Finally

Ok! So I am finally here and living my Italian life. And finally I am writing about it. Sorry it took me so long but it's hard to find time for stuff like this when you are an exchange student! To shorten things up both orientations (NY and Rome) went fine and I made lots of new friends! I'm pretty sure I doubled the muscle in my arms just from carrying my insanely heavy luggage. On the plane to Zurich I was tired but they had all these movies and nothing makes me happier than movies so instead of sleeping I watched The Great Gatsby, The Internship, and Goodfellas. At the Rome orientation we stayed at a hotel that used to be a convent I guess and I had an awesome roommate. It was so cool to meet people from all over the world!

I have been in Cagliari for 2 weeks today. My first week was filled with homesickness and feeling lost in a new city and home. But now that I am getting used to my city and the language and meeting new people I'm loving it more and more! The food is great and I eat pasta for almost every meal. I don't think I will ever get tired of it! I also love the fact that they drink so much coffee here because not only do I love coffee but I really love Italian coffee.

I was definitely made for city life. Coming from a small town to here makes it so much more interesting! I love that I can walk next door to a bakery or gelato shop, which I could never do at home. There is so much I want to do that I constantly need to remind myself that I have all year to do it!






I also love the people here! Everyone is so nice and helpful. When people hear I am American they get very excited! My classmates were so friendly on my first day of school and made me feel really good because it sort of freaks you out when it's your first day in a foreign school. But everyone talked to me, invited me to sit with them, and translated when the teachers said something I didn't understand. It feels great to finally have some friends here! I'm also getting close to the AFS group of kids living here. I don't get to see them as much but when I do it is sort of relieving to be able to talk to other kids who can understand what you are going through.

That's it for now! I'm going out with friends for the first time (finally) and I am really excited!
Ciao for now!

Saying Goodbye

Heyyy guys! I have 2 more days at home. 1 more night in my own bed. Whaaat?! I can't even think about it. It's too crazy. AND I'M NOT READY!

This weekend has been bittersweet because I am saying goodbye to everyone. I've had a blast seeing everyone one last time before I leave and I can't even believe that I won't see them for a whole year! Of course there is facebook, twitter, instagram, skype, email, etc. it will be weird not being around any of them for so long. So to say goodbye I had a goodbye party with my friend Olivia (who is also going to Italy) at my house. There were just 15 people or so but we had a fun time talking, eating tacos and ice cream cake, and playing Rockband.

Made by my little sister!

I also had one last hurrah with 4 of my best friends that I have known all my life. Basically everything we did all night was stupid or crazy but it was ok because yolo right? We played (and failed miserably at) ping pong, gave my friend Shannon a magical makeover, sent a bajillion snapchats, played monopoly until 4 in the morning, and ate an entire chocolate cake. It was the best night I've had in a very long time. It definitely helped me relax from all my stress!

                                                                       Surprise cake made by Shanny!

We're only a little weird...

 Our monopoly game was actually quite amusing. There was a lot of yelling, and bargaining, and singing, and throwing money, and just total chaos. We all of course started out fairly evenly and could hold our own but, as the game goes, my friend Kate started making tons of money and monopolizing on multiple properties leaving me, Tessa, and Shannon to all get married so we could share money and property. Together we owned 3 sides of the board but Kate was still piling on the hotels so we had to temporarily throw out our moral standards and resort to desperate measures. For example, stealing money

from the bank, pretending to be paid from chance cards, and not moving the right number of spaces to avoid landing on one of Kate's properties. Sometimes Kate would show us some mercy by letting us serenade her instead of paying a full $6,000 for landing on Boardwalk. After 3 hours of playing, the game ended when I had the unfortunate luck of landing on Park Place and there wasn't even enough money in the bank to pay. So after all of our cheating, stealing, and fighting, Kate still won in the end.

Another exciting thing that happened in my life is that my cockatiel laid an egg! She is a few years old and her name is Benny, just for some background info. And well I didn't know it was possible so as you can maybe imagine I started freaking out as I walked into my room and saw a little white egg in her cage! Apparently it is possible but it's just an infertile egg, so we wont have any baby bird hatching or anything. But as grumpy as my bird is, she is just so freakin' adorable when she sits on her little egg.

Grumpy but cute.

 So. Things are coming together. Sort of. I'm getting my goodbyes said, my clothes washed, documents in order, schedule figured out. There are still many things to do. The biggest of them is PACKING. I'm sitting in my room surrounded by piles of clothes, bags full of stuff, and overflowing boxes. We are only allowed one suitcase (44 lbs), a carry on, and our personal item. Then there is another detail: we don't have access to our luggage during orientation so everything I need for that has to be in my carry on. Packing is a complicated process because I need to decide what goes in the suitcase, what goes in the carry on, and what gets shipped. Which means factoring in weight, temperature, what I need and don't need, and so on. SO NOW YOU CAN ALL UNDERSTAND HOW FRUSTRATING IT IS. It's bad enough to pack for a whole year but with all this extra stuff to figure out it makes my life 10x harder! Doesn't help that I'm sort of doing this last minute but hey I do literally all of my packing last minute.

My room was clean for almost a day.

Ok well this is it for now. I smell my last meal at home cooking. Of course I chose the most American thing possible, hamburgers! Even though, since I'm semi-vegetarian, mine is actually a venison burger. I'm soo hungry oh my gosh so I'm going to go eat and get lots of protein to stay up all night packing. Woohoo! My next post will probably be in New York or even Rome! Ah!
See you next time lovies!

