Living the life without thinking about it.

I posted on facebook the picture of my shirt from the front, here's of the back. It says "Italy" sorry it's not that great of a picture, my host sister was getting slightly impatient! :) 

I love this. I think it is so cute! I wish we had it in Minnesota! That'd be so cool. I am not sure why but the palm trees with Christmas lights is just the coolest mix I think.

Like most days we went out for pizza and walked on the beach walk. This is a photo of my supper, it was a raw meat pizza with Heineken beer.

I finished my supper off with this coconut of ice cream. It was so good!

The group of us who were at the pizzeria, excluding Elisa(brunette) because she took the picture.

When we'd finished eating our stomachs out, we went to the beach.

Do you ever think about how blessed we are in this life? Sometimes I don't stop to think about the simple things that I enjoy. I don't stop to thank God the days when I don't have a headache, or when I'm not sick. Why do we complain to God when something is wrong? Yet we forget to thank Him for all the blessings which we consider normal. We take too many things for granted; walking, breathing, eating. Really with out God we would have nothing.

I didn't really mean to get in a sermon on my blog.

Christmas time

On Christmas eve we had a huge dinner at the Bianco's house, and we had fish lasagna and lots of fish things. My families know that I don't like fish a lot though, so they had non-fishish stuff for me. :) The food was all delicious and everyone ate a ton. The whole Christmas eve celebration went from 8pm until about 1am, but about 4 hours of that time was eating. When we'd finished eating we played games and opened some presents. I got the softest, most amazing warm pair of pajamas with a bathrobe from my two families. They'd planned it together so it would all match.

Christmas day we slept in pretty late then got up in time to get ready and go to the Bianco's again at about 2pm. We ate Lunch there this time. It was all meat and sausages and rice. We finished the meal around 4 with some sweet cakes and stuff! When the meal was over again we played games and I think the Scavella family and I left about 6pm.

Moving on to a more exciting subject, I got the coolest freaking sweat shirt ever from my older host sister MariaRosa's boyfriend Gianluca! I absolutely love it, and I we've decided to wear them today so I'll try to get a picture of us with our sweatshirts and post that on here. :)

I know this is a really short blog post to be talking about all of my Christmas celebrations in, but I can't really remember everything that happened. I just remember everything was always loud, it was always crazy, but it was almost always a really happy atmosphere! :)

I hope everyone had a exciting, wonderful Christmas with their families. 

It's been a really busy set of days.

I'm moved into my new house. I like it here, it's different, but nice!

The first thing I would like to say is, I've been here for 5 days now, and just last night I finally figured out how my lock on my door works. I've tried literally about 50 times, and I could never get it. Then last night was just a tired night, and Elisa, MariaRosa and I were walking in after being out until about 12:30pm then I went to unlock the door and finally got it!!! It was seriously the most accomplished feeling ever!

Then last night Elisa and I were laying in our beds talking to each other and we started talking about if she comes to Minnesota. I told her she had to sleep outside, but then I said I'd keep a gun by us in case any animals came. I think Elisa decided she didn't wanna sleep outside when I described that we only had to worry about the bears or mountain lions, that the other animals would leave us alone. She said she wouldn't sleep outside, so I said we could go in a camper, because it's just bears that can open campers. I couldn't convince her, so I think we'll be sleeping inside if she ever comes to visit me.

I've also realized guys here are so much sweeter than guys in Minnesota. A boy looked at me a few nights ago, and said without smiling or anything just simply "you have beautiful eyes". I've never had a guy say that to me! And the best part about it, was that he said it honestly. He wasn't hitting on me, or trying to woo me with charm, he was just stating something he saw as a fact. It was so strange, but so sweet.

At school on Saturday, the last day before Christmas break, we didn't do much. I taught my classmates "teenager English". I taught them adjectives to describe boys that we use. Then we watched a movie, and the school day ended with me singing "the hoedown throwdown" for them so they could dance to it.

I'm not positive what our plans for today are, but I'll know soon enough. It's possible that my posts won't come every day for awhile, because there's a strange internet thing that I don't really understand completely, but it's only in certain parts of the house or something and I just don't get on it as much here as I did before. Maybe it's also because I've been a little busier.

