The festival of St. Francesco

I've had the most eventful, interesting, and entertaining week.

There was the festival of the Saint, in the town of my Italian teacher. I've been in Paola for the last 8 days, and I just got home today. The thing I like most about these festivals, is the markets they have. I can find amazing things, for very little amounts of money. I bought a lot of presents, and a few clothes for myself. My Italian teacher bought me a pair of shoes too. :)

The festival ended last night with fireworks. It was rally beautiful, and I am so glad I got to spend so much time with my friends at Paola. I am so lucky that I have friends like them.

Paola is a beautiful town. The people are friendly, and not judgmental, and so that's why I like going there so much. I'm going to miss my Paola friends/family a lot when I return to Minnesota.

Pie

I could go for a nice piece of Lemon Meringue Pie right now. I know this is a random statement, but seriously! I want pie!

Anyways, everything has been going pretty good over here. I've been going to the beach almost every day for the last week. The weather has been really sunny, but the rumor is there's rain coming this weekend.

My grandma and 2 great aunts are coming on Tuesday! I'm super excited for that! It'll be so great to show them my new home.

About leaving, I am coming home on the 20th of June. I got my eticket in my email a while back. I'm not ready to leave, but  I know it will be good to be home too. I hope I will be able to return to Italy within the next 2 years.

I went for a walk yesterday, it was the longest walk I've had since I've been here in Italy. I think my host family was proud of me. But after I was done I went and bought ice cream and brought it to my friends house and we ate it. :)

Food is amazing here, but it's not special anymore. It's just normal life. I don't pig out anymore, and I'm not gaining weight anymore. I think I've actually lost some of my 10 pounds I put on at the beginning of my trip.

Spaaaain

I'm not finding the words to describe my trip to Spain. I'm not feeling so great today, so I guess maybe that's why I have no imagination right now.

We traveled by bus to the port nearby Rome, then boarded a huge cruise ship that took us to Barcelona.

 I was a little bit disappointed by the buses, because one of my good friends was in a different bus that me. We'd been planning to spend this whole trip together, but then ended up on different buses. The first day I was kind of alone, I spent most of the time taking pictures. After the first day, I was slightly disappointed. I was sad, because I thought with my luck, the whole trip would be like this. We got stuck with a tour guide who knew way too much about Barcelona, and had to tell every little detail.

The inside and outside of one of the churches we saw the first day.

 This was the coolest thing we saw on the first day, it was a really pretty seafront, I kind of had a peaceful atmosphere, even though it was crowded by hundreds of people.

 Then the second day rolled around. I had higher hopes, I didn't wanna waste the whole trip moping about how lonely I felt, and how I didn't really care about what the tour guide was saying. I'd spent a good 354 euros on this trip, so I intended to enjoy it.

On the second day, we saw the house of some artist, I can't exactly remember his name. But I think it was Salvadore Dagli, or something like that. It was really unique at the house. But once again we were with the talkative guide. About an hour and a half into the house, and still being stuck on the first floor, my Spanish teacher snuck me and a few other people out of the tour and left us to wander on the 2nd floor. In the bathroom at this house, 2 sweet little Chinese ladies came up to me and asked for a picture with me. I'm pretty sure that made my day.

 Oh, I think this photo is from the first day. But anyways, we saw this place the first day too. I'll explain it later on though.

 Also on the second day, we visited this town. I don't know where in Spain it was, or what the name of the town was. But it was cool. I really liked this town, because not only was the stuff cheap in the stores, it had a country like feeling. I kind of felt at home here.

 This photo was on the bus, my friend decided that he was going to decorate us with 4 of the 6 scarves I bought while I was in Spain.

 The 3rd day, we went back to Barcelona.

This is the view of the city from one of the parks we visited.  :)

 Then we saw the hugest church ever, pretty much. It was so big, but I can't remember it's name. I'm sure most of you probably know what church it was anyways. It's the cathedral that Barcelona is famous for. I am horrible at remembering names.

 This was at the park. One of the more interesting places in Barcelona.

 The 3rd day we had a few hours of shopping after the site seeing, they dropped us off at a fountain area at the beginning of a big street.

 Then after our shopping, we went to go see this. This was by far my favorite thing in Spain.

I can't describe in words, how amazing this fountain was. It's name was the Fountain of Magic, and it really was magical. If I had the option, I'd go back in a flash just to see this one more time. My camera died halfway through. But the feeling with the music playing, in time to the colors in the water, was just incredible. It was a really romantic feeling. The Palace at the top of this hill, is the Palace in the photo earlier in this post. We went to this 2 times. The first time was cool, but the second time, was sensational.

 This is one of the photo's before my camera died. The photo before this one, is one I managed to take after my camera died the first time.

