lived with my family for six months two years ago. Because she was there for so long she, predictably, became part of the family and left a large hole when she left. Meeting Franzi at the train station and seeing her face to face for the first time in years was.. *grabs thesaurus* fantastic, implausible, improbable, incomprehensible, inconceivable, incredible, miraculous, phenomenal, prodigious, remarkable, singular, spectacular, staggering, strange, striking, stunning, stupendous, supernatural, surprising, unbelievable, unimaginable, unlikely, unusual, wonderful, wondrous. Yes, all those things and more. We then spent the next few days talking, laughing, singing and generally acting like we’d never been apart. 

We went for a day trip to Cologne, which turned out to be a brilliant idea. Where ever I went in Germany there seemed to be some sort of festival. When we arrived in Cologne we found a music festival was happening all around the city, which meant every shop we went into had free food and drink and music. It got to the point where we would stroll casually into a shop, browse the clothes then act all surprized when we were offered yet another glass of wine. We also managed to stumble upon a gay festival. I needed was a bathroom and Franzi was totally oblivious to all the rainbow posters everywhere, so it was humorous when I told her why so many members of our same sex were looking at us. From there we travelled back to Bonn and had dinner with a friend and her family where I understood not much of what was said to me, even if it was in english. After a bad nights sleep on the outside terrace I had an amusing morning as I watched Franzi run around the house yelling after she realised her work shift started at 8:30, not 10:30. teehee. The day before she had organised a lift back to Berlin for me, so I didn’t have to pay 111 euros for a train ticket.  The woman driving was nice and had spent years in Sydney, which I’ve visited twice, so we had heaps to talk about.

I travelled back to Berlin to spend the last few days with my Annie and Ben, who then moved onto Amsterdam. I spent my last week in Berlin with a lovely lass called Lily, who I met through staying with her mother. By this time I had lost all dignity and shame, so I basically said to Lily ‘Look, I have few friends in this city and I’m also looking to stay with some other people. Can I go out with you and do you have any friends I can stay with?’ Luckily, the answer was yes to both questions. The last four [which became five after i missed my flight...] days of my stay I camped out on Lily’s friend Max’s couch who, a long with his two housemates, was so lovely. So veryvery lovely. I talked about uni with Max, traded music with Mickey, ate their food, drank their coke, used their hot water and fell asleep under the projection of a bear on the wall. Magic. And they still let me stay again an extra night! They honestly acted like parents ‘Have you got everything? Would you like a drink? Are you sure you’ve eaten?’ Very good people, I hope they come to Perth one day so I can show them off to you all.

Lily showed me a lot of real Berlin, not just the places for tourists. I went to a place called Yaam, the likes of which I haven’t seen anywhere else in the world. Owned and run by people of African descent, Yaam has three bars, clothing shops, food stalls and a beach. I went there for two public viewings of the world cup [in the same day] first the Netherlands and Brazil then Ghana vs. Uruguay. The second game was a heated one, because some of the people at Yaam came from there, or near by. Here’s an exert from the small book I carry around with me everywhere so I can write things down: ‘For an hour or two today I felt a part of something real. The enormous group of people who wanted Ghana to win, purely so the people  Africa could get more recognition than they had ever had before.I screamed, cheered and groaned with them all. When Ghana lost I felt cheated, dejected and sad.’ Lily took it harder, she cried actual tears.

These three saved me and made Berlin so magic.

I made firm friends with her and two of her close friends, Helga [Iceland] and Sam [Berlin]. I have a feeling that by the end of this year I’ll have friends in most european countries, if not most countries in the world. Together Lily, Helga, Sam and I walked, danced and sang along the dark streets of Berlin. One day when I had no energy and no friends around I sat for an hour on the ring train, the one that just goes around the city. It was a nice way to see other parts of Berlin, the french quarter which I didn’t even walk around in, and many other places. It’s weird, for someone coming from Perth, to think that a city could be so big that even after two weeks of being there you haven’t seen it all. I lost a lot of fear of walking around at night, I caught trains at 3am and blessed whoever it was who designed Berlins train system. It was a city that truly never slept, where week long music festivals weren’t unusual, music was everywhere, food was cheap, talk was interesting and entertaining and the people open to accept you, whoever you may be, wherever you came from.

After Berlin, Italy seemed quite boring, after three weeks in Germany I had more friends there than after five months here. I got what my friend called the ‘post-Berlin depression’, and spent a few days on my return doing not much at all. Then I woke up and realised that this country, and my city of Bergamo, still has a lot to offer me, but I won’t find it sitting in my room. So I joined a group here, met new people, went hiking, went to dinner, started walking around my small town every evening, participated in Bergamo’s ‘Notte Bianca’ – a party in the city with music, food and many people -, booked a flight to Paris to see a friend and generally got outside and had fun. I have recently been told I will be changing families for the first time at the end of August. I have mixed emotions about this, as I love my current family so very much, but I’m also ready for a new challenge, a new family, more learning, a host sister my age, and being able to wake up 45 minutes later for school! I must admit I’m quite excited about the last one…

I’ve been slipping, I know, in my blog writing. I am posting very irregularly and it takes me ages to do it. This is why: when I first arrived I was very lonely, didn’t have much to do, and lots of time on my hands. Also, everything seemed new and amazing and exciting, so I thought I had heaps to write about. Now I have things to do [sometimes], I’m less enthusiastic [maybe because it's so HOT] and not everything seems overwhelmingly amazing. I hope this blog makes up for the months you’ve had to wait for it.