This is the little group of us out of my class that actually attended school the last day.

I've grown fascinated over the waves. Depending on the cloud placement in the sky, the seas color change drastically. The water curls over meeting with the receding wave, causing a collision fighting for power. One of the waves gets buried at the bottom of the sea. Then a wave crashes against a rock, shattering into millions of tiny pieces, seething it curls back into darkness.

I think a lot about silly things, like the waves, and the mountains with icing on top, or the clouds puffing out like cotton candy, because I have a lot of time during the day to think. I have nothing better to do in school sometimes. I'm currently reading Jane Eyre. My mom mailed it along with Chapstick to me recently.

 I took this picture of the clouds today, then added the bible verse to it. I feel like this verse is really important, because it's true. If you trust in God, then you won't be afraid.

Only a few more days, then finally Christmas break.

I love speaking Italian. I just have to start off this post talking about that. My favorite pass time is trying to speak with people who don't speak much English, because then it makes me try really hard.

I've been really busy the last few days. I've been packing my bags because I am switching houses in a few days.

Today in school, I can't really remember why, but we just decided not to really listen to the teachers and pay attention. Pretty much the whole first to classes consisted of taking pictures, and helping each other study for the English test.

 After school today, my mom taught me how to make Italian fish lasagna! I told her that when I get back to the USA, I'd try to make it. Then I'd take a picture and post it on facebook for her to see. It was actually a really simple, but time consuming recipe.

 I know.. I post these all the time..

 This is what I did Sunday. I taught Elisa(Brunette) how to crotchet and I started making her sister(MariaRosa) a hat. The blue thing sitting in front of me. I got slightly sidetracked though when MariaRosa made me food. This picture is funny, because I feel like it describes me and Elisa's relationship really well. She's always working on something, and I'm always eating something.

One of the things I've noticed over here, is my Minnesotan redneck shows a lot. Every time I hear a bang, I think it's a gun shot. Just recently I heard one when I was with some friends, and I asked about it. I guess those "gunshots" were probably all cars backfiring.

Teatro spagnolo

I am so tired.

And I have writers block or something because I really have no energy to write. I'll still try to make it slightly interesting, but sorry if this is a lame blog post.

We went to the Spanish theater today with school. Because of my vast experience with the Spanish language, I understood absolutely none of the play. Actually, I understood what was happening almost the whole time, but that is all thanks to my friend who sat next to me translating it when I didn't understand. I also got in a pretty good nap during the first part of the play, so it was so worth missing school.

I am so thankful that my camera works, because the other day in Napoli, on the ride back it got water spilled on it. I was freaking out that it would be broken, but once it dried it worked thank God.

Once the play was finished we went to the mall and ate at McDonalds, then walked around and "shopped". I hate shopping.

This is the one of the coolest pairs of slippers I have ever seen. They were seriously so awesome. I wanted to get them for me and my friend Rachel. Sadly I didn't because I was pretty sure they'd be hard to bring back to Minnesota.

 Just a totally kickin' picture of me and my friend and some hats we felt like trying on.

 I can't remember his name in Italian, but the Santa's here are pretty cute! ;)

 These are the group of my classmates who came to the Spanish theater.

 On the ride home I wanted so bad to get a picture of something as we were rising higher into the mountains, but it didn't last long enough for me to get up the energy to take a picture. I'll try to explain it though. As I looked down into the valley, it was foggy and misty. Surrounding me there was mountains topped with snow. It looked like a picture from a story book, I wanted to just step into it. It was an extraordinary view.

Still sometimes there's days when I can't sink in the fact that I'm so far away from home, and actually living in this beautiful country. It's such a strange, unique feeling. I feel like I'm living a story from a child's book.

As we were driving home, I stuck in headphones and played some English music loud to try to block out all the extra noise. To me it's just noise. People's voices here sound like a buzzing in my ears since I can't understand everything. I have to concentration hard on one person to understand what they're saying, but when I'm in a bus full of people yelling Italian at each other with 7 different conversations going on it's just too confusing. I was so worn out when I got home, and as I'm sure you can tell because of my lousy writing, I'm still worn out.

