'ALLORA!'

The Festa di Chiusura (Closing Party) ended up being an amazing event. The Modena Golf and Country Club was beautiful and it was so nice to see everyone dressed up for the occasion. So many people showed up too, which was great! I went with my entire host family and was very surprised to see that one of my teachers, Pina, and one of the English teachers, Lavignia, came for me!

We spent a good hour or so just socializing and enjoying the food and champagne. It was really nice to see the four different laptops set up on tables around the room that were playing the slideshows of pictures we've compiled of our time in the schools, our families from Italy and the US, and pictures of Athens and UGA... I know everyone there enjoyed looking at our pictures. On one laptop we even had a UGA football game playing. I have never seen so many Italians gathered around with such confused looks on their faces... it was hilarious to watch!

After about an hour had passed Roberta and Anna (from the Victoria Language Program) gave a speech thanking our professors and the girls for being so easy to work with (really, what did they expect?!). Afterwards our UGA professors, Ron and Beth, gave speeches in Italian thanking everyone and it was great. Once our professors finished talking each girl had to stand up in front of about 100 Italians and speak... in Italian. We were all SO nervous, but it ended up being fine and really funny in some cases. I was very shocked to hear later from several people, including the program director and Maestra Pina, that I had a future in Italy because my Italian pronounciation was so good! Pina even tried to tell me that I should move to Italy and work here... I kindly declined her offer (in Italian-ish). Anyways, I've been trying really hard, so it was nice to hear that my hard work has been paying off :)

When the speeches were finished the girls gathered the audience together to teach them UGA cheers. This was by far the funniest thing I have done since I've been in Italy. Everyone got so into the cheers and it was really funny to hear a big group of Italians screaming 'GOOO DAWGS, Sic' em!' (Sidenote: Afterwards I had to explain to about 20 Italians what 'sic'em' means... not an easy task). We did a couple of other cheers and everyone really loved it, which was great. Matteo (my host brother) would not stop screaming cheers (and cock-a-doodle-doo) the entire way home from the country club.

Yesterday went by very quickly in the schools... I can't believe we only have one day left before we're done! The most exciting part of the day happened right before I left at 12:30 P.M. I could tell the kids were getting really anxious and excited when Paola came to school to take over for Pina, but soon enough I realized that they were so crazy because Paola brought a present for me! She handed me a small bag, which she said was from the insegnanti (teachers) and the bambini (children), and the kids started to FLIP out. They were chanting my name and circling around me, getting louder and louder as I opened the bag. The gift was sweet-- it's a pink charm bracelet with butterflies all over it-- but more than anything it was great to see how excited the kids were to give it to me! Natalie also got a similar bracelet that's green with stars all over it from her class, so it was fun to show them off to our friends later on.

After school Natalie and I (with our matching bracelets) rode our bikes to the center to meet Jessica and Jenny for pizza and gelato at Slurp, which has the best ice cream I've ever had in my life. Nutella and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream and hot nutella fudge on top is incredible. I'm glad I'm coming home soon or else I'd eat this stuff every day for the rest of my life. We hung out at a park for a while, waiting for our huge meal to settle, and then we all rode back home.

When I got home I immediately got ready to go to dinner in the mountains with my host family and Fillippo's brother and his brother's girlfriend. They wanted to let me try tigelle and gnoccho (two traditional Modena dishes), so we had to drive about 30 minutes away to a restaurant in a village called Marnelle (apparently those dishes are only really served in the summer). It was a very loopy and crazy car ride, because Italians are ridiculous drivers and even more so on windy mountain roads, but we finally made it to the restaurant around 9. Zio Federico (Fillippo's brother; the kids' uncle) is hilarious and it was great to meet him and his girlfriend (I forgot her name). They also brought the girlfriend's uncle (I forgot his name too), who is practically fluent in English, so it was a lot of fun to have a translator sitting by my side all of dinner (and to let Simona have the night off).

The gnoccho and tigelle were delicious. Gnoccho is basically little pillows of deep fried pastry that you put meat and cheese on top of and eat; Tigelle is the same thing, except instead of deep fried pastry dough they're little round pieces of crunchy bread that you cut in half and put the meat and cheese inside. Also, at the end of the meal you take the hot tigelle bread things and put nutella inside... yum! We also had some Lambrusco and Limoncello and the food never stopped coming from the moment we sat down. It was interesting to see how much these people are able to eat and still stay so thin. Simona even said last night that Modena has some of the fattest food ever (gnoccho, lard, proscuitto, parmesano reggiano cheese, etc), but not any fat people.

After dinner we made our way home and the entire family went to bed immediately. Valentina had school this morning and we were out until 11:45, so I'm sure it was a slow morning for her. I, on the other hand, got to sleep in very late, which was sooo nice!

I've actually got to run and pack because we're leaving to go to the mountains as soon as Valentina gets done with school at 1. The Ferraris have a mountain house in a town about an hour from Modena, so we're going there until Sunday evening. Their friends, the Canalis, are also coming to the mountains for the weekend and bringing my friend Chelsea from UGA that they're hosting. It should be a great time, but also a very busy weekend because we get back from the mountains on Sunday night, I leave for Venice at 7 on Monday morning, arrive late in Modena on Tuesday night, and then have my last day of school on Wednesday and we leave for Rome that afternoon. It's going to be a busy next couple of weeks, but I'll write back when I get a chance. Ciao!