I am off to Paris tomorrow morning. I know, woe to me, life is hard… I have a little money, a friend to stay with and young legs to carry me around. Let’s hope this is enough. It is 11:14pm, so I’m for bed. Sorry there’s not time to edit this properly, I’m sure some parts don’t make sense, and the spelling will be aweful, but I don’t have time to make everything pretty. As I was writing this today a whole new section got deleted,  which set me back an hour as I played piano to try and CALM DOWN. But, here is it, finally, finished but not very polished. Enjoy. Stay well all three of you who read. Please feel free to send me emails, your news, maybe some advice about who to vote for in the coming election. And, as Sigor Ros [possibly, if the translation is correct] says:
We’re wading into land
unknown place
Yes,
I felt myself happy there.

ps: ohyeah, i saw the reichstag. cool.

pps: So, i’ve been to Paris, but I don’t have the will to write about it yet. Wait a few days, ok? Thanks.

Paper’s full of stabbings sky’s full of crows.

The other day, while deciding what to write in this next blog, I decide that instead of giving you a detailed account of Florence, I will change where my blog is going. My post on Roma was long enough to cure anyone of the need to read highly detailed travel blogs, so I’m going to return to the things I’m doing in normal life here, and I might even write about how I feel about them. Hope this is ok with everyone, and don’t really care if it’s not.

One picture of Pisa. My and my lovely friend Anna, I was so confused by the whole ‘pretend you’re pushing it over!’ picture, I decided to make a ‘what the heck is this touristy fad?!’ picture. Enjoy.

So, here we go. This next bit is actually taken directly from an email I sent the lovely lady who organises my guest appearances on ABC 720. We were organising the next one, and I thought I’d fill her in on what has been going on. Then thought ‘Hey! I’ve just done a lot of work on my blog! Score!’ I may add a few things in, let’s just see how I feel:
‘I’m very settled in and am a part of this family now.  My host parents are amazing people who, even though I spend way too much time on the computer, eat all the chocolate and salami [mmm.. so tasty] and sometimes miss school because I sleep through my alarm [this did happen. Ooops....], still encourage me all the time, ask about my Italian, help me learn and have helped me organise my trip to Germany, and are very willing to let me go. [A little too willing I think.. No, I jest]

They have also been great about finding a new host family. I got REALLY scared last week, because I emailed my counsellor here -each student has one person in their Rotary club whose job it is to look after us a bit, answer our questions and help deal with our problems- and asked that I have at least one other host family here. I didn’t actually tell my current family that I’d written this email, because I was scared I’d offend them even though I adore living here. [it's also hard to explain myself in another language eloquently enough to avoid making them a) confused or b) annoyed] My counsellor then directly emailed my host mother, without answering me, and said that I wanted a new family but that at the moment this wasn’t possible because they can’t find anyone else. I FREAKED OUT because I hadn’t yet spoken to them, and was worried blahblah. I cautiously brought it up the other day with my host father, saying that I’d emailed my counsellor, but that I loved living with them etc etc. He was really cool about it, agrees totally that I should have at least one other family so I can see how other Italians live etc. Phew!

I’m still going to school, which is fine, normal, boring. We start holidays very soon, the 12th of june. We are all very excited about it. [There's a chart on the wall and each day we cross off one day closer to the end. The highlight of my day, watching my friend make that cross.] Summer holidays here are 3 months long. Goodness. Apparently everyone goes to the sea and just lies in the sun. I need to tan more… I was finally asked the question that I’d been expecting since the beginning ‘why are you so white?’ Try translating “Because my mother is English, and the sun hates me…” into italian… haha.

People here are being nice, though I still miss my friends at home. Over the last week[more than a week now, as always it has taken me a while to write these blogs]  there has been a huge shift in my brain, and going back to Australia no longer holds so much appeal. Australia means uni, work and, well, the real world. I’ve also recently been really anxious about coming home and finding all my friends have changed heaps and all hate me, or that I’ve changed too much that they hate me. I was told the other day that every day I’m here I mature 4 days. That’s a lot of maturity! As I have friends from America who are going home next week, we have been discussing their going home fears a lot, and so I’m prematurely scared… not pleasant, but I guess I’ll worry about that when it comes around. Right now I’ll just focus on learning this language and making friends for life.