Napoli

I suppose I'll try to add a few words with all these pictures. I probably won't say anything deep in this post though. YESTERDAY! We went to Napoli. On the way there, I listened to music off my friend Giacomo's ipod. I sat by Elisa(brunette). It was a long, but beautiful road trip. We drove by a lot of interesting things, including some volcano, and the island of Capri..(mom I got a picture of it for you, I just didn't post it because this post is on overload with pictures).. 

Around the Napoli area it's mountains, buildings, and the sea. It's incredible. 

In Napoli we walked around and saw and bought stuff.

Some lovely landmark. I don't know what. Probably it's a saint or something.

 I don't know what this is either, but it's tall and old. It looked pretty cool.

 It was a really cold day, and so my pockets became the warming place for a few extra hands. In this picture I'm singing, "Cold as you" by Taylor swift, to Mayca.

 The most delicious pizza in Italy I've been told is made in Napoli. I'm not gonna lie, I'd be pretty big if I'd grown up on this.

 Elisa(Brunette)'s group.. I think..

 Elisa(Brunette) and me, in some underground cave place.

 I wish I was this good of an artist, sadly I'm not.

 She was floating..

 My favorite tree.

 And here is the castle.. I picked the tallest building nearby to compare it to, and this is way taller than that building was.. The building was 9 stories high..

Elisa(Brunette) told me that if I want to buy myself a castle they're going on sale right now, and there only a few billion dollars. I figured I'd spread the word in case anyone from back at home wants to buy it.

 After Napoli we went to some other town, and saw the lights. Sorry I'm getting short on time now, so I'm not going to go into details or research how to spell that town or anything.

 The planets fall a little closer to earth in Italy.

 This was seriously the cutest fountain ever.

 Me and Elisa in front of some rockin' lights! <3

 Just another palace sitting on the top of the mountain.

 On the ride home instead of stealing his ipod I just sat with him. This is me and Giacomo.

 Okay, this post is so full of pictures I hope it doesn't slow anyone's computer down too much. Sorry if it does. I tried to get rid of some of the pictures, but this is what I ended up with. I still have a lot more, so I'll maybe post them on facebook if I get time.

Don't say it can't get better, or God will prove you wrong.

I can't even describe all the great things that have happened today, so I'll start out with my view out my window at school today.

It was pretty cool, since I've never seen these before. All we have in Minnesota is dust devils, I'd never seen one made of water.

My first class was Italian, I wasn't sure if I should look forward to it because I love my teacher, or dread it because I was freakin' tired out of my mind this morning. So I decided to dread it. Then my teacher walks in the room with "The Gladiator" in Italian of course, but who cares? Anything is better than just sitting doing nothing. My first three hours were spent watching that! After Italian was Spanish class, and my lovely teacher decided that we should go watch a movie in the computer lab. When we go to the computer lab, that's basically a free pass for me to do whatever the heck I want. I hit up twitter, and youtube, and rocked out to my country music while my classmates were watching whatever. Our next class the teacher was scheduled to be gone, so my class and I did whatever we wanted. I did girls hair, and my classmates danced to "Gangnam style". While I was on twitter during Spanish, I'd thought to myself, there is NO way this day could get any more awesome. That's where I underestimated God.

As I got into the car after school I started talking to my host mother. She interrupted me after a minute with exciting news that she'd talked to the headmaster of our school, and gotten permission and paid for me to go to Naples tomorrow. Why am I going there? I have no clue. There's some class trip going, with a few of the people that I've gotten to be friends with, and my host mom figured it'd be a good experience for me. She took the initiative and got everything worked out! I love being a exchange student. It's not my part of the school that's going, it's a different building. But people here understand that I want to see the country, and they work to help me with that! I have no clue what we're doing in Naples tomorrow though. I want it to be another surprise, so I didn't ask.

I know I put a lot of sunset pictures on, but there all so pretty!!! I can't just see a sunset, and not share it.. 

Slowly realizing time flies.

I left Minnesota 3 months ago today.

I'm here for 9 months.

For those of you who can't add, that means I'm already 1/3 done with this time abroad.

