Two Days More

Pictures: 1) Sono Scorbutico!!! >:D 2) Gelato insieme (ice cream together!) 3)  American stuff in italian stores 4) "Renoir Caffe" 5) Pullman (bus) 

It is so wierd, I cannot even speak in English normally now- i hear it in the Italian accent of someone (everyone here) who speaks the words slowly, breaking up the syllables! haha. Ok I don.t have much time and I have about 400 pictures to choose from to show you my world! To explain really quickly, yesterday (ieri) I boarded the city bus with Chiara and we went to the city, Bergamo (the Greselins live in a small town outside of Bergamo, which is outside of Milano). We met up with her two friends and went shopping for hours in the city! It was so fun and beautiful. Everything is SO different. The shops all go underground and the streets go off at strange angles. The architecuture is simply too incredible to take pictures of because it EVERYWHERE! We bought ice cream (gelato). Later we went to Chiara.s friend,s house (oh my gosh, I seriously can,t talk right. I wanted to say "we went to the house of Chiara.s friend!"). It was like a hotel, walking into the building was like walking through a fancy hotel. When we walked into her appartment I gahsped because it was so much bigger and more finely decorated than any houses I had seen. Her family is very rich. They have three cars. One is a Cadalac, one is a Ferarri, and I can.t remember the other one. The first thing I noticed in the livingroom was that they had a piano! Of course, I asked to play. I started playing the Moonlight Sonata and her mother came out in her bathrobe and started kissing my face, asking me my name, and asking for an ancor! Oh man. It was lots of fun. Then.... (io domentico-i forget) Oh! we dropped Federica up in Cita Alta to eat pizza with her friends because it is their last week of school (I miss eating pizza with you guys!!!) and then we went to La Traccia in Festa. It is the end of the year festival of Chiara.s school, which is their main social community. Huge tents were set up where we got food (and a little prize from a game where they drew our numbers). Stefano brought me to the tents where they were displaying all of the students' work (there's the apostrophe! they're keyboard is a little bit different for the punctuation!). Seeing the displays was very difficult for me. They were extremely beautiful...art, science, filosofia (oops)... we walked into a little section where some kids about my agewere writing for the newspaper for the 10 day festival. The subject of one boy's article (he looked about my age) was the "Crisis in America." He asked me what I thought about it and I said it doesn't affect my region as much as other places... the whole thing made me feel insufferably stupid. Stefano had told me earlier that he had told Chiara, "Here in our newspapers we write about the whole world, but in America, the newspapers only have about America." There was this quote on the wall in the philosophy section and it was so incredibly DEEP, talking about how the students learn about people (men) who asked the questions that all people ask, and that if you do not search for anything in life, it is not living. While Stefano was translating, he came to one word that he could not find a meaning for. As he searched in his mind with difficulty through all kinds of unspoken concepts It felt like this word contained a whole world that I could not enter into, and there was no way for him to bring me there. When we walked outside, a whole group of teens my age were playing volleyball, and though we were probably not any different in age, I felt far younger, excluded in every way possible because I felt I was so much less. "Perche io sono qui." Why am I here? I asked. Not only here in Italy but also here on earth. So we ask deep questions. So we gain all sorts of information and knowledge from all over the world -maybe they get more here than home- but so what!? What is the point? The girls here grow up-having gained such deep and eccelent educations- to keep a house clean and a family fed? Maybe not all of them, but all of the grown women I see do this. I didn't know what to make of everything. 

Anyway, today was much less...challenging in those ways. I got up early (which was a challenge), and got on the bus with Chiara again, and this time we went to her school for the last day. I went to the English class and explained about American schools, how our classes work and such. There, one class of children (for example, 28 kids) all stay in one classroom for all of the classes; it is the teacher who move from room to room, carrying all of their books and supplies. We went to the computer lab to put together the slide show for the festa doppo schola (the party after school), and we picked songs for the slideshow. The teacher put on a very popular Italian song and we watched the music video on Youtube (which is NOT blocked at their school! ;D).  It was sung by many different singers, so I asked about it. It was written for the earthquake that happened here in Italy a few months ago (it ricordi? you remember?). Many famous singers all produced this one song to raise money for the victims (I think that's what they said). The song was very emotional and hopefull, and the people hug each other a lot in the video- but they do that a lot anyway, and kiss, everybody, men, boys, girls, women, children, everybody. Especially since today was their last day at school, all of the friends were greeting each other for the last time (but not really-they aren't leaving to America for the whole summer!!!), and so there was a lot of kissing going on ;) . Ok, not being able to speak in normal English is REALLY freaking me out about now, and it's probably getting really annoying, and you're probably thinking I cannot write well! waaaooo. 

