Christmas in Italy (Continued)

Christmas in Italy was definitely an interesting experience. We had Christmas dinner with my host family on Christmas Eve and they told me that it's traditional to wait until midnight on Christmas Eve and then you can open presents (traditional or not, I went along with it, who wants to wait to open gifts?). I got some wonderful gifts including Fruit Loops and Raisin Bran, so I was a happy kid. On Christmas Day, we went to an evening mass and walked around the church looking at all the different nativity sets. Italy is much more about the religious side of the holiday, as opposed to the commercial side. I have several photos from the holiday. Some are of our nativity, some are from the beach, one is all of my Christmas gifts, and the puppy was bought by my host mother's brother while he was here and he named the puppy Casey. Casey will be trained to be a rescue dog. Happy New Year's everyone!

Christmas in Italy

Unlike Halloween or Thanksgiving, Christmas is just as popular here as it is in the United States. The traditions are the same and Cagliari is lit up with Christmas lights. Santa is called 'Babbo Natale', or Father Christmas. They do decorate trees but the trees are nearly always plastic because pine trees don't grow in Sardinia. We exchange gifts on Christmas and go to Christmas morning mass. Italians do Christmas shopping just like Americans, pushing and shoving in stores to buy gifts for their families. This is a hard time of the year for me, as I have to be away from my family for Christmas and New Year's, but at least the traditions are the same. I feel a little more at home this way.

Casu Marzu

After hearing about a Sardinian cheese called Casu Marzu from my Spanish teacher, I decided to ask around and read up on it. I think it's definitely worth a post, as it's very interesting. Casu Marzu literally means "rotten cheese" in Sardinian, a language that is similar to Spanish but now almost non-existent in Sardinia, which is good, because I already have one language to learn. Anyway, the cheese is now illegal and can only be purchased on the black market due to various health risks involved with decomposing cheese. Essentially, the cheese, which comes from sheep milk, is eaten after its decomposition point. Inside, the cheese is crawling with live insect larvae, which makes the cheese taste better, or so I've heard. The cheese becomes very soft, almost like a liquid. Right away, I thought this sounded disgusting so I asked my English teacher here if she had ever tried it. She said that she had and that it was actually extremely tasty. Some people remove the worms before eating the cheese while others like the taste better with the larvae still intact. My English teacher told me that she takes out the worms.

Lunch

Lunch, or "pranzo" in Italian, is one of my favorite parts of the day. During school, we get a 15-minute break to gets snacks or drinks but it's not really school lunch like we have. Instead, we eat lunch at home after school, which ends at 1:30. Typically, we have pasta for the first course, like spaghetti bianco (spaghetti without sauce, but lots of butter), or lasagna, or noodles. Then, for the second course, we have chicken with potatoes or steak, or pork. I'm always full. Then we usually end lunch with fruits, such as apples or mandarin oranges (which are very cheap and popular here).

Thanksgiving

No Thanksgiving. 'Nuff said.

Breakfast

Unfortunately, in Italy, breakfast is not an important meal. A typical breakfast (if any), is bread with Nutella, a chocolate spread that's very popular in Italy. I like it, but having it for breakfast every day gets a little old. Most other Italians eat breakfast at cafes. Here you can buy a cappuccino or a croissant. Cereal is not a common breakfast item and they stare at me like I have lobsters coming out of my ears whenever I talk about eating bacon and eggs for breakfast. They are repulsed by this. Oh well. Fortunately, my mom has sent me a box of Raisin Bran and I have been living off of that. Just kidding. Cereal for Christmas please! Although, what they lack in breakfast, they make up for in lunch in dinner.

Language

Italian is a very difficult language. There are far more grammar rules in Italian than there are in English. Fortunately, my classmates, teachers and family are being very helpful. It can be very frustrating to want to say something, and not be able to simply say it. I've gotten far better since I first arrived, but I'm not quite fluent yet. Luckily, I have English class three times a week and the teacher will only speak English during the lessons so now my classmates can see how I feel all the time. I spend much of my afternoon studying the language.

Halloween

Halloween is not near as popular in Italy as it is in the states. There is no trick-or-treating. The holiday is more for teens and adults as an excuse to go out for the night. For Halloween weekend, I went to Teralba, a city in the middle of Sardinia, and stayed at an old farm house with the other exchange students from America, Australia and Norway. We got to milk cows and get a tour of the farm. We even ate a baby pig. Sad, but delicious. We went out for Halloween night with the daughter of the exchange program representative. She took us around town and we didn't return until 5 or so in the morning, a late night but very fun.

Family

While I'm in Italy, I obviously live with a host family. My host mother is Maria. My host father is Antonio, and my host brother is Matteo. They are a very typical Italian family. We eat pasta for practically every meal (and I don't mind) and we spend a lot of time together. My host family loves to watch television and all of the shows here are American but dubbed in Italian, so we watch The Simpsons, Lie to Me, True Blood, and Doll House. We live in an apartment in the middle of Cagliari. I go to school with Matteo, though we are not in the same class.

