hello! it has been way to long, and from now on i'll attempt to write once a week again, because i've been slacking. okay! here we gooooo:
2/9 - 2/15: that sunday i ended up talking to stefano for like 3 hours on the phone, that was cool. i was really jealous because he was perfectly fine in english for 3 hours, but if i had to do 3 hours of italian it would be a different story... Monday! we got to go into school an hour later, and i switched trains in Gallarate (another station, not somma and not busto...) by myself! it was actually kind of funny becasue all of us run from one platform to the other one and push and shove, it's quite intense, but i did it! Saturday the 8th i put my friend tommy's hair in pony tails, because it's super curly and long, and then another day i did braided pig tails! and giulia goes 'i've always asked you to let me play with your hair and you always said no! how come jessica gets to do it?' and he goes 'because she's american, and we're only with her this year!' so that worked out, i have to get those pictures off his phone and put them up here, they're quite funny. i got a 6.5 on that essay i wrote for my italian teacher! that was a nice surprise. atleast passing! We started to make plans about davide coming to visit us this summer sometime during this week, and they are still in the process, more about that later. Wednesday i went to Luca's and he made lunch for me and helped me with my math homework. and we watched that movie with Denzel, Deja Vu. i liked it until the last 3 lines totally ruined the movie for me.. Thursday we had the Valentine's Day Concert, so we got to watch people sing and play instruments. my school is really talented, to say the least. and it was totally a cultural experience watching the choir, so that was nice. :) On Thursday i was talking to my friend Giulia, but from my class (everyone has the same names, it's so difficult!) and she was telling me how she is in love, but she doesn't know with who. She said that cupid struck her, but she doesn't know who the boy is, so we went on a mass hunt to find him, but he is still missing! Friday i went into Milano to meet Catherine, and we did some shopping and got on a train to go to Lago Maggiore. On the train we sat across from these business people who were apparently listening to us, and tlaking about us in italian, thinkng that we couldn't understand them, because we were speaking in rapid american. So then they were imitating us, and like telling us to breathe and stuff adn they go TALK SLOWER in italian, so then i started laughing and they realized that we could understand them. so we started to talk a bit more slow and they were going 'listen and repeat!' like the tapes they use in the english classes here. and so we got to talking with them in italian, that was cool. and whenever anyone got off the train all the other people in our compartment go 'CIAO!' which is soo weird because usually everyone ignores each other, but catherine and i got a lot of CIAO!'s becuase we are soo loud. and apparently good entertainment... My mom picked us up in Verbania and her, catherine and i went out for pizza, then went back to our lake house. both catherine and i were dead, and i fell asleeep curled up in this armchair and woke up like 2 hours later and we were all out. Saturday morning we got up and got ready, then walked around the town for a bit, took a bunch of pictures- like true AFSers- and then went and got Keyne from the train station! (kalee couldn't come, we were sad!!) Then we went to an outside market where i bought some spidey socks, yes! So then that night Ettore came up to the lake house and he and anna went out for dinner and let me cath and keyne have the house for the night. it turned into a diaster zone, because we ate SO much food and drank like 5 leiters of coke. i ended up falling asleep during juno and they were making fun of me. Sunday we walked around the lake some more, and put the girls on a train in Verbania because it was faster that way, due to the crazzzzy amount of cars trying to go back into milan. it took anna and i like over an hour to get home! ah!