The Alpini, the branch of the military that guard the Alps, had their annual get together a few weeks ago, and this year it was in my city, Bergamo. Once a year they converge, the young and the old, on one city to drink, dance and party. My friends and I went into the center on Friday of their stay, when not all of them had arrived. My good lord. I have never seen so many people at one time. These guys were drinking, singing, grabbing-good naturedly – at attractive passers by. We made the huge mistake of walking down a back street to escape the crowds. Because there were so many of them, they all had to camp where ever they could. A group had parked their van on the side of this road, and were very determined that we should come drink with them. My friend Julia, who’s tall, thin and blonde, had to dodge and escape from one of them, while myself and a friend were taken by the arm and a [i'd say 65 year old] man tried to pull us towards their table to celebrate with them. You must understand, these guys mean no harm, their jokes are just that and they would never seriously physically force someone to drink with them, they’re just out to have fun and would rather do it in the company of young attractive women… We were cat called, complimented and remarked upon all day, more frequently as morning turned into afternoon and more alcohol was consumed… To get to the train station and from there to home, I had to walk, alone, down the long main road of my city. I put on my fiercest face and strode along, not allowing myself to be detained by anyone. It’s things like this that enable me to grow, to know how to deal with all types of people, to look after myself in all situations. After this trip, getting into Midland station at 12am will not bother me, though it may still scare both mum and dad… :p

A nice Alpino man, who put his hat on my head and spoke with an insanly strong accent. Right before this I ate red wine gelato, there was also polenta and grappa, Alpini flavours. Amazing.

Here is one quote, out of the many, I wrote down about that weekend. It was said by my English teacher the Monday after, to one of the girls in my class:
‘Half million people in town, and you make friends with the guy running around half-naked with a monkey around his neck?!’  Needless to say, everyone had some stories.

I’m now going to lie outside on our hammock in the sun. Summer is here at last, and people everywhere are smiling and stripping off their winter layers. It’s nice to see so many people happy. Sitting at a bus stop after my Italian class yesterday I watched a man walking with his arms spread wide, just enjoying the breeze. I knew exactly how he felt.’

Seriously, the Alpini were amazing, sleeping everywhere and anywhere, harassing everyone, drinking and eating everything… How to tell an Alpino from a normal italian: He will be wearing a hat with a feather in it, holding some sort of beverage and yelling at you, in a suggestive way.

Now to more recent news. I went to the French island of Corsica a few weeks ago for four days. Genius, going to a french island four days before my italian exam, trying to remember my extremely limited french. I’m in idiot, I know, but it was so incredibly worth it. Corsica, at least Isle Rossa where I stayed, is the perfect relaxed seaside town, with beautiful beaches and fun places, with food from Italy and France and a confusing mix of Italian and French architecture.

Corsica was italian for years, and some of the older people still speak it, but not official italiano, but a Tuscan dialect. Just as I get a hold on one language, I’m thrown right back into the turmoil of not knowing anything. The buying of a pair of [very lovely] pants included enormous gestures and general French noises. The weirdest thing was that, even though people are more likely to speak english, especially in touristy places like this one, when I wanted something or didn’t understand I’d instantly speak italian. I’d say ‘ho voglio’ or ‘non ho capito’ instead of ‘I want’ and ‘I don’t understand’. I think my brain decided that italian and french are both weird foreign languages and they are all the same, right? I had one brilliant conversation which began with ‘Sa va?’ ‘Oui, sa va bien, merci, e toi?’ had ‘ so, do you live in Corsica?’ in the middle and ended with ‘ma, è Corsica come Venezia?’ It was nice that even though they see thousands of tourists everyday, these two waiters remembered me the next time I got a coffee at their bar. Corsica has many wonders, not just lovely french waiters, though they are a tourist attraction. The beaches are lovely, though the sand isn’t quite as white, or as squeaky, as South Beach.

I had one unsettling moment when I was followed for a few minutes by a man who, it turned out, thought I was a friend of his. I was alone, it was past midnight, and I was walking towards the beach, away from people, so got a bit scared. But all’s ok. I just spoke italian ath im and he was all ‘oh, sorry…’ I’ve got into this really great habit where I make funny faces, just to deter people who may think I’m attractive. You should try it sometime, it’s awfully fun walking down the street, and watching peoples confused, instead of suggestive, faces as I puff air in and out of my cheeks, while bopping along to some noise issuing from my headphones. [ Other strange new habits include shouting 'aiuto!' [help!] when I do something stupid, flailing my arms in an italian fashion and saying ‘ma, dai’ pronounced ‘die’, which basically equates to ‘oh, come on’] It was weird how strongly some parts of Corsica reminded me of W.A. The smell mostly. I think that some coastal plants were the same, as sometimes I could close my eyes and breathe in and be in freo again. Then I’d open my eyes, remember I was in FRANCE and mentally tell freo to shove it. All in all, Corsica was amazing, I loved it and will defiantly have to go back some day.

I also went to the Alps with my Rotary district for a night. We stayed in this little ‘rifugio’ where hikers stay. We each had one blanket, exceptionally squeaky beds and about 4 million bugs. It was a lot of fun though. I managed to fulfil one life goal and went hiking in a floral skirt that used to be my grandmothers… We spent the afternoon discussing our experiences [as almost everyone is returning home soon] and the evening watching the Champions game [GO INTER!] and sitting around the campfire and singing songs. I must say, we did an epic version of Bohemian Rhapsody. That night showed me once and for all that music is really able to link everyone. I managed to completely make an arse of myself while doing all the guitar solos vocally…. Too much fun. There is video footage of it somewhere. The next day as we strolled around the huge mounds of earth that are named the Alps, we, after so many months of coldcold winter and a weirdly rain-y spring, were assaulted by so much GREEN.