Friends and Free Time

Already I have met many new friends and on Saturday night, I got to experience what Italian teenagers do on the weekends. Our whole class went out for pizza at a local restaurant in Cagliari. Though I couldn't talk with all my friends very well, it was still fun to sit and listen to them talk about school and family and anything teens normally talk about. Afterwards, we walked around the city center, getting gelatos and meeting up with other students at our school. With all the outdoor cafes and places to hang out, the city center is where many teens go to hang out at night. We didn't even finish until about midnight, but that seems to be pretty common. The city certainly offers a lot of things to do.

Weather

As much as it snows in South Dakota, it was nice to get away from the cold weather. The temperature is always in the 70's, even during the winter. There have been a couple of thunderstorms and showers and they were so loud that they rattled the windows. The humidity is not as bad as I had expected. My host mother has even told me that occasionally there will be water cut-backs because of the lack of rain. I didn't expect a drought in the Mediterranean but I guess I was wrong.

Running

I've gone for a run in some amazing places and running in Italy is certainly another wonderful place to run. My host mother doesn't let me run on the streets because we live right in the middle of the city, so traffic can be pretty dangerous. Instead, I run in a city park that's very close to our apartment. The park is pretty popular for anyone who wants to get off the streets and out of the busy city to work out. It has some great views of the city and the hills beyond Cagliari and I definitely don't mind going out for a run every day.

School

School in Italy runs from Monday to Saturday. Class begins at 8:30 and the last bell rings at 12:30 on Mondays and 1:30 Tuesday through Saturday. At first I thought I would like this schedule more than the regular Monday-Friday 8-3 schedule but only having a one-day weekend makes it feel like you don't even get a break. I'm not sure which I like better yet. Another difference with school is how the classes are set up. During the day, the students go to one classroom and spend the entire day there, very much like elementary school. However, the students get different teachers for each subject. It makes it really hard to be tardy for class. This also means that you are with the same 20 or so classmates for the entire year. This has been great for me because I don't have to introduce myself to new students every day. I have classes that I would normally take in America, such as Geometry, Chemistry, Physics, and P.E., and I have some courses that I've never taken before, like Italian Lit., Philosophy, Religion and Latin. My favorite class so far is definitely English. It's basically taking a foreign language course that you are already fluent in, but I'm still learning a lot as we read Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe.

Driving and Cars

After being surrounded by SUV's and well-marked streets, it is quite a change to be traveling on the streets of Italy. The cars in Italy are very small, and very maneuverable, which makes driving pretty crazy. I constantly am worried about my host parents running into a merging vehicle but they don't seem the least bit nervous about any other vehicles on the road. We swerve in and out of lanes and make sharp turns and still have not had any accidents. The markings on the road are more like guidelines than anything else. They're really there for no reason. People drive on the center line or make illegal u-turns and nobody seems to notice. The roads are also much narrower as well, and it would be impossible to drive anything but a tiny car. Buckle up!

Here are some pictures from the Alps, Milan, and Cagliari.

Cagliari

On Thursday afternoon, I arrived in Sardinia in my new home. The weather was beautiful and my host family was very nice. They helped me unpack and drove me around the city. We visited the old city, which has ruins and a great view of the island, and they also brought me down to the beach for sunset. Unfortunately, my camera cord is in my luggage that had to be mailed from Milan but I will have pictures up in the next couple of days. My first day of school was crazy and I didn't understand much of the lessons. My schedule includes English, which I understood well, Italian, Latin, Math, Science, Physics, Gym, Religion, Philosophy, and Art History... all in Italian. Fortunately, I'm picking up Italian quickly and every day it gets easier to talk to my host family. Life seems to be pretty simple and so far I am very much enjoying it.

9/13- 9/14/09 Yesterday I flew out of New York and arrived the next day in Frankfurt, Germany. I met up with the other students flying out to Italy, Spain and Turkey. The kids going to Italy then flew onto Milan, where I'll spend the next three days staying at a youth hostel. Milan is an amazing city with very old buildings.

From September 11th to September 13th, I was in New York. I got to visit Little Italy and had an Italian dinner. It was great. I also got to see Billy Elliot on Broadway and saw Jude Law in Hamlet on Broadway. Both were great shows. Walking around New York, I saw Jack Black in Times Square, went shopping in Soho, and walked by Radio City Music Hall where they were getting set up for The Video Music Awards that will air on Sunday. My aunt and uncle were great hosts and tomorrow I fly out to Italy for a three-day orientation in Milan.

Well, tomorrow's the big day and I'm frantically rushing to get packed.

Hello. This is my first post of my blog. I'll be spending my junior year of high school as an exchange student in Cagliari, Italy. I created this blog so I could share my experience with everyone at home. I'll post observations I make about the culture in Italy. I leave on September 10th, and I'll be back in June. I've got both my passport and my visa, which took a lot of work from both myself and my parents. Next step...packing.