Ok, so to finnish, I went to the art class and drew a picture with Chiara's pencils, of all of the things I was thinking about last night as I went to sleep. After walking through the city all day, most prominent on my mind -as stupid as I feel to admit it- is that tutti le donne qui sonno tanti magre!!! All of the women here (everybody!) are SO thin!!! Not just thin, but tiny in general. I feel like a giant, fat, graso o quido D: It is very ridiculous to feel, but it seems like every single person's stomach is completely FLAT and so all of the clothes look good on them. It is so wierd, and honestly, it's been hard to get used to because I have been feeling like fat, stupid American. I have a feeling I do not feel that way, though, it is just taking a bit of time to adjust. Plus, being SO tired these first few days, sometimes I just stare at people as they talk, trying so hard to understand what they are saying, as if the Italian will magically make sense in my mind if I listen hard enough. But look- I can't even speak English now! (is that a good thing? D:) but the point is, I am learning, and quickly.

Oh, so after art, I went to do Yoga, which was pretty much just crazy because the kids are SOOOOooooooo loud!!! Choir kids, you think it's hard to get the class' attention!? No, these kids are SO loud and crazy, the teachers spent probably at least half of the DAY just calming everyone down. It was really annoying. But they were 6th graders and it was their last day of school. It was nice to do yoga, though, because I could lay down and breathe calmly, which really helped lots of things in general ;)

After school, we went outside to play for two hours until the festa. I was so tired I went to a tree and laid down; I fell asleep in the grass and slept for about an hour and a half! I felt so much better! Chiara and I changed into shorts to play in the sports tornaments. Thankfully, I was able to play calcio\football\soccer! It was SO much fun, and I really did great considering I haven't played in a year! My team won, and I made lots of friends. It started to rain, which was SO fun, because then we played volleyball (palovolo) and we got very muddy -beleive me, it was so much fun! The teachers brought out HUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEE umbrellas that I never got to take a picture of, unfortunately. But when I measured in my head, when folded up, one handle was about 4 feet tall, and when open, the diameter was probably 5 feet!

Ok, I'll try to upload some pictures now. (I hear myself in an Italian accent. this is rediculous). At night I think of each one of you and I miss you so much. i have a hard time falling asleep even with my ipod in. though the familiar music is comforting, it seems almost out of place. this is all so strange!

Mommy: Stefano's home phone is working now, but he says that to call your cell phone, he pays for the call to get to the boarder and then you have to pay (that's just how the phone works), and it is very expensive. I told him it doesn't matter, but we'll try to call the house phone maybe tomorrow. I,ll also try the calling card. 

Too bad I can't write more. The days so far seem PACKED full with things to do, but thankfully I can sleep later tomorrow before we start everything: riding our bikes to a sacred site for a mass with Chiara,s school for the end of the school, then walk for marco's school (like a marathon, but just for fun, for the end of the year), and then go back to La traccia for a play the high schoolers do, which I, understandably, am VERY excited to see!!! 

Sorry i am not talking normally (or maybe I just can't hear myself normal?) It makes me feel wierd, like I'm not myself, like I'm some Italian very far away from you all. but I'm still me, and I love you all with all of my heart and I think of you always! 

Please pray for me . God bless <3

p.s. all of the teens here have cell phones and when I see them in their pockets, I am SO jealous because I cannot text you guys! sometimes I think I feel my pocket vibrate, but I just brushed up against something and in reality my phone is sitting in my luggage, turned off, useless. I am phoneless!!! D:<    ....  ;)