Getting blown away, green, green and me.

It was very pretty. Though we had to walk a LOT, and one hill was extremely vertical. Extremely. And we all got a but frumpy as we were tired and hot.

In case you’ve forgotten, I am appearing on ABC 720 radio every six or so weeks. By appearing I mean I talk at Gillian O’Shaughnessy for a while, and she has to listen. Doing radio is fun, even though I get so scared about a week leading up to every interview, and am practically paralysed with fear waiting for the phone to ring, then it takes all my will power to press the talk button. I’m really not sure how the interviews sound, I get positive feedback from people like my parents and Gillian and Rosie [the lovely lady who organised the interviews], but they all have to say nice things. Usually what happens is Gillian will ask my a perfectly acceptable question like ‘How are things different in your house now after four months of living there?’. Then I will ramble on about how great my host parents are because they buy me whatever tea bags I want, and now I know where the forks are. But I hope I get my point across, and they are ever so good at editing me so I sound like I make sense. I should always do that, pre-record what I’m going to say, then play it to people.

I now want to say something about my return, just so you are all prepared. I don’t want to come home. Right now because I still have eight months to go, but I know from talking to other students that the feeling of not wanting to go home just increases. It’s not that I don’t love you guys, I do, kinda, but everything is awesome here. Of course, everything here is also super hard, everything is strange and terrifying… But when I return to Australia, I won’t be able to buy amazing pastries for the small change I have in my pocket, I won’t be able to fly to Germany for three weeks for 66 euro [$95.50] and I won’t have conversations with my host mum that go ‘So, when you return from Germany, I think you should go to Paris, just for a few days, it’s a nice city. ‘ ‘umm..ok!’ See?! As much as I cried and whinged at the beginning, things are now much easier as I have a handle on the language, and have insane friends that do things like sit in class and imitate the Jokers laugh… They are all mad here, I swear. I still miss you guys, but as I’m only human, my brain can take only so much sadness and missing, til it gets distracted by, I don’t know, a birdy on a twig, and gets happy again.

To finish this blog, I’d like to show you two pictures I took in Corsica. The first is a dog I saw, which I swear is my cousin Jills old dog, Rupert. Look! It really is him! The second is a dog related, but is, in fact, a cow. But! One with stripes like my lovely dog Dolly [aka, the Lamb] has! She has come back as a cow! Be joyful family. The Lamb’s just chillin’ at the beach, instead of that specific cupboard that you really need  to get into.

This has been ridiculous,

-Elizabeth.

Ps: I was invited to a Rotaract do on Tuesday, the day I leave for Germany, so have to say thanks but sorry can’t. Was worried my counsellor would get annoyed, but got an email back that just said ‘ok, have a good trip, don’t drink too much beer’   Oh, and I’m going to Germany for three weeks. HELLYEAH. ahem.

Roma, now with added pictures.

The beginning of my latest diary entry goes like this:

‘Roma.  Rome. Wow. Very wow.’

I say my ‘latest’ diary entry because,well, I’m still writing it. My diary entry about Roma currently stands at nine pages; I am only halfway through Saturday and have just finished my second A4 school-notes style book diary thing. At least I’ve had something to do during school though.

On the 15th of April I woke at 5:15 in order to be at my local airport at 6:30 with more than ten other tired but excited exchange students and a few Rotarians. We arrived, stood around for a while and had a slight moment of panic as one of my close friends was woken by another friend ringing her asking why she wasn’t at the bus stop… But all was well in the end. Tickets and passports checked, bags weighed and the wearing of big heavy boots cursed, we were ready to walk across the tarmac and board our plane. So we did. A very short flight later we arrived in the city we’d all studied, dreamed of and generally accepted as unvisitable. It was very surreal, riding on a bus through the leafy streets of Roma, singing the songs of our childhood [such as 'Stacey's Mom' and manymany Disney songs] and realising that we were actually THERE. Weird.

Usually in my blogs I talk not only about what I’ve done, but also how I felt about it. It may sound strange, but in this case it’s very hard to do the latter. We saw so much in the space of 3.5 days that, to be honest, it was difficult to fully feel anything. This may be hard to understand, but once you read how much we packed into each day, resting only at night and even then not really, you may understand a little more

Day One: After arriving and throwing our belongings in our hotel, we took the Metro into the center of Roma, or more accurately, to the Spanish Steps. I was one of the few who hadn’t heard of these famed steps before, so I assume most of you know what I’m talking about. I shall explain for those who don’t. The Spanish Steps are.. just that. A large set of stairs in the middle of Roma in the Spanish style. Quite pretty, with plants and flowers and what-not on them.

