1 month!!!

Wow, I've already been here in Sicily for one month!  It's strange because it seems like it has gone by fast, but then at the same time, when i think back to the day i first arrived, it seems like it was a  long time ago.  Anyway, here comes the 1 month updated!
Within this month,  I feel that I've learned and experienced a lot.  One thing I've enjoyed experiencing is the variety of food!  I think one of my motto's this month has been “eat and be happy”.  Haha this motto most likely results in weight gain, but then again I think, hey i'm in Italy and i want to experience all the wonderful foods while I'm here...I think I'm allowed to splurge, it's just good I have about a year to do it (that way I can spread it out!)  :)  I'll just do a little food run-down;
pizza!  When you order a pizza here, everyone gets their own pizza and they're big (probably about as big as 2 full plates put together!)  I've yet  to finish a whole one, but they are delicious! Basically you can have just about anything you think of on your pizza.  All the ingredients are fresh and just tossed a top the pizza.  The pizza is cooked in a big brick oven and then when the pizza comes out, they pour oil over the top of it (oil is added to a lot of things!)…so I’m guessing this wasn’t the low fat kind of pizza but it was delicious and messy and wonderful!!!  One night my host family and I went out to a pizza restaurant for dinner.  This was my first real time having to order something at a restaurant (good thing it was only pizza).  I was looking over the menu and there were so many different kinds of pizza options.  The waiter came to take the order and I was still trying to translate the menu and figure out what i wanted.  So, when it came my time to order, I just randomly picked a pizza.  I really had no idea what I was ordering, but i figured it would be interesting to try.  When the pizza came, it was this great big fancy thing, with prosciutto and some kind of sauce drizzled over the entire thing (making a checkerboard pattern)…it looked very good and it was!  I still don’t know exactly what it was, but I liked it. 
Here at the house, I've done some cooking with my host father.  We've made peach marmalade, very good!  And also a tiramisu cake (which we joked and called Tirami"up"...because in Italian "su" means "up"..haha).  I like to cook, so I've enjoyed helping to cook and eat!  I even bought an "eating in sicily" cookbook so I can try various things.  Also, I brought some American recipes with me, I haven't made much of them so far, but i did make brownies for my host family...they had never had them!  I guess it must be more of an American thing :p 
Ok enough on the food.  
Another experience I've had this month has been at the movie theater.  I saw my first Italian film, Innocenti Bugie.  It was a good action film...I didn't understand all the dialect, but I could follow the jist of the movie just watching.  A couple interesting things;  the movie, had an intermission….like all of the sudden, part way through the film somebody paused the movie, the Italian phrase for intermission appeared on the screen and the lights came on in the theater.  Haha kind of strange I thought.  It was only about 5 minutes, some people got up and moved around and others stayed seated.  After about 5 minutes, the lights turned back off and the movie continued.  I also laughed when I realized the concession stand was selling “pane”…which is bread….not to be confused with “pene” (a male body part) which sounds quite similar but obviously means something quite different (as my host parents so kindly informed me after I misspoke and said the latter of the two one evening).   Sometimes I wonder, why the "inventors" of languages even made awkward words like that so similar to everyday (commonly used) words?! haha I guess we'll never know!  Another funny "word" story;   A lot of the music that teenagers listen to around here are the popular American songs….so I think a lot of their English vocabulary comes from what they hear in songs.  The other day at school, somebody wrote a word down on a piece of paper, gave it to me and asked, what does this mean?  I looked at the word…"Fergalicious”…..hahaha I burst out laughing….i thought, hmm how do I explain this one, a word that doesn’t even exist.  He had obviously heard the word used in Fergie’s (a musical artist) song.  I explained to him that “Fergalicious” was not actually a word, it was something the artist, Fergie, made up and that it combined her name and the English word “delicious”.  I'm not sure if my explanation made sense or not, but it at least made for a funny story.
Also recently, I had a chance to visit Taormina.  It is a beautiful Sicilian city located on the top of this hill and the view is magnificent.  Actually, you could only drive up so far, then you had to park your car and take a bus or walk to the main street.  The main street was just for walking (no cars allowed) and it was gorgeous….lots of cute shops and cafes and such beautiful scenery.  I think I must have walked the main street 2 or 3 times…each time exploring different alley ways and different shops.  The weather was beautiful and as I walked I could hear various Italian music coming from the shops, it was great!  While i was there I also got a chance to see an old outdoor theater, that is still used today for concerts.  It was so beautiful and interesting! Ok, i think i have written almost a novel now so i will stop (i hope i haven't bored everyone.)  But in conclusion, it's been a great month! I am happy and so thankful to be here, to have a great host family and to have such great continual support back home from all of my family and friends!<3

3 Weeks!

Right now I am sitting here updating my blog, dipping some italian cookies in my hot chocolate and getting ready to watch "L'Era Glaciale" (Ice Age in italian)...haha life is good! :)  Since my last posting a lot has happened so I'll try to give a quick update.
I've started school and so far it is going well...actually i should say the stuff i understand is going well.  haha I'm in some classes like philosophy, history, physics and Latin, which are difficult classes to begin with, but trying to understand them in Italian is even harder!  I just take it one day at a time though and keep working on my italian (fluency is the goal right now but it seems to be coming quite slowly).   I’m getting better at understanding what people say to me (as long as they talk slowly), but I still am not very good at responding.  I just can't wait for the day I wake up from having a dream in Italian! :) Back to school, all the kids in my class are really nice.  They really try to include me in everything that is going on and help me out with the language.  School here is different in several ways from school in America.  Here, the kids stay in one classroom and the teachers move (so you have all your classes with the same people.)  At first, I thought I wouldn't like this, but it's actually been nice because I've been able to get to know the people in my class pretty well.  Another difference is with the sports and clubs.  All extra curricular activities are done outside of school.  As of now, I haven't joined any teams, but maybe I will. Outside of school, I've been keeping busy.  I have been on walks through the piazza, visited some of the historic Castles, and have even done a little shopping.  I love all the architecture and scenery here!  It's beautiful, and the history behind it all is very interesting to me!  Last weekend, I had my first Rotary orientation and the drive to the meeting was gorgeous!  At first glance everything just seemed kind of brown to me, no full green trees like I’m used to seeing.  But then once I really started to look around, I notice the natural bare beauty of it all.  It’s almost like the land was untouched by man (except for the road).  Natural peaks and valleys surround you and then all of a sudden you can see a city up on a hill.  You see the houses all packed in together and the historic buildings in the center.  It’s beautiful and almost indescribable (i'm disappointed i didn't have my camera with me to take pictures of it all)!!!  I will try to upload what pictures I do have though. As far as the food goes, I'm still enjoying it all.  I have now experienced Granita (which i love) and Arancini which are Sicilian specialties (granita is like an icey ice cream and arancini is a fried thing with rice and tomatoes and meat in the center.)  I think that is about all i have time for, Ciao for now :)