2/16 - 2/22: hi! okay! so on monday morning on the train davide was eating a kinder egg for breakfast and it comes with a surprise inside, so it was a dinosaur that we named dino and is now sitting on my desk. he makes random apperances when i find him randomly in my bag, but for now he's hanging out in my room. and also, we were going into the busto station at the same time as another train and Davide thought it would be funny to flick all the otehr people off, because the train we were on had big windows. so giulia and i were waving to them, not knowing that he was flicking them off, then a kid turned to us and flicked us off and we got all offended, and davide didn't say anything, until like the next day and he was like 'yeah, that guy yesterday, you know?' annnnd on the walk to school it was raining and giulia poked me in the eye with davide's umbrella (because the three of us didn't fit all that well....) and my right eye was red for the rest of the day... hahah before he chopped off all of his hair giulia and i counted on the train one day how long he could go without playing with his emo swoop, and it was 17 seconds! amazing. Wednesday during school monica was singing an italian song during break and i was like i don't get it? so gaspa decided she would translate for me and she goes 'perversion' i was like WHHHAT? she was like the song is a perversion. i was like ohh! perverted! We finally got our christmas package from stefano! and i had been telling him how i wanted a pet here, but mom and dad kept saying no! so they bought me one of those fur-real friends and sent it over, it's so cute! and ho-ho's!! My friend has a huuuge crush on the kid that writes all the quotes on the board and for her birhtday i told her i would get him to jump out of a cake like a chip and dale's. but i was joking and so on her card i wrote 'sorry i couldn't bring the cake for taverna..' and she hung it on the wall in our classroom and the one day he came in the room and was looking around and i was like 'AH! THE CARD IS ON THE WALL!!' so we had this like super fast secret mission to pull it down before he saw it. but it worked, so we were fine. Thursday i gave chiara my pen to borrow and she gave it back to me with the cap all chewed and i was like 'ew. chiara!!' but she was like 'oh jessica i am so sorry! i didn't realize!' then she handed me a non chewed cap and goes take this one, but it ended up being for someone else's pen and then we were all switching and it got all confusing. Friday was Giulia (from my class)'s birthday. some girl at our school was thinking of committing suicide, so we had to have the ambluence come and it was all intense. we had a spanish test, which i got an 8 on! yes! i went into 1P and all my mints from this container fell on the gross dirty floor and davide ate them all like a sick little vaccuum cleaner. and seriously the floors are beyond disgusting... Religion we hung out, the machine ate my money, so we were all mad. i was in the bathroom and the male gym prof was like sorry, can i come in? while i was washing my hands, i wasl ike umm yeah, go right a head? SATURDAY! okay, so we got up early to take an early train to milan but it was cancelled, so we went to Gallarate to go to milan, and all was good. then we switched stations in milan and got on the train to go to Padua! the train was suuper cool, and the compartment we were in is where you are supposed to eat, but since it was Carnivale weekend they had to book those seats too. so we got to sit at a table with benches! there were soo many people speaking all sorts of languages on the train, it was super cool. so we got to padua and saw a museum and a really old but gorgeous church and did the center a bit, went to the outdoor food market, (all my pictures are on flickr, finally), got coffee at a famous place - but i forget the name, of course- and went to a HUGE outdoor market where i got sunglasses because it was super sunny and i didn't have any with me. we went inside the basilica and there was mass going on, but we were walking the loop around the center of the chruch with about 100 other tourists, so i found that a bit bizarre. it would be distracting to be in mass and have people walking around, you know? we went out to dinner, finally found the hotel and ended up stumbling upon a chocolate festival for the city workers and they were cool about letting us in and giving us free chocolate. and there was a band doing old pink floyd covers and stuff. and i saw a guy with a shirt that said 'jesus loves even me' i was like, self- confidence, nice. work it out. that night i realised anna wasn't kidding when she said she snores quite loudly. so i didn't get all that much sleep and the breakfast at our hotel was not the best. we missed our original train, so we had to go on the public one and of course i get the seat by all the creepy old men!! the train was completely packed to go to venice and no one could move, but anna came to save me, thankfully and we moved to a different part of that compartment. it took about half an hour to get off of the train in venice (i wans't kidding about the COMPLETLY PACKED part!) we took the like boat bus thing down the main canal and into the main center with St. Mark's basilica. OH! and i met this like 25yearold australian guy who was doing some travelling in italy, and so that was cool to speak some legit english! he has the cooles accent ever though, i was super jealous. we went inside St. Mark's and up to the top on the balcony, which was super cool. then walked around the square, which was rapidly filling up, went to the bathroom for 2 euros each! what a rip! there were so many foreigners and i heard a butt load of americans. we went to some bar for lunch and i realized why mostly everyone over here hates all americans, because we saw a group of college kids who were rude and annoying and i was like YOU ARE WHY THEY HATE US! ah! i got half of my face painted, and the girls that did it were super fun. i am uploading the venice pictures right now, so check those ouuut. i saw a guy dressed like the joker and it was dead on! everyone in venice dresses up, so i have a bunch of pictures of that too. we wandered for a bit, got lost a few times since everything looks the same, and watched a really cool show of this acrobat ladydoing tricks like in the air while being held up by a baloon. pictures, flickr, now?! on the way to the station anna and i got separated, and then my phone died, but we ended up finding each other, so that worked out. inside the station was CRAZY. people were pushing and shoving to get onto the public trains, but since we had to go all the way back to milan we were on a train with reserved seats. but some guy started to beat up a police officer (which is always the best idea when you want to get on a train, right?) so i think he got arrested, but we were all taking videos and i think i have a picture? on the way home i wanted to sleep, but there was a family with a baby who wouldn't shut up, so i didn't get any sleep at all. but from milan to somma i about passed out on the train!