Moving on. After a swift lunch of… yes, pizza, we were set loose for 3 hours on the city. I really think Rotary is mad, allowing us to do what we will in a strange city, with naught but a map and credits cards. So, my friends and I scurried away down the most expensive street in Roma, full of Gucci, Prada etcetc. Honestly, seeing all these shops again and again is getting boring… We wondered, turned right and ended up in the piazza with the two identical churches. A fountain in the middle of the piazza had large lions as part of its design, so of course we had to get millions of pictures sitting on them, waving the Australian flag off them [ which one of the other Aussies had conveniently brought along] and generally made the surrounding Italians step away quietly, shake their heads and proclaim softly ‘tourists!’ From there we ventured up some steps and into a very different part of Roma. Who knew that there is a giant park, right smack in the middle of this amazing city?! I certainly didn’t, but I certainly do now. We had fun running around, making the otherother Aussie Ben imitate the most hilarious looking busts of men that were liberally sprinkled around the park. Ohdear. I think the statues are meant to be there to remind people of those who have bettered our society. Well, we got a good laugh out of them, so I get they did better us… [ There was one with a neck ruff. I wish they were still worn...] After laughing, falling over, exclaiming over already painful feet and taking pictures of a giant carved buttocks, we headed back to the Spanish Steps. Here we met up with the other half of the exchange students who flew from another airport later that morning. I noticed, as I have a fresh perspective being newly arrived, that the exchange students have all picked up the Italians way of greeting, cheek kissing. There was a lot of it that weekend. From the steps we walked in the direction fo the Vatican, though none of us knew where we were headed. We arrived in the huge square outside St Peters, flailed around taking pictures, marvelling at being there and discovering the clever architecture. [There are places you can stand in the piazza where you can only see one of the columns supporting the roof over the walkway, when in fact there are three.] From there we went inside the cathedral, saw Michelangelo’s ‘The Pity’, marveled some more, stared a lot and then left, all feeling a little overwhelmed. But it didn’t stop there, ohno, though at the time my feet wished it had. We went in another entrance, walked for a bit, then entered the building again and began to climb. So. Many. Stairs. What we hadn’t realised was that we were climbing to the top. The very top. After 523 steps [ I had to do something to stop myself falling over!] I reached the top of St Peters cathedral, in the Vatican, Roma, Italy. Holymolly. [Really, holy] We could see e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. I should mention at this point that my camera battery had decided to die half and hour earlier. I know, I nearly cried. The others took enough pictures though. Woo. So. I could see aaaaaaaaaaaaall fo Roma. Wickedsick. One down side. We then had to climb back down. And at this point, after walking without stopping much at all for four hours, this was more of a problem than it usually would have been. Also, the last bit of the stairs before reaching the top is very small with walls slanting in and I was a little freaked out with all the small spaces, but I made it. If you’re wondering, it was another 514 steps down. [different because the first bit going down was different to going up]

After returning to the hotel to bathe our aching feet, we had a lovely dinner of pasta and ‘mystery meat’, the kind where you’re not should what part of what animal you’re eating… Mmmm! Yeah, and that’s only day one.

Day Two: Had breakfast, featuring bland muesli and TERRIBLE cappuccinos, then set off for a day which promised to be as filled with walking as the one before, if not more so. Took our bus to the.. ohgosh, what’s the name of that place again? You know, the one that’s old, tall and people used to die in? Ohyeah! the Colosseum. As I said, ti’s strange being in a place that for all of your life has only ever been read of books, heard of in stories and seen in other peoples holiday pictures. We had a guide that day, a lovely woman who was very nice, funny and conducted the whole thing in italian… A bit of a problem for me. From the Colosseum [we didn't actually go inside, I hope to do that this summer when I return for Roma for a longer time] we walked past an old ruined church-y thing, past the maps the Mussolini had made of the Roman empire, depicting its beginning, its spread, its peak and as it was in his day. The last one has been removed, as [from hat I understood] he had included some parts of Africa as Italian or something.. and basically no one here likes him, so they remove things he made just for fun. We passed more ruins [ you can't go anywhere in that city without stumbling on ruins! Honestly!]  then walked down into some other huge ones. Here was where the old center used to be, with enormous parliament buildings, a huge decorated Roman arch and, among many other things, where Caesars tomb used to be. It’s not there anymore, no one knows what happened to it…

The guide talked, we -pretended to or really did- listen and then we moved on. Into a square that had huge sculptures in it, I’d like to note they all had strangely flat backsides, as well as a small one depicting Remus and Romulus suckling from the wolf. There is so much history to Roma I could explode. [nearly just wrote 'hosiery', that too] walked more, got coffee in a museum – didn’t see the museum, just got coffee- which had a ridiculously annoying bird warner-off-er-er outside on the ..outside bit. Every two minutes this machine would issue a series of horrific sounding ‘bird noises’ some realer than others. At one point I looked up to glare darkly at the speaker that was ruining the beautiful view and noticed that there was a bird sitting not 4 feet away from it. So it was annoying and useless. Excellent.