Preparations

Hello hello hello! I hope you are all doing wonderful and even if you aren't you're probably doing better than me! I am so stressed out because I have a billion things to do and only a week to do it all. Like I don't even have time to breathe. It's just insane.

So one thing I'd quick like to touch on is what I'm putting in this blog. Obviously it's mostly meant to record and share my time abroad, but I also want it to include things about my life and thoughts and hobbies and likes and dislikes and random details. Whether you know me, have yet to meet me, or will never meet me in your life, I want some of this blog to help you get to know me. Because it is much more fun to read about someone you know instead of reading about a random stranger you know nothing about. So basically just don't be surprised when I talk about baking cookies instead of Italian culture.

Can you recognize what's on my hat?

On that note, in case you were curious about my whereabouts, I am at my cabin! Technically it's my grandparents' but my whole family on my mom's side goes there all the time in the summer. A normal day at the cabin generally consists of sleeping in, swimming, and lots of ice cream. This is our last visit to the cabin this year (tear tear) but I'm glad I could fit in one more weekend here before I leave. And since there's not much I can do here to get ready it's the perfect time and place to relax one more time before the hectic week ahead of me!

 (Also expect a lot of pictures because I like taking pictures and people like looking at pictures so it's a win-win!)
 

New hair!

One thing to get ready was my hair. For those of you who don't know, until a few days ago I had bright red hair. I'm a natural blonde but that was boring so for the past two years I've been a proud redhead. (Picture below) Unfortunately, that sort of hair is not ideal for an exchange student. So I had to say goodbye to most of my red hair. Now it is a light brown with red on the ends. I desperately wish I didn't have to lose my red, but it had to be done. (Tear tear again) And even though I miss my red and I never thought I'd ever be brunette, I like my hair like this! And it is ideal because I can grow it out without obvious roots and it will fade to a natural color. So I know this whole paragraph is about hair which might seem ridiculous but it's a big deal to me! So don't hate, don't judge. Just read.

Old hair!

 Like I said in the beginning, I am stressed to the max with my to do list. I can't even take naps anymore because once I'm not distracted by anything all I can do is think about all the stuff I need to do so I just sit there freaking out which makes me wide awake. I feel like I'm never going to get any of it done. It's like I'm moving in super slow motion and time is fast fowarding around me. AHH! I can't take it! To give you an idea, here is what I need to do in a week:

• Figure out what to pack (clothes, shoes, movies, gifts, etc.)
• Wash any clothes that I need to pack
• Actually pack everything
• Get emails, skype names, and addresses of friends and family
• Plan a goodbye party
• Throw the goodbye party
• Say goodbye to everyone
• Make instructions for taking care of my bird
• Finish one more unit of Rosetta Stone
• Try to get my drivers license
• Clean my room
• Eat lots of American food
• Order some stuff
• Buy some stuff
• Clear off memory cards
• Skype my host family

And that's just all that I can think of right now! Buh. I'm doomed. And tired. And stressed. And excited. And freaking out. And every emotion possible all at once. Pretty much!

So that's it for today. Man, this is long. Next time I'll probably be mostly talking about packing. Ugh even just seeing the word makes me want to cry. So this should be interesting and you get to experience it with me! But probably without the crying. Unless you want to then go ahead and we can cry together. Okay so goodnight my lovies!

Visas and Cookies

Hello everyone. It's been almost a month since my last post so sorry about that but I'll warn you now: don't expect regular posts because well I'm not one to be organized or motivated. So yeah!

A week ago I went to Chicago with my family to get my visa from the Italian consulate. I had my appointment in the morning and everything went perfectly! We didn't even need the 5,000 copies my mom made of each document. I got my visa a few days ago in the mail so I'm ready to go! For the rest of that day in Chicago I spent all my time and energy running around the stores of Michigan Ave because shopping is a wonderful thing. I fell in love with Chicago in just the 2 days I was there and yes someday I will live there. It was a fabulous time in a fabulous place.

Another very exciting thing that happened in my life today was that I baked cookies! Now for most people this is no big deal, but I don't bake. And when I do I usually fail miserably. And the only time I ever bake is about once a year when I wake up and have sudden inspiration to do the almost impossible (for me this is baking). But today, all by myself, in one try, I have successfully made chocolate chip cookies! Though a little crunchy they taste good and haven't killed me yet! So I am feeling very proud of myself and you should too. Of me I mean. Please. And thanks.

The last thing is that I got my orientation info for when I'm in Rome. And I'm sort of freaking out because it's like OMIGOSH. I don't know how to explain it but I guess there are a lot of unanswered questions and I don't know like anything and yet I do and it's just like whatever but I don't know. I am very excited to meet everyone though because there will be around 470 kids from around the world! Like what! It's gonna be pretty sweet.

My biggest problem right now is what I shall do to pack. But I'm not even going to get into that right now. I mean I have time! Right? Well most likely half of my packing will be done the night before I leave anyway but oh well! So until my next post.. Arrivederci my lovies!

Sweet Sixteen!

So my first post AND my 16th birthday, woo! How exciting. Almost as exciting as the fact that I'm going to Italy for a year in less than 2 months! AHDKOGIERHW I CAN'T WAIT. I can't wait to get my license, get my visa, get my plane ticket, and get the heck to Italy!

So since it's 12:33 am my brain cannot think of anymore to write so ta ta for now my lovies! I can't wait until I'm actually there and the real fun begins...

Love, Karina