2/23 - 3/1: okay! monday in school we went to the theater and watched into the wild, which is quite good in italian as well. and i understood mostly everything, even though i've only seen it once in english. but there isn't all that much talking, so that was helpful. afterwards we had a huge discussion, then we got to go home! i talked to mom on the phone and i answered in italian and she freaked out. (sorry mommy.) davide chopped his emo swoop off, finally. Tuesday morning i went into one of Maffoli's classes and she gave them a test, but they talked the whole time and asked her for hte answers, so basicaly she has noo control over them at all. Wednesday was our last day before our break for carnivale, so when we got out of school i was all fired up about not having school for 4 days and we were walking to the station and we saw Asta, aka rob pattinson and james franco mixed together in italian boy form, so i go 'OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO HOT!' and i didn't think i was that loud, and he was across the street from us, but then his friend, Pierre, says something to him and their little group turns around and looks and us and i was like oooh crap! so then we had to walk past them on our way to the station which was more than mortifiying. and Sofia and Giulia were like 'i am soo embarassed!' i was liek hello, the person that they heard was speaking english, without an accent, and is that either of you? no! so they knew it was me. parttyy. Thursday i went into Milan with some girls from my class and we went to an art gallery, out to lunch to get these awesome things like hot pockets, but fresh and homemade and way better. we did some shopping and then purposely took the wrong train home so that we could get home earlier, even though we didn't have the right tickets for this train. so we were thinking of stories that if the controllore came what we would say. so they all pretended to be english, then i was american, casti was french, gio was italian and eleonora was spanish, it was all intense. there's a video on flickkkrr! Friday started my eventful weekend. went to gigante with giulia then went to denise's for as sleepover party! we made my mom's cookies (which of course weren't as good) and ordered pizzas and hung out all night. ate a lot of food, had intense dance parties, all the sleepover works. davide ditched us and we were mad at him. denise's cousin and his friends came over for a bit to hang out with us, they left and we still danced and ate. i asked where jasmine was going to sleep and my friend elisa (from giulia's class) goes 'Jasmine sleep-ah qua.' which was super funny. Saturday we woke up really late and watched movies and danced and ate all day. we watched zodiac, which was awesome. elisa had to go home, but giulia, jasmine and i stayed for another night. so that night we all took showers and got ready and had a girls night. we made a huge amazing dinner and watched gossip girl! and all passed out on the couch. Sunday morning i made pancakes, luca and martina came to get me and then they went shopping while i did some stuff at home, because i was dead tired. i watched the brothers grimm which was also super good, but i fell asleep halfwaythrough.