We then took our trusty tour bus to some catacombs just outside Roma. We walked past them, down a long driveway, revelling in the sunlight.  Kept walking for a while [there was ridiculous amounts of walking this trip] We crossed a road with no zebra crossing, nearly dying in the attempt. Got to the place we were heading, found it closed, kept walking and found a large old building that held urns and other things. There we saw carved stone, huge old urns and tracks in the ground underneath the building from the sleigh things that brought up the stone from the underground mine. Fascinating… Walked back to the catacombs and took a tour through -some- of them. We found out that these catacombs are over 20 kilometers long, with three levels containing around half a million bodies, graves, whatever. It was cold and dark and extreeeeeeeeeemely creepy walking in narrow corridors that were lined with covered and uncovered shelves where bodies used to be. I should explain that instead of being layed to rest in the ground, these people were put in individual shelf like spaces in the walls. We were reassured that no actual bones were left, at least in the open graves, as they had decomposed totally. That was helped when grave robbers came through and smashed the covers that.. covered the graves/shelves/bodies in order to try and find money and whatnot. After our tour, we were set loose in Roma, again. Ice cream was bought, shops were perused and clothes were lusted after.

Day Three: On this day we had a different guide, a man who was very funny and talked basically non-stop. We walked along the street that was featured in La Dolce Vita, and it is famous for basically that. On that streets, as well as famous cafes and hotels, there is a crypt. [We saw a lot of burial places.] Though ‘burial’ for this crypt would not be correct. No, in this crypt the remains of some 4 000 friars have been artfully arranged. It seriously looks like the decorations in a church, but MUCH creeper. If I had felt uncomfortable in the catacombs, this day was going to test my tolerance for dead people to the max. Here’s a picture, just so you can understand what I’m talking about and I can stop this blog turning into a novel…

Creepy hey?It was rather interesting, seeing how in each room a different bone was featured, in one room it was vertebrae in another pelvis’ and in another, most strangely, it was jaws.

From there we walked again and I saw things like a taxi driver reading in slow traffic and a man and his dog become extrEMELY excited upon seeing each other. Cute.

Now, the Dancing Dome. A feat of artistry that everyone should see. I don’t actually recall the name of the church, but the ceiling was much too distracting. It was painted in such a way that it changed as you walked from one end of the church to the other. Veeeeeeeeeeeery beautiful! here’s a taste…

Isn’t is pretty?! Ok, now I am going to start being short and less…faffy. Next stop was the famous Trevi Fountain. I have never seen water look so good, except at South Beach. We all threw in euro cent coins to seal our wish, to return to Roma some day, the only wish you can make at the Trevi fountain. Then lunch, then the Pantheon. By this time we were already tired -we had gone out the night before as well and were super tired from that- and I found it had to be even more overawed than I already was, but I took in as much as I could of the architectural wonder, built to honour all the Gods.  It’s very nice. Again, after viewing a strange street performer, we were let loose. I followed my stomachs wish and, with my good friend Anna, ate more gelato. A few hours later we all found that Rotary, after telling us they would meet us by a fountain, had already left. How looooooverly of them. We had a ‘quiet’ night in to hotel, which meant that my room had seven extra people in it while we played a game made up by my Aussie mate Ben called ‘The Rule Game’. By the end of the night one friend could only speak in italian, another had to have an accent from somewhere in the UK, I had the nickname The Sirloin Queen and could only speak in third person, my friend Jay, male, was wearing girls pink pj shorts and a girls shirt and another boy Ryan looked like a male escort in a tightight singlet. Needless to say it was a hilarious evening. We then proceeded to act like real teenagers and freak out the exchange students next door to us. This ended in most of us being unable to breathe. Tee-hee, tee-hee.

Day Four: On our final day we again had the great butalittlemad man showing us around. We were told very early in the day that we were going to see a local and very famous peep show. R.i.g.h.t. There’s not much about this day that was amazing, we just walked a lot, went to a square, sat down then left again, took a stroll by the river… We then visited an old track where chariot races used to happen, sat there for a bit, then went to see the peep show. As we walked into the square where it was, there were three fully uniformed and armed army officers. I think we all freaked out a bit..but it turns out they were only there protecting… as far as I can find out from other students, a door that was there. The door, as it turned out, that held the key hole which we all took turns looking through. This was our peep show:

You can’t see it well, but perfectly framed at the end of this beautiful path was the dome of St.Peters. Oh, here’s a better picture, taken by a professional.

ANd so, I come to the end of my tale. All that happened after this was more walking, lunch and then a seven hour bus ride back to Bergamo because a volcano decided to stop us flying home… On the bus trip I had a very interesting a long conversation about religion with American and Turkish friends of mine, sang ‘Leave Nobody but the Babe’ with the American -from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?-, ate food, threw things and generally had a good time. Tired, excited and overwhelmed I arrived back to the ‘real world’ to face yet another week at school, with 6:15 wake ups, mis-communications [mostly funny ones] and five hours per day in which to write letters, cards and learn italian. Goodness.

