Sarah Rees - TAS to Italy

Fri 22 Feb 2008

Sarah Rees, from Rosny college in TAS is on a long program. She has now completed the first three weeks of her exchange.

CIAO!!!

AAArgh I still can’t speak Italian!!!! I am trying so hard but it is impossible for you to understand how difficult it is I mean they have 5 different ways of saying ‘the’ and it changes from gender and plural and singular forms and that is nothing compared to the rest or the rules!!!!

My first three weeks have been interesting. They have gone very quickly, I was hoping by now I could at least have a conversation. My host mother brought me an Italian magazine to read which she says is easy but I beg to differ. So far I have just been able to make out what the captions under the pictures say. I guess it is a good start.

It’s so cold here! This morning it was -6 degrees. I was going to walk to school but I couldn’t find my gloves and I went outside and I couldn’t feel my hands after 10 seconds. Speaking of cold I am might be going skiing next weekend, or going to Venice I can’t decide which is more exciting! Last Sunday I went to Trieste it is the capital of the region (state) I live in, my host family had just learnt about my passion for theatre so they showed me the theatre in Trieste and I laughed when I saw a CATS poster on the wall I even took a picture . On the first of March I am going to Switzerland with my school for a week. I am staying with a host family in St. Gallen in Switzerland! I’m not sure of the exact programme yet but Denise (The Swiss girl) is going to write it out for me in English and email it to me Bless her. She tells me that she is going to take me to Zürich the capital of Switzerland to go shopping  and I think I’m going skiing too in the Swiss Alps too. I’m excited 

I really liked school to start with here because it was different and exciting, now I am starting to get used to it and there are sometimes where I am really tired and I cant be bothered trying to learn Italian at school but I think I am getting better. It is my French teacher’s missions to make me speak French better than Italian; little does she know I don’t actually know what she is saying and I think it is most likely going to stay that way!

Today I did a math test in Italian. I didn’t finish it because it took me half an hour to translate the questions then I realised I couldn’t remember the equations so I only did a few questions, but the teacher was happy with my anyway. I also started a course of Italian for foreigners so I hope this will improve my Italian too. My spelling of English words has gone out the window, I was in class and I was writing a note to a friend of mine and I couldn’t remember if tomorrow had one ‘m’ or two so I wrote ‘Domani’ which is Italian. I was so ashamed of myself, but then I was proud of myself because I knew it in Italian. Ha-Ha I got my report the other day, and because I don’t actually get marked on anything there were no marks on it, it was so funny, My friends from school told me to make up my marks and give myself 10’s in everything (ten is the highest mark).

Because I go to a language school I get to go and see English theatre I was so happy  My English teacher asked me to go with her to two performances, my class only got to go to one. I saw ‘Hamlet in Concert’ it was fantastic; they created a very modern version of the play. They infused the music of Queen and others into the play and made Hamlet very easy to understand, it was very entertaining. I also saw ‘Look back in anger’ which had lots of good monologues  after each show the actors spend 20 minutes or so taking questions from the audience and ‘Look back in anger’ is written to be set in the 1950’s but they had made the play in our time, so I wanted to know why…so I asked. And well… the lead actor (a really quite attractive English guy) came to me with a microphone and made me stand in front of a packed theatre 6 times the size of the theatre royal, and he asked me my name, and when he realised I didn’t have an Italian accent he asked me where I was from, and then asked me if I liked the show and then several more questions.

MacDonald’s here is heaps different, I went to Citta Fiera (a massive shopping complex) after school a few days ago with the other two Aussie exchange students and we had MacDonald’s and its weird as! I ordered a small, and the small is the size of a large in Australia! I couldn’t eat it all!

Italian food is so fantastic  it’s just so yummy!! There hasn’t been anything I haven’t liked yet, I even ate sultanas! My family bought a traditional Christmas cake for me to try and it had sultanas in it, I didn’t want to be rude so I ate it and it ended up tasting alright! I only dry reached once luckily no one was looking

In Italy I live about 2km from my school and 1km from the centre of Udine. Udine is in the middle of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the capital of which is Trieste. From my school you can see the Alps, it’s completely insane! I haven’t actually taken any pictures of Udine yet but I will soon! I have my own bedroom and bathroom which is fantastic! We have a house keeper who comes a few times a week and she cleans my room and washes and irons my clothes for me it’s so cool. I have a host brother who is 17 and a host sister who is 13. They both are good at school and study a lot! My host mother works for Internal Ministry from what I understand this is like an internal government job; she tells me she works in Home office but I’m not exactly sure what that means. My host father is a doctor and the chief of the hospital in Udine so he must be a good doctor  Francesca and I were playing with his stethoscope (I think) and checking our heart beats the other day. My house is three stories and it isn’t a co joined house. My room is on the top floor. If you look it up on Google earth it isn’t the right house.

So far I have been to Trieste, Strassoldo (by mistake will explain in a minute), Udine and Codroipo. One of my good friends from school Giulia (Alex it is pronounced like Julia g+i=j) lives there and I have been there a few times after school. It is a 45 mins bus ride. The first time I came home on the bus by myself I got off too early and had no idea where I was, it was raining and I had to go into a hotel and ask for directions. Luckily I had gotten off in Udine so it was only a half hour walk to my house. I always unintentionally go for ‘several hour’ walks because I go somewhere make a wrong turn and spend and hour or so trying to find myself and ending up completely lost, then I spend half an hour asking for directions and I finally find myself! Anyway the second time I went to Codroipo Giulia’s family took me to Citta Fiera (the massive shopping complex) which is in Udine. The had said they would take me home so we got in the car and started driving home and after 10 mins I was wondering where we were going and then we ended up in Strassoldo, I looked at Giulia and said I live in Via Strassoldo in Udine not Strassoldo! And she laughed and then we had to drive for half an hour back to Udine. Luckily her family is really nice and they didn’t mind they were actually laughing about it! I was sitting there apologising over and over again!

Coffee here is very different! It’s completely lush but they don’t have Starbucks or Gloria Jeans they have café’s where you go and either stand at the bar or sit but it is 3 times more expensive if you sit. Every Saturday Stefano (my host father) takes Francesca and I to a café for breakfast which consist of some form of sweet bread and coffee, it’s nice I like it.

If you are female and reading this look up Raul Bova, he is my favourite Italian actor! Look him up you will see what I mean. Also download a song called ‘Vamos a La Playa’ it is my favourite Italian song at the moment. And if anyone has ‘Con te Partiro’ or ‘Time to say goodbye’ can you please send it to me!!!! ‘Ti Ricordi Quella Volta’ is good as well. Everyone in my class likes ‘Daft Punk Vs Benny Benassi - Put Your Hands Up For Technologic (Gyle'Z 2Nd Bootleg Remix) For Goldesel’ I sort of like it, it is kind of strange but I can only listen to it once a day.  Listening to Italian music helps me learn Italian  I can sing the entire song of ‘Vamos a la Playa’ not sure exactly what it means something about going to a beach and partying the night away I think. My music taste has completely changed since I have been here.

For all of those who have asked me, Ciao is pronounced like ‘chow’ c+i=CH

Ah sorry this email is so long, but I hope I haven’t missed anything.

BACI (kiss)