"Its Getting Hot In Here"-4 months

Ok so i'm well aware i am terrible at keeping this blog up, so sorry for that. Things are starting to go into hyper speed, I wish they would just slow the heck down! Thursday was the 4 month mark, how? I have no idea! It seems like i just saw everyone at home yesterday but then again it seems like years. its an odd feeling for sure. But we get out of school next Saturday (THANK GOODNESS!) and then its just summer, time to hang out. I have lots of things planned so it'll be a great last month for sure.

No concerning the other part of the title....ITS SO STINKING HOT!!! and yes some people are like well Tanya you might be exaggerating. I'm not, it hasn't been this hot of a May in Modena for 180years! Yeah awesome right? and there isn't air conditioning anywhere really, not school, not at the house. Yeah and this heat is different. The first week it was really hot i had lots of problems. You have to leave the windows open at night so you don't melt but with all the stuff in the air and the heat i was having an asthma attack every night, i'd wake up not being able to breathe take my inhaler and go to sleep again. Thankfully its not as bad. Last week it was in the 90F all week. Now its a bit more bareable. Oh and i played a vball game in a gym that was 3C hotter inside than outside, yeah it was 96F in the gym, thought i was going to die lol

This last weekend though I went with a group of AFS kids to Cinque Terre. Oh wow was it pretty! Like its a place that you only see in movies and only wish you can go to. Of course it was super hot but it was still great. AFS tends to be super smart sometimes so we climbed no joke a couple thousand steps at 2pm in the afternoon. It was the first time in my life i really thought i physically can't do this, but so did everyone else lol After a slight recovery we went on a 4hr walk before calling it a day. The second day was a 2hr hike and then we went swimming! oh it was awesome, yes the jellyfish made things slightly interesting but still. :) After a ton of delays with the trains we got home about 10pm, 2 hours after we were supposed to. Besides all of that it was a great weekend, I even lost close to 3kilos, thats like 6lbs!! I sure love this country!

Anyways, there are a lot more things i've learned culture wise but I can't remember if I typed them or not so i'll spare you the rereading. Life is absolutely fantastic! As much as you all want to hear me say i'm ready to come home i'm not, i realy can't even think about it. I never thought i'd get this close to everyone here and leaving them is going to be the hardest thing i've ever done. Atleast when i left all of you I knew I'd see you in 5 short months, everyone here...its a bit longer. I miss you guys i really do, once i have to say goodbye to everyone here (and after probably crying a TON) i'll be ready to be home. Its just about 20hours of travel and I'll be there in Springfield with all of you.

I'm done rambling now...hope everyone summer is going great! Love you all, see you sooN!!

Can You Believe How Far We've come?

Ok so I had one of those out of the movies type events. I was riding my bike to meet my friends in the Center and I have to pass the elementary school and as I did there was a little girl that ran along the inside of the fence as her mom was walking to the car, trying to keep up with her cause she wasn't ready to leave her. Which got me thinking, how did i go from that to being in Italy 6000miles from my family. Oh how much we all grow up, its kinda a crazy thought.

Anyways so sososoososo much has happened. I had my last volleyball game, which is sad cause i loved playing. And on the 9th or should I say the 10th at 2am i listened to my big sister graduate. I was so tired but i made it through and then all of a sudden right after they threw their caps I got a call and it was ERica, I was the first person to get to talk to her :) And now she officially knows that she is coming here for a week. She gets here the 20th at 9:55am and i can't wait! Oh and this last week my younger sister and I went to the ballet. it was awesome! i never htought ballet was that amazing. i was wrong. Then Saturday at school I had my big presentation. I got to present my religion and I was super nervous cause my faith means a lot to me and i had to do it all in Italian. So i wrote a ton and was prepared and it went beyond perfect. I even got the big Standing O :) The prof said he was very happy and thought i did great. that always makes you feel good lol Its been great lately, but I mean the entire experience so far has been great. Still sorta a dream. Anyways I'm going to Cinque Terre this weekend with AFS so that should be good :) Summer is Almost here!!!!

Random things I can't seem to work together lol....

So you have to have a permission thing from the police to live here and we applied for mine my first day in Modena. Then they said to come in for a meeting thing in March so we did. We waited for an hour for them to tell me to come back in 2 months, fantastic! So we called them to make an appointment this month and the only open appointment was the 19th of June. And it takes up to 20 days after that to get the paper so i'm basically not going to get it lol Love Italian time :)

I MISS AIRCONDITIONING!!!! Like really bad, they don't have it anywhere here so I'm slowly melting. Its only in the upper 20s now but it gets in the 40s during the summer, fun fun! Not really, lol. For example, one day i ran at like 7pm and when I got done I took a super cold shower and when you get out you instantly start sweating again. woohooo lol

I'm getting my hair cut this week cause I can't really see anymore lol My host dad always makes fun of me cause i'm always flipping my head lol.

Last night I talked to My lil sister here and it was funny cause we talked about how before I got here we were both so scared that each other would be crazy. At lunch earlier my host dad was like we'll get another student and Anna was like NO! She was its not that I don't love you Tanya I just can't do that preparing again, it about killed me lol.

All of us exchange students have discovered that our favorite channel is MTV cause its the only one we understand almost all the time.

