Ciao a tutti!!

I'm writing from my room in Monticello Brianza, serenaded by a particularly noisy flock of sheep in the field next to the house!

The room Maria Gloria and I share:

And the sheep:

So much to tell everyone! I'll try to keep this post from becoming ridiculously long!

Okay, here's a recap of the past six days:

Because of the ice storms in New England, Mom underwent her Transformers-esque metamorphosis into Hun Tours mode and expertly changed all of our travel plans. We spent Tuesday night in Boston, and then I flew to New York early Wednesday morning. Since the orientation didn't actually start until 5 that night, I had a rather significant amount of time to kill in the scenic JFK Doubletree Hotel. But on the way to the hotel from the airport, I ended up taking the same shuttle as a girl from North Dakota going to France, and we talked for hours (literally, since we had about six before anyone else arrived). That was really awesome, because we were worried about so many of the same types of things and it was fun to wonder about how things would work out with our host families.

The New York orientation itself was kind of like lima beans - useful, but ultimately bland. Few things kill the mood at a party than 70 bored, anxious teenagers! We went over the AFS rules (there are only three of them, so it doesn't take long) MANY, MANY times, and talked some about ways to integrate yourself into the community. The students going to Italy (there are 43 of us) had a Skype conversation with a Sicilian woman, who gave a us a 45-minute crash course in Italian culture. It was intense! The best activity (and incredibly useful) of the orientation was Charades, using a compilation of enthusiastic hand gestures, broken Italian, and odd bits of French and Spanish to try to convey such eloquent ideas as "I need a blender, milk, a peach, and a banana to make a smoothie." If the past three days are any indication, six months from now we'll all have had a lot more practice!

We flew from New York to Paris Wednesday evening, via Air France. The flight was loads of fun. More 45-minute crash courses (in Italian), and we thought that we were ridiculously cool for talking to the flight attendants in high school French (which in my case is completely nonexistent). The flight attendants were very indulgent.

We had a two-hour layover in Charles de Gaulle, which ended up being just enough. We had to go through security again, but we got really confused about where to go so various policeman ended up pushing us towards a seperate security station for airport employees. But since there were 43 of us, we hadn't slept in 24 hours, and everyone was carrying her entire life on his back (why are English pronouns so difficult?), it took a while to get through.

The flight from Paris to Rome was also fun, because I ended up sitting next to a very talkative Lebanese fashion photographer - the conversation ranged from the Statue of Liberty to Alpine skiing to urban development to the state of electrical engineering in Lebanon. All on a 24 and counting hours without sleep, which is definitely the best way to do things!

Le Alpi!!

We got to Rome, lost of a few kids in the airport, eventually found those kids, then waited for a while for the AFS volunteer who had gone off to look for them. And then we drove through Rome to the Villa Aurelia, a hotel-conference center where we had the Italian-side of the orientation.

Everything that other students have said comparing the NY and Rome orientations is completely true! In NY, the volunteers were older and treated us like we were somewhere around the age of 12, the food was okay, the plates were made of paper, and the weather was foul. In Rome, the volunteers were all around 26, our orientation included an impromptu "How to swear in Italian" lesson, lunch and dinner always included three courses, served by waiters, at tables supplied with bottles of sparkling water, and the weather was a balmy 55 degrees (after 36 hours without sleep and 13 hours without food, dinner the first night was very probably the best meal I've ever had). And it was sunny.

Our one touristy thing during the orientation (which was much shorter than we were expecting, although after NY I think we were all tired of being oriented, so it all worked out in the end) was a visit to the Vatican. BELLISIMA!

Whew. This is longer than I planned, and I haven't actually gotten to the host family part yet... Another post with more later! But to sum things up, everything has been going splendidly and I LOVE MY HOST FAMILY.

Baci e abbracci! (Kisses and hugs! Italian is a rather affectionate language.)

Mary