3/2- 3/8: monday was fairly un-eventful. i was super tired. OH! i forgot an eventful thing from last weekend. giulia and i were doing that thing that football players do where they like run and bump chests, you know? but we were doing it with pillows protecting us and for like 20 mintues we were trying to have denise take a cool picture, so she got one, then she gets up to leave and we did it again and i jumped before giulia and she knocked me out of the air and i fell on denise's tile floor flat on my butt. and it hurt really bad, but i was laughing about it and she didn't have ice packs so i put frozen vegetables on my butt and they got a kick out of that. Tuesday we had english conversation for 2 hours, which was super fun and we watched some of the simpsons which is something i haven't seen for the longest time. i talked to mom and dad using that talkster thing, so now we're just hoping it doesn't charge the fontana's. we shall see. Cerana freaked out on me in 1P because i was looking at a magazine with a poster on the inside and i opened it up facing me, not knowing there was anything on the back and she was like 'I AM TALKING; DON'T SHOW THEM A POSTER! I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR ATTITUDE SOMETIMES!' i was like um okay? i wasn't doing anything. then of course 2 seconds later came the 'i am SO SO SO SO SOOORRY!' i was like okay, mpd. during break i ran into a window. because the windows in our room are really low and i didn't know it was open, and i was looking down reading something while walking past them and i ran like head into the window. and my neck hurt really freaking bad. i skyped with randall! yay! we took an english test that i didn't do all that hot on, because she is over annoying about being picky in the sentances. like i wrote 'They company was unable to reach an agreement.' Which, PS. is correct in the context she wanted it, but i got 2 points off because it should have been ' The company couldn't manage to reach an agreement.' like really lady? come on. AND on the walk back to the train station we almost got hit by a postman on a moped, which was plesant. Thursday i missed the first train and so i had to wait, and of course the second train was late, so i got to school late.Then we went to Gallarate with school to watch some philosophy lecture, and afterwards there was a like play thing with this really hot guy as the lead, so we were like ohh he's so cute! and then afterwards we found out he was 19, so everyone was freaking out. and the kid infront of us turns around to me at the end and goes (in italian) 'your school must work really hard at english, right?' and i wasl ike no, i'm american. because i was sitting with eleonora and we speak a mixture of italian and english, because she wants to keep improving her english. And a woman who worked on the play's name was cloud, which was bizarre. I saw this commercial on Thursday night of matt damon and ben affleck and bono and a bunch of people from hollywood speaking italian, it was soo funny. i need to find a youtube link. Friday we had a class assembly which lead to everyone freaking out and screaming at eachother while i listened to muse on my friend's ipod and wrote in my journal. it all had something to do with chemistry testing, but i was a bit confused. but basically the fight lasted all day, and all throughout break too and everyone was crying and i was super confsued. and people kept walking by our classroom and peeking in because it was so loud. Taverna came in to try and stop it, but obviously nothing helped, since i had been doing the same thing like all day. i went into 1P and they found out they didn't ahve english conversation class and they all jumped up and started freaking out at the same time, it was like out of a movie. Cerana somehow cracked into a kid in 1P's facebook and found out he had been sending all the tests to her other 1st year class, so that was really bizarre.i taught them the old Mrs. Fitzmaurice 'good, better, best' thing. we went shopping after school and then my class left for france on saturday morning. Saturday i skyped with aud and was going to go to the disco with Giulia and all of them, but they didn't end up going, so i stayed at home and watched Burn After Reading, which was awesome. I finally got my iPod to work again this weekend! Sunday i put a buttload of pics onto flickr, we went for a really gorgeous walk in Varese down this hill and there are all these monuments representing different stages of Jesus' life with gorgeous statues and frescos. You're supposed to go up the hill, but we decided going down was a better workout, and there were less people. But the weather has been GORGEOUS here this whole week, so i am super thankful for that!
3/9 - Today!: Monday i stayed at home since my class isn't here this whole week! i just hung out and slept and put pictures onto flickr. OH! martina and i made fran's banana bread and it actually turned out okay, i was super happy. Tuesday i went to school and did an hour by myself, an hour with cerana in 1P, another hour by myself, 2 hours with Giana and another hour by myself. but i got to hang out and listen to music all day, and read twilight in italian a bit, so it was fine. I drank one L of water by myself on tuesday, not even realizing, apprently i was super thirsty? whoops.. Anna was really sick, but now she's getting better. Yesterday same deal, school. Mostly by myself, a few Asta sightings. hahaha. Intercultura offered me a spot to go to Pavia for a week next week, but i couldn't go because of spanish and math, but then they didnt have the spot anymore, so it worked out. I got a letter from randy! and a card from papa connors and karen with a some pics from florida that made me really jealous! Yesterday at school i did an hour of spanish, 2 hours by myself, 2 hours of 'math' where we really just talked about the differences between america and italy and looked at pictures, and an hour with cerana and 2nd P. When we were walking back to the station this boy on some bus flicked us off, then blew a kiss at us, so that was weird? i was like umm hi? i got my hair cut and dyed yesterday, (flickr, yet again) its dark and shorter than normal, but i like it. I told that story about a noodle coming out of Jules' nose last night at dinner (Sorry jules, love you!) but they got a kick out of that. i fell asleep on the couch last night, because i was super tired. and today i got up and am now finishing flickr and about to eat breakfast with martina!
that was a lot! so more later, hopefully once a week! this weekend we are headed to the sea, and we're going to go to Pisa and Lucca! i am super excited! i'll put those pictures up when i get back! i hope all is well, i love and miss all of you!! Ciao, Jess.
