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