I remember when I was little, I just wanted to grow up, to be tall like my parents, to date, to be on my own.

And here I am. I'm grown. I'm not as tall as either of my parents, but I probably never will be. Two of my younger sisters are already taller than me, so I'm the small one I guess. I've dated. And now I'm living over 4000 miles away from everything I've known my whole life.

Alright, enough of this sentimental stuff, on to the real talk. 

 Yesterday's sun

Larisa and me

This evening is a pleasant 50°F. There's absolutely no wind, and as I walked outside down the steps tonight, I thought about how lucky I am. This winter I'm not going to have to walk outside in the 25 below zero weather on my way to school with wet icicles hanging from my wet hair!

I'm switching houses in 10 days. Since I am switching houses in 10 days, maybe I should tell you why. I know I've referred to it in previous posts, but I think the only people who know exactly why is those who have asked me or who my mother has told.

I'm changing families, not because of problems my family and I have had. The Bianco family only signed up to have my for 4.5 months. Maybe some of you are asking why I'm moving now then since I just said earlier in the post that it's 3 months today. Probably not that many people actually noticed that though. I'm moving now because the Bianco family wants me for the last month that I'm in Italy too. Because they want to spend time with me right before I have to leave.

I've gone through happy/sad days about this move. Sometimes I'm happy because I'll get to experience a different way of Italian family culture. Yesterday was a sad day for me though. My sister Silvia is having a Christmas play thing for her school the day after I move out. She's been excited about this for a long time. We didn't realize the days until yesterday. While we were sitting here worried, my host mom walked in the room. Silvia explained our problem, and she smiled a sad smile at me, then said "don't worry, we'll pick you up for the performance. She then went on to say that I could still come over when I wanted. Then she ended it with a big hug. This is the first actual, legit hug that I've gotten from my host mom. It meant so much. From what I've seen, Italians don't hug as much as Americans do. That's one of the things that I've missed sometimes. As you can maybe imagine, that hug meant the world to me. 

Pictures are better than words

I woke up at 11:30am today. It was nice to sleep in, but I am seriously so tired right now it's not even funny. 

We set up our Christmas tree today!

 Mom they have the nail polish you like in Italy!

 Venturing out into the freezing outdoors.

 My frozen yogurt I ate, because I'm not scared of a little cold.

 My amazing, delicious dessert for supper. <3

Sorry.. I have no energy to put more words.. 

This has absolutely nothing to do with today, but this scrumptious looking picture is what my family had for supper. I tried a bite of it, and it was okay, but my host mother knows the extent of my love for fish so I ate hamburgers for supper.

At school it's always freezing. They did start turning on the heater though! :) This is my favorite place to stay. It's a plus not having to follow along sometimes because then I can stand/sit by this incredible creation. I love heaters.

 Today at school I took a test in Math. It was all word problems in Italian. It wasn't hard for me because I've done that stuff before. But my classmates were pretty surprised when I finished it a good ten minutes ahead of them since I had to translate it to English then solve it. They were even more surprised when the teacher proclaimed "Tutto bene! Brava!". They started calling me a genius  It made me feel good until I remembered all the things that I struggle with in this school, and I realized that this is the only thing that I'm ahead of them on.

After school I went to my future host families host for awhile! I have 2 sisters in that family. MariaRosa is one of them. She doesn't speak English, but somehow we still communicate! Today I taught her bad words in English. It was quite the accomplishment. Then Elisa(brunette), MariaRosa and I went shopping. We got yarn so I can make some hats and scarves! Then we went to my favorite little cafe place and got gelato and hot chocolate. It was a nice and cold 48 degrees F. today, so I needed a little hot chocolate with my ice cream. But there was no way I was skipping the ice cream because of the cold. I'm only in Italy for one year. Pretty sure I need to stock up on my gelato.

I love Italy so much, sometimes I miss my home though. I miss driving on dirt road jamming out to my country. I miss climbing bales, and running across fields, swinging from rope swings in barns. I even miss stalking our hilarious Oklee cops and getting harassed by them. I think that I will travel a lot in my life, I'm already trying to pick the next country I want to visit after this year abroad. I'm thinking Norway. My friend Karl went there as an exchange student last year, and it looks like a really interesting country. Who knows where God will take me, but I think that Minnesota will always be home to me.