So i've discovered this wonderful thing called the public Library so now I have books to read. I finished Breaking Dawn in 4 days and now i'm reading 19 Minutes, which is AMAZING! oh and check this out, I'm reading Twilight in italian! Crazy Huh? I know i know its Twilight but i've watched the movie in italian so its the easiest for me to understand.

Anyways i'm done rambling. Love you all and I promise to try to keep the blog up a little better!
Ciao!

Roma-"I think I'm Crying...."

….no exaggeration I really was! So Friday morning after 3 small hours of sleep the night before and a crowded 5 hour bus ride one of my biggest dreams came true. We caught a cab and headed to the ancient Roman city. We were pulling up close and all of a sudden I could see the wedding cake and I started crying. We got out and there was the Coliseum in the distance. Yeah I know it’s girly but you won’t understand the feeling until you get to be there yourself. It is absolutely breathtaking! I know it’s kind of silly but being there, standing in front of the most historical structures kind of gets to you. Anyways my best friend here, Frida, was with us so we walked around all afternoon and took way too many pics (over 400 hahaha) so I’m pretty sure that I have every angle of the coliseum documented. When we were walking around the base of it I just walked up to it and put my hand on the column and was like “look Frida, I’m touching History” Like I said to really understand it you have to go there. The entire day amazed me; I mean I even ate lunch looking at it. And it was a perfect perfect day, blue skies, nice and warm  Even though we were super tired we walked to Piazza di Spagna. To be honest I thought that it would be bigger but maybe the fact that the stairs were covered with people had something to do with it. It was still beautiful though. We then took a cab back to the hotel to meet the group we came with. After a slight freak out that they lost our bags we ate, got our bags and left again to tour the city. Rome is so pretty at night  in typical teenage fashion all of us didn’t sleep we hung out and played cards till we were about to pass out and finally went to bed. It was even worse because when Frida and I get that tired we get to the point where we can’t speak Italian so no one understands us.


Anyway the next morning we went to some churches. One of the little boys on the trip finally discovered we were foreigners so in came the questions, which literally lasted all day. Just to see his reaction I gave him US Dollar for a gift and he literally stared at it all day, randomly pulling it out to look at it. He became attached to our hips from that moment on. Then because I’m so lucky it started to rain. That makes 5 cities that I’ve gone to when it’s rained. Luckily it cleared up when we headed to the Centro it was clear. We walked to the Trevi fountain but I was super bummed because I was there for like 5 minutes and didn’t even get to throw in a coin  but yet again I can say I’ve been there so it’s ok. We then got Gelato at a world famous place that has 150 flavors and ate it as we went to the Pantheon. Oh that was so cool too!!! After some time we went to the Senate building and had a tour. To be honest almost everyone fell asleep because we were all so so tired. Plus the whole not understanding the slight Roman accent added to the confusion. One would think that we would all be exhausted and fall asleep instantly but no we stayed up and listened to music and watched a movie in English because I was the only one who had movies.
The lack of sleep made Sunday really hard. We toured a really cool villa then went to the Castel Sant`Angelo. It was so cool!!! Ok except the fact I tripped 4 times within 10minutes…one time I tripped as I was going out to look out the edge toward the top and thank goodness for safety bars is all I have to say. There was a ton of people there so by the time we got out we were tired and ready to eat. Then one of the moms said we could go to the top and I was like what the heck I got a lil more energy (or at least I hoped I did) so I climbed all the stairs...again. It was so beautiful! You can see all of Rome! Once I got down Frida and I escaped to eat and shop. We returned to the buses and headed home. Oh and we watched Twilight (In Italiano) and as pathetic as it is I understood it all cause the entire book and movie in English is in my head. It was a really long trip home but we made it at about 12:30am. Luckily my mom let me stay home so all I did was sleep till 11:30am the next day. It was by far one of the greatest weekends of my life. Everyone has to get to Rome some time in their lives, it’ll really make an impact I promise!!

Oh and I know its already super long but here are a few culture things I’ve noticed lately…..

Our group (all the younger kids and their parents) got lost Saturday getting back to the buses and the Italian moms like took over. They are so protective and sweet. They took care of Frida and I like we were there own. Ok well not all, this one mother only cared about her son, I think that if I was on fire she’d first make sure her son was ok before helping. But all the others are so sweet. And even with their sons they show affection and the boys don’t care. I met the best Italian boy yet this weekend too. He had a lil brother and was so sweet and showed affection in public and didn’t care. He even was that way with his mom. Usually boys would like move away from their moms if they tried to play with their hair or kiss them but no. Yet again he is one of the only good ones I’ve met. I was talking to one of my better friends here on the way home from Milano and he explained Italian boys to me. The reason why they ignore the girls sometimes and act like they don’t like them is because they have to ‘keep the girl in her place’ what’s with that? Boys here also don’t pay every time cause then the girl would have too much power. Yep I sure love my American boys now  lol Oh and even though Italians mothers are very sweet they sure like to argue, one of the nicest ladies on the trip was the one that argued with people most. Its kind of funny how in dating in this country the boy is in control but in marriage the wife is somewhat. Anyways you are probably tired of reading my rambles so if you get a chance head to my online photo album and look at the pics from Rome. (The link is on the blog below)

Lots of Love