I made it!

Obviously I made it to Italy, although it took longer than expected. Yesterday was a crazy day, but once we finally made it to the airport I thought it would be smooth sailing from then on. Unfortunately, we immediately had a crisis because one girl on the trip (my friend from school named Casey) didn't show up to the airport and when we finally called to find out where she was we discovered that she thought we were leaving Sunday, not Saturday and she was still in Lawrenceville. Needless to say, things were a little hectic, but she ended up rushing to the airport and made it on time. When we finally boarded the plane we thought, again, we were home free, but then there ended up being a problem with the pressure in the cabin and we had to deplane and board a new plane. Our flight was originally supposed to take off at 6:40 P.M., but in actuality, we ended up leaving at 9:40 P.M. Not the most fun traveling experience, to say the least.

After we got to Milan this morning around 1 P.M. (7 A.M. Atlanta time), we immediately got on a bus and drove to Modena. We thought the bus ride was supposed to be an hour and a half, but it actually ended up taking 3 hours. At that point, everyone was so dead from a ridiculous day at the airport that we all basically slept on the bus.

When we finally made it to Modena our host families were waiting for us at the bus station. I was greeted by two members of the Ferrari family, Simona (the mom) and Valentina (the 13 year old daughter). Fillippo and Matteo (the dad and 9 year old son) were on a trip about an hour away from Modena and I met them later in the evening.

After I said my goodbyes, Simona and Valentina loaded up my luggage in their car and gave me a brief tour of the city. They showed me Elementare Galilei, which is the school that I will be teaching at over the next few weeks. Matteo is a student at Elementare Galilei and Valentina attends the middle school, which is right next door to the primary school. The school is only a 5 minute bike ride and a 10 minute walk from their flat and downtown Modena is a 10 minute bike ride. I definitely got placed in a great location because everything is so close!

Once we finished with the tour we went back to their flat for the night. In addition to living right by the center of the town, the family's flat also borders two pretty parks. There are lots of trees, pretty flowers, and benches; I can't wait until I have time to explore and people watch in the parks! The flat itself is also very nice and big, by European standards. I'm staying in what is usually Valentina's bedroom. She was nice enough to let me have the room to myself and she's going to be living with Matteo while I'm here. Her room is basically the epitome of a 13 year old girl's room and staying in here brings me back to when I was 13. There are posters of animals everywhere, lots of colorful notes from friends hanging on the walls, and the room is basically bursting with color. I love it! (Funny enough, almost everything in here is from IKEA! We actually passed 3 IKEAs on the ride from Milan to Modena.)

After settling in for a bit, I basically spent the rest of the day talking with Simona and Valentina. Simona speaks almost fluent English and Valentina has studied English for the last 5 years at school. I'm already HORRIBLE at trying to speak Italian and Simona and Valentina have spoiled me by being able to speak English fairly well. I actually asked them if they would try to speak Italian around me instead of English so I could at least try to understand the language. This has proved to be a big mistake because 1) they talk so fast I can't understand and 2) even if they talk slow I still have no clue what they're saying. My high school French has come in handy a bit since the languages are similar, but hopefully I'll be able to at least carry on a basic conversation by the end of this trip.

Valentina is really sweet and she actually reminds me a lot of myself at 13... definitely shy and awkward. She's been a big help though and we're getting along really well. We ended up talking for a long time about her favorite movies, tv shows, and music and I was really surprised to discover that almost everything she loves is American! Her favorite book is Marley and Me (she has the book in Italian on her bookshelf, which was so weird), she loves to watch anything on the 'Disney in English' channel, and her favorite singers are Katy Perry and Britney Spears. I was really weirded out when she started to play (and sing) Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl' song. Afterwards I asked her if she knew what it meant... she had no idea. Can't say that's a bad thing.

When Fillippo and Matteo got home around 8 P.M. we ate dinner as a family (ha!). Fillippo speaks almost no English and Matteo has only studied English at school for 2 years, but they're both really funny. They're very similar and were constantly cracking jokes at dinner. The jokes were even funny to me and I had no idea what they were saying. I'm really looking forward to getting to know Simona, Valentina, Fillippo, and Matteo better over the next few weeks. It's a lot harder to adjust here than I thought it would be (mainly because of the language barrier), but I know it's going to be a great experience.

I'm actually off to bed because it's been a ridiculously long day of traveling and moving non-stop, but I hope to write again tomorrow. Valentina is letting me borrow her laptop and they have wireless internet in their flat, so it actually worked out really well that I didn't bring my laptop here. Tomorrow we're having our orientation with Anna and Roberta (the women from the Victoria Language program in Italy) and then spending the day shopping and eating pizza and gelato in downtown Modena. There's a university right in the middle of the city, so we're going to check that out too if we have time. I'm excited, but more than anything I need a good night of sleep! Buonanotte!