;)

Today I woke up to a lovely headache and I felt like I had a fever, needless to say I did not attend school.

When I finally got up the energy to go downstairs for breakfast I ate a delicious meal of tea, cake, biscuits, bread and jelly. While our house keeper was making my tea she told me there was more snow on the mountains surrounding us from the storm last night. After I'd finished eating she pointed to it out the window. It looked postcard perfect. The mountains around the edge of the sea from us were indeed covered with soft white tops. It's a pretty clear day out now, but when I looked earlier there was the morning fog misting up off the ground. The sea folding itself with waves from the overnight storm. And all around me the perfect looking mountains with white tops. It was a picture made for a puzzle. I took some pictures, but I was tired, and so I don't think they turned out fully capturing the look, maybe sometime I'll post pictures of it for you.

Then I cuddled up in my blankets to watch a chick flick. Somehow though, I ended up with a movie that the guy was unhappy with his life, and everything was screwed up in it. When everything finally pieced together and he was thinking about how lucky he was with his life. Someone was behind him and shot him in the head with a pistol. Then the movie ended with his wife and daughter walking in to his dead bloody body. Let's just say it wasn't exactly the "chick flick" I'd had in mind.

A little while ago, after finishing lunch, I sat down and did my math homework, like a good little girl. It doesn't happen very often that I actually sit down and do it before supper. But I guess I was just happy to not be feeling sick, and so I figured I should get it done. Now that it's out of the way, I feel pretty good about having the whole rest of the afternoon ahead of me. Possibly I will try to find a movie worth watching that doesn't scare me!

I'm sick. Nothing deadly but it's just a pain.

Yesterday I missed school because of it, and today I went to school today but I shouldn't have because I felt like crap the whole day. I never know if I have a fever or not because they don't use the heating system much here so it's always cold in the buildings. Since my family was all gone yesterday my housekeeper took good care of me! I slept about an hour after when I'd normally get up then I had to go to the bathroom and throw up so that ended me sleeping. :( But after that it got a lot better, our house keeper made me breakfast and tea and I ate and felt okay so I just relaxed and watched movies.

Then today at school I mostly just tried to sleep in class. We had a big storm during school, which isn't uncommon, and our power was out for a little while. We were scared the windows were going to break from the hail so we put the shades down on the outside of the windows to protect the glass. After school again today I ate a delicious lunch and then I went upstairs and rested. Now I'm down here studying my stupid homework and listening to Taylor Swift songs. I always listen to her music when I'm crabby and in a bad mood. She's the only one who understands. ;) 

I'm sorry. Really nothing exciting happened. But what can you expect when you're sick? I just figured I should post and explain since I missed posting yesterday. I thought something worth posting would come along, but it didn't. ANYWAYS! I hope everyone in Minnesota is enjoying their warm weather today! I heard it's about 17 degrees F. today! That must be pretty exciting!... at least you guys have heaters.. Mom did you include those hand heaters for hunting in my package?

Okay. Actually life isn't actually bad. I have a ton of energy so that's a plus. I went shopping with my host mom too! Another plus! I have fun shopping with her because she can't speak English so it gives me a chance to speak only Italian for awhile! :)

"For the beauty of the earth, 
for the glory of the skies, 
for the love which from our birth 
over and around us lies; 
Lord of all, to thee we raise 
this our hymn of grateful praise."

I'm sorry there will be no photos today. I do have a few things I'm going to try to describe though.I missed school today, because I had to go get my resident permit process finished. It's been a long process that has literally taken over 2 months. My host parents and I went to the town that we had to do it in right after we dropped my sisters off at school. It was about an hour drive through the mountains and along side the sea.

Through the mountain range it was storming, and as we got higher and higher suddenly my host mom said "Look Louisa! Snow!" but in Italian of course. The rest of the car ride was a little more exciting because snow in this area is special. They don't get much snow in my town where I live, so when we're around snow it's exciting and different! It finally felt a little like winter! 