Also, on this trip we went to a disco, it was fun, and the music was actually really good at it. But I don't really like that whole grinding up and down on each other dancing stuff, so after the first 2 hours, I hung out with my friend. The night before the disco, I did two guys makeup, which was fun, obviously. But then they decided to do mine too. If I can get ahold of a picture, I'll try to post it. 

Quick update, info on SPAIN!

I'm sitting in school right now. My Italian teacher is gone, so I don't have anything the first three hours. The first hour we sat up in the Piazza, but then the 2nd hour we had to go into the school, because after the first hour, you aren't allowed in. My classmates and I sat in my classroom watching the funniest parts of Scary Movie 2 over and over in Italian. I went over to the other school at one point, because I had to talk to my first host mother about a paper thing, so one of my good friends went with me for that. It was raining out, so it's not such a beautiful day. The sea is dirty brown close to the shore, but then blazing turquoise a little ways in. The third hour, one of the teachers found out that we weren't supervised, so then she came in and took over, now we're sitting in the computer lab watching a movie in French, I think. But I'm clearly not watching it. I figured I should post on my blog.

I'm going to Spain in 5 days. :) We're going to the Romeish area on on 3 buses, I'm not sure if I'll be in a bus with my classmates or not though, because one of my friends asked me to sit by him. So I might sweet talk the teacher into letting me switch buses. Once we're done on the bus, we're getting on a cruise ship and going to Barcelona from there. :) It's going to be so much fun I think. On the cruise ship, I think, there's a disco one night. So that'll be interesting to see how that goes. I've been to one disco type thing since I've been here, but I am excited for this one. :)

I'm currently listening to my Brad Paisley music, waiting for the bell to ring. I still got another half an hour to wait though.

Last night the new Pope was announced, I'm not sure how we say that in English, but anyways, it was really cool being in the same country and looking at the tv and thinking 'I've walked there! I've seen that place' it just made it all more interesting.

My birthday

My birthday morning started out all normal.. I had Italian the first few hours, but about an hour and a half into the day, my friend said that she needed to tell me a story in the bathroom. Her and I headed off to the bathroom. Upon return in the class, I was showered with confetti, and greeted by many kisses. 

My class made an amazing surprise birthday party for me. <3

Then later on in the day, Elisa and I went out. She told me it would be just me and her. But nooooo.. I was sitting on a bench with her, when people came up behind me, covered my eyes, and sang to me. I've never had a surprise birthday party before this year, but in this year I had 2. 

In about 10 days, I will be leaving for Spain.. :) We're going on a ship, I'm very excited for this.. :)

I have a lot of emotions that I'd really like to write about, I'd really like to share them with somebody. But I can't write them, a lot of them are not so nice. I've written about them one time in my diary, but then I flushed the page down the toilet because they're hateful. I'll just write this though, I love Italy so much. I love my family here. Most days I just wish I only had the life in Italy. I can't stand the thought of going home. I miss home so much sometimes. I miss my piano music. I miss my church. I miss always sleeping in the same bed. I miss cooking. But honestly, I am so happy aside from anything to do with Minnesota. I now feel like I have two lives that I have to pick between. The teenagers are so kind and caring over here. I'm going to miss that so much. I know when I get back to Minnesota, it'll be so nice to eat whatever I want, and look however I want. It'll be really nice to just relax and be myself and not feel out of place. But I know I'm really going to miss the friends I've made here so much. When I first arrived here, I thought "I wonder if I'm ever going to come back to Italy once I leave", now my thoughts have changed a little bit now I think "when am I going to come back". It's not an "if" thing anymore. I know, God willing, I will come back to Italy sometime.

I get a lot of people asking me to compare things, which is better? Italy? Or America? You can't make a comparison. They're both wonderful places. There's downsides of both Italy, and of America. 

Okay.. I'm done with feelings.. the rest of what I'm thinking, isn't blog or anyone appropriate.. I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping the thoughts in my head.. 

I don't write on my blog so much anymore, because really, I don't have so much to write about. I go over to my friend's houses. I eat pizza, lots of pizza. I do normal things. But they aren't exciting to write about, and this blog is suppose to be an exciting blog.

As probably everyone who I have on facebook or twitter knows, this last week was carnival. We had two days off school, and did crazy makeup and stuff.

 This is my makeup from Tuesday night.

 This is from a nearby town.

This is a photo from Saturday. Saturday I went with my friends to a disco type thing. We dressed up in costumes (Mine was what I'm wearing in the picture plus a mask) I didn't get a picture with my mask though, so this picture is gonna have to be good enough.

silly little problems

I really have no clue what to do as far as pictures, and posts goes. There's no point in bringing my computer upstairs, because it doesn't work. I don't like asking my host sister to let me use her computer all the time, especially for the quantity that I take pictures in, I don't want them to have to all be on her computer.

The other thing that stinks is my diary only has a few pages left, so the last few months I've only been writing every few weeks in it. I was always thinking that I have my blog, but now I don't really post as often because it's difficult to access.