Since Roma life has been good. I have started meeting up with an italian girl every week and we take turns speaking italian and english to better our language skills. It’s very great. It is raining a lot at the moment, and we are about to have half a million Alpini arrive in Bergamo. The Alpini are the ‘mountain warfare soldiers of the Italian Army’. Once a year they descend from their lofty heights to eat, drink and party dry a chosen city. And this year it’s Bergamo. They sleep anywhere, in trees with hammocks, on the grass in tents, some are even camping in my school gym, anywhere but hotels. The city center will be blocked off for parades, Bergamo is completely decked out in the Italian flag, it’s EVERYWHERE. Seriously. I’ve never seen so much green, white and red in my life. Apparently they roll into town with cars that have kegs of wine on them, then stand there drinking out of it with a long straw… A friend told me a local restaurant spent four HOURS unloading alcohol for gli Alpini. Goodlordy. And I won’t be here! On Saturday morning I’m off to Florence for the weekend. From the sounds of things the Alpini wreak a lot of havoc, so maybe it’s not a bad thing. People are stocking up on food and drink, because after Friday when they all arrive there won’t be much left. I’m not sure if I’ll eat on Monday. THIS is the sort of thing Rudd should have organised to stimulate the economy.

Well, it’s late, and this blog is wayway too long already. Other things have happened, but nothing so important I need to tell you all. So, I shall bid you all a good evening/morning/day/week. And remember, as the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club says; There ain’t no easy way, no there ain’t no easy way out.

The one that got away.

This is a long one, written over a few days. I suggest you settle down if you plan to read the whole thing. Maybe get some tea, a biscuit and celebrate your next birthday, just incase it goes by while you’re reading. The first bit you don’t have to read, it’s not about what I’ve been doing recently.

…

As I opened my new ‘Accounting for Dummies’ book for the first time in chemistry today I realised something: I was excited. I’m not sure if it was because of the new book smell, fresh from the box in Brian and Pats shop, or the fact that my brain was still in amazed turmoil over The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – finished in 1.2 days, thanks for recommending parents -, or because I, well, have missed learning.

Ok, so learning how to fit into a new culture,a new family and a new way of life isnt exactly easy. Oh,  then there’s the new language… But I hope you can understand when I say these are different types of learning. I’ve missed old school textbook learning, something which, because I’m not really ‘doing’ school has become scarce in ym life this year. This means that when I am obliged to do some textbook learning I take to it gleefully. This leads to things like the meticulous notes I took on Loves Labour’s Lost because we were going to see it in the theater and the pages of information that I printed and highlighted about Descartes [Cartesio here] when the Filosofia teacher asked me to look him up. The sad truth is that I am fairly lazy, so unless I have to do this kinda of reasearch I rarely take the initiative and learn just for the fun of it. This is shown in my half finished notes on Loves Labour’s Lost and my information on Descartes eventually being forgotten.          I digress.               Another reason why I may be so excited about receiving this 372 page instruction manual is because it’s my first step towards university. I start a commerce degree next year, majoring in Human resource management. My core units include business, business law and, of course, accounting. Sounds horrific and I chose it! Even though my course sounds like it was written by Satan himself, I am looking forward to university in a way that only a young person who hasn’t quite grasped how hard it’s going to be can look forward to entering an institution that will do its damndest to make me poor, rob my of sleep, fun and food. I’m still excited.

All this looking forward that I’ve been doing recently – I think about arriving home so often it’s unnatural that I’ve had to make myself think about the past. As the anniversary of my grandfather’s death looms, as well as my birthday, I’ve started thinking about me this time last year. No doubt at this very moment I was staring into space daydreaming about being rid of high school forever and running riot in the Italian hills. Ha. If only I’d had a crystal ball handy at that moment maybe I would have been content to think about the present and enjoy being in Helena Colleges warm and loving embrace. I send my sympathies to one and all at Helena, I understand it has been an awful week.

To be honest I’m not quite sure why I’m mentioning all this, usually I just fill you in on the goings on of my life. I think the reason is that I’ve recently come to the conclusion that – huge cliché – there really is no time like the present. Many exchange students spend their first few months not really in the country the have moved to. I am no exception. My friends and I have discussed how we think [them less than me as they've been here for seven months] about getting home and wonder what our parents/family/friends are doing. As I settling in I think less, though still very frequently, of home as my mind is taken over by thinking about my weekend, the things I want to buy and how if I don’t learn to conjugate that verb, or learn what that word is soon I’ll go mad and speak no language. This morning I sat on the bus staring out of the window, sun on my face and Kings of Leon in my ears I realised that presently, in Italy, surrounded by people I don’t know and a language I don’t understand, I was happy. It may sound a bit depressing, that I was surprised about being content, but you must understand that recently I’ve been the most happy while imagining arriving home. Falling out of that daydream and into reality a few times a day becomes tiring and sometimes upsetting. I’m slowly starting to accept that I won’t go to Freo this year, or sit on the verandah ir eat a delicious curry cooked by one fo my parents. Instead I will meet new people, master a new language, visit Rome, Florence and *hopefully* Germany and France, spend some of my summer under the Roman and Sardinian sun, dance, sing and of course, eat. My future in this country looks pretty freaking grand, so I will learn to think, and worry, less about what is waiting for me at home.