I might not get a white Christmas here, but the other incredible thing about the scenery today was the sea. Because it was a stormy day, the waves were huge. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I'll try. The water was ranging in four different colors; dark blue, turquoise, lime green, and white. As the water folded over itself the colors showed a little with each followed by whiteness. It was captivating watching it because each wave had a different charm to it and the car ride flew by as I was trying to guess which color the next wave would be.

The stop at the police office to get the papers filled out and my finger prints done was strange. I felt like I was being arrested. I got my fingers all printed twice. One of the times the guy printed my palms too. Although if I had actually been getting arrested we probably would have been a little more serious about it. Then we went to the mall. At the mall we ate a delicious snack, and then walked around and shopped for a little while. The whole trip felt so relaxing. It's hard to explain and unless you're another exchange student reading this, you probably won't fully understand. But this trip felt like one more step of progress in my relationship with my host parents. It was so exciting to actually feel like they truly care about me as their own child. They joked with me, and tease me as if I'm their own. It's so hard to explain the feeling, but I guess if you don't understand then just take a trip to a different country and live with a family as part of the family, then you'll understand what I'm saying.

This has been a slightly serious post. But I'm finished now, so I hope everyone has an enjoyable day.

Ohhhh brother..

Today was a hard day.

Why? I don't know. Well, actually I do. But who cares. Not me, it happens.

The good things today.. ohhh goodness.. I went out with some girls in my class today for pizza. I was also excited with my Italian today! I feel as though it's taken the next step in the learning process. I need to speak more. It's hard for me though, because there's so many people who are so fluent in English. And also when I have something serious I need to express, I don't really know how to say feelings in Italian. I know basic conversation skills. I don't know all the details about deep conversations, so when people get talking about relationships, or feelings, I get lost.

It's my dad's birthday today. I skype called my mom, and had her call him over to the computer to "ask him something about her screen" and then when he got to the computer I sang Happy birthday to him in Italian.

I also did a group skype with me and 3 Australian boys who are here. And we helped each other work on our Italian together. It's really nice talking to other exchange students because we completely understand each other's feelings. Last but definitely not least, I skyped Carlotta, the Italian girl who is staying in Red Lake Falls. She also helped me work on my Italian.

School today.. ohhh school.. well on the plus side we can mark this day in history down as the first day I didn't absolutely hate it! :) I think because most of my class was gone so it was kinda a quiet day! :) We just kind of got our work done and then chilled. We distracted our Art teacher long enough to delay a test. I sang happy birthday to him in English, because it was also his birthday I guess.

Okay.. sorry if there's mistakes in this.. I'm gonna rely on spell check because I am way to freaking tired and lazy to go over it. Goodnight everyone! It's 2am here, so I should really crash.

Arbitrary photos and a few words

The first few of these are just old pictures, this was my sunset a few days ago.

 This lovely photo is from when I went to see Footloose.

 This is my amazing view out my window when it storms.

 This is from school today.

 This one is yesterday's kickin' waves.

 And here's where it all starts. Today I spent about an hour with my favorite teacher ever. This is Maria. She is amazing. She is sweet, and kind, and actually cares. She's the best.

First we went to the beach. I'm not sure how well it shows up in this picture. But there's a little mountain thingie out in the water. It's a volcano. It's not usually noticeable from the beach but for some reason today it was. 

We were Maria, and me. Then Maria's sister, and also her niece. They all speak English, German and Italian. It was really interesting being around them. My teacher doesn't speak very much German, she's just starting to learn now, but she's also helping me learn some.

This photo is the lovely fountain in the square.

 After the beach visit, it started raining. So we sought shelter in the church. No, not really. It did start raining, but we went to the church to walk in and around it because it's really old and cool looking. There's a cave in it. And that's where this photo is taken.

During the whole church and underground walk, there were stories about great things the Saint of the church "did" during his lifetime. On a bridge there was a "footprint of the devil, from when the devil and the saint fought on that bridge". They told me these stories starting out by saying "they say" so finally I asked Maria's sister what she thought since she was phrasing it that way, and she said she thought the stories were a buncha bull. It was really interesting learning about it all though. I had a great time with them. My teacher is trying to get permission to have me come spend a few days with them because the town is so far and we didn't really have much time to visit.