Now. That’s the thoughts part over. Onto what I’ve been doing lately. Last weekend I went to Cremona with Rotary. I saw very old violins, violas and a cello made by Stradivari and other makers. The instruments were beautiful, the oldest was made by Andrea Amati in 1566. Wow. We then went to a modern violin shop and the maker talked to us for ages. I understood not much. Then dinner, a very pleasant affair which gave all us students to catch up with each other as we all live in different cities and don’t often get time to visit.

Sunday was the day of my weekend which I enjoyed the most. After an early start of seven am [this is sunday, usually I'm in bed til at least nine] my host father and I set off for a three-hour drive to the sea. We were headed to a town called Albenga. I wasn’t quite sure what the day wold hold for me, Duilio had a meeting [ on a Sunday?!] so I was basically free to roam around for hours and hours. When we arrived we walked to the sea, then Duilio left me in a cafe. As we were walking along cobbles streets towards il mare I saw there was a market down one long street. So when I finished my tea I eagerly walked back and began prowling. Well. It was a vintage market. But in the sense that it held old things, not stylish clothes, which is what many people think of when they think vintage. There were old sythes, lamps, jewellery, hats [so many hats!] badges, bags and many many other things. There were stalls dedicated to the hobby of coin collecting, postcard collecting and stamp collecting. I saw sunglasses, old toys, old photos, wall lamps, pepper grinders, keys by the million, cameras and antique things by the piles. Needless to say, I was in heaven. I was in the market for around three hours. I tried to talk to one of the stall holders in italian, but she switched to english instead. I swear the call of ‘Tourist! Tourist! tourist…’ rang out when I first pulled out my camera to photograph something. I ended up buying a ship brooch, three pairs of earings and a pair of sunnies. There was an old leather travelling case, crystal bottles, bone combs and all, that I was sososo very close to buying. But I held back, getting it back to Australia would have been difficult. I can’t express how great the market was, so I will put up some pictures, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now. The day was made even more awesome when I was picked up and taken to the house where Duilios meeting was being held. I arrived and was taken to the kitchen for lunch. Oh. Good. Lord. There was a long table laden with bowls and plates and dishes and all other types of receptacles. I was given a plate, a  glass and a folk and left alone. The food was incredible, the best I’ve eaten here. All the dishes, bar one, were made in that very kitchen and most were local recipes. There I was, alone at a 2.5 meter table with no one there to see how much I ate. Let’s just say that eating dinner was difficult. There was one thing in particular that was mouth-watering. An onion cut in half and each layer used as a kind of cup which held something that contained rosemary, garlic, bread, polenta and other things. I plan on getting the recipe. I don’t care how I get it, I bribe people, kill people. There was also spinach and blue vein cheese in a kind of pastry thing and fried, rice with a whole mix of things in it including three types of meat and pineapple and fennel salad, among much more. The salad sounds weird, but it was delicious. You have no idea how great it was. Sigh. I never thought food could be this unforgettable.

We then drove to where friends of the family were staying in other town by the sea. Duilio wanted to look at a house before it got dark, but by the time we arrived it wasn’t the dark we had to worry about. Fog of such amazing proportions rose up, making driving very dangerous and slow going. When we, along with two of his friends, finally arrived at the house we a) we freezing and wet with the rain from walking for about five minutes, b) unable to get in because no one was there, not even through the gate to look at the land and c) couldn’t see the sea below because of the fog. It was a weird night, wondering around rocks above the sea without being able to see out to sea past two meters.  It was like being in another world, a dream world that was cold, wet and… dreamlike.

On Monday I went on a tour of the town where I have my italian lessons, Città Alta. It is a very old town, established before the birth of Christ. That’s pretty old. The guide told us how it was over run again and again by almost every country and group of people in Europe. We were told how the Cathedral is not currently open because when they took up the floor to put in heating, they found another church beneath. Then another one. The lowest one holds graves of knights and apparently has frescos that are still brightly coloured. I’m glad to hear it. So they stopped putting int he heating and instead have been restoring the churches and the whole thing will again be opened next year. I must come back. We were told the story of the Basilica, how it was build by the people with their money after a plague, because they prayed to Mary to save them and apparently she didn’t let all of them die, so they build her a Basilica. Well. I was impressed. Seriously. The inside is richly decorated, the walls are covered in tapestries, the roof painted amazingly, there are panels of wood around the altar that are pictures, but are made from millions of pieces of wood being put together like a puzzle. Beautiful. There is a possibility that I hadn’t taken my camera that day… so no pictures. But rest assured that I will go back, and then you will all be astounded by the beauty of this place. There are many more things that we saw, including the doors of death in the houses, but I think that this has gone on long enough. If you wish to know more ask me when I get back.

Well my friends, I so apologise for such a long post but, tough bikkies, as everyone I know used to say. Deal with it. I hope it is entertaining enough to keep your attention for at least half of it. If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumber’d here… I don’t doubt that, I’m sure you’ve all had a little nap while reading. Well, I must away, the called of  ‘pronto’ has echoed up the stairs. Dinner’s ready. Take care all of you, have fun fixing all your smashed windows… [I did  laugh at Perth, I'll admit it.] Buona sera.