Venice, Christmas, and other hoopla

Aaaaw yeah mission accomplished! Took three months to get to it but I did!

I went to Venice.

It was cool! <3 And beautiful. :D

These wonderful friends took me.

Upon arrival there were also some people who were giving out free hugs. I ran up to them yelling "I want free hugs!" And I got a nice picture too. Haha Apparently it's not normal for people to get free hugs in Venice.

We walked around a lot and there were many crazy pigeons. They flew lower than normal, or they would land on you and demand your remaining food. :O Demons!

It took us a while to navigate the weird alleys to find Piazza San Marco but it was worth it!

We went into the St. Mark's Basilica  where you weren't supposed to take pictures and talk but people still did anyways.

There were so many gondolas and stores of masks!

After more walking  we went into a nice restuarant where I wasn't expecting them to be playing the most ghetto playlist you would only here in an American club. It was hilarious to me. They were literally blasting anything from Waka Flocka Flame to Soulja Boy in an elegant restuarant. Wut...? The waitresses seemed to be enjoying themselves because they were singing along with the words.

You do a lot of walking in Venice...

It was an interesting day. :)
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Cute Christmas yesterday! I received a nice bubble like coat from my parents. :)

I had to wake up at 7AM because my little sister barged in my room screaming," ZAKIYYA, SANTA DROPPED OFF OUR PRESENTS!!!"

I haven't been around children who believe in Santa for so long... my sisters in the US are all older than me so we just don't have that jolly ole' spirit anymore. Marta made me write a letter too because she didn't want Santa to forget I was apart of the family. How cute!

I asked for some cool stuff like a rocket and a bicycle for flying! Then she told me Santa wouldn't be delivering my presents if I had a ridiculous list like that. D: I was dissed by a child. lol

Then my father's brother and sister came over with their kids and we had a good ole' time. Mainly my siblings though... the cousins were more so around their age (7-10 years old) so I wasn't really that interested. But they had a puppy that arrived for them Christmas morning!

Haha cute thing, snapped at everyone's fingers.

Ofcourse there was also delicious food! This dish is only known in a certain northern  part of Italy. It's only eaten once a year because it's very heavy on people with frail stomachs. The cup like shap with a candle is heating a mixture of oils and some anchovies. You dip the vegetables in when the mixture is warm and it tastes good. :D

We even Skyped my host sister in Costa Rica. She was feeling a bit homesick so she watched as the family opened presents together.

The AFS Christmas party was last Sunday and I gave all my friends cute gifts. Alice in Wonderland themed cards I drew (I love Alice in Wonderland a lot!) which said what I thought was special about them. I really am going to miss them when this experience is over but I shouldn't think about that at the moment! Plus little Christmas anime themed hangers I drew for them.

The cards :)

One of the Christmas hangers.

A few minutes before the party, one of our coordinators came up to us foreign exchangers and said we had to do a presentation of our country's Christmas celebration for 5 minutes. ugh. Our Italian is still lame, so it was everyone looking at us like "Aaaaw how cute, they're trying to explain things to us in poor Italian." =|

I also gave my teachers special cards written to them. They seemed so surprise and happy, but I guess none of the students ever give them anything for the Holidays...
My class had Secret Santa going on for a month and they gave me an adorable coffee mug plastered with hearts. They are so awesome. :D

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Finally on break from school. Two weeks to be a bum never felt so great.

It was nice until I caught The Italian Epidemic. Also known as the common cold. At least 5 times worse though. Hacking, coughing, and other info that is unneeded but you can use your imagination.

Why couldn't I have caught the cold when school was still in so I could miss it? Only the day when school closes do I become sick. Lame timing.

I was always so careful. :( I carried hand sanitizer where ever I went! Unfortunately, I drunk some coffee after my friend Alyce who was already sick for days. Fail! The next I was pretty much dead. Quarantined in my room sleeping.

It was only a matter of time before I caught it I guess. Italians have a tendency to sneeze in their hands and then touch everything around them as if nothing happened.

Now to a normal person, they're probably like "Ok, wow, germs, big deal."

NO. To me, I. can't. stand. germs. They are terrible! And it's probably one of the reasons why I'm a neat freak now.

So you can only imagine how much of a nightmare Italy is to me on this subject. The buses, the freaking bathrooms that are squaty potties, and of course when people sneeze in their hands.

I've really tried to ignore these things to adapt but my goodness, come on.

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My computer hates everyone else's blogs now. It won't let me comment or even see them anymore. =|

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McDonald's in Treviso is the biggest rip off ever! For 4 Chicken Nuggets and a Medium Sprite you pay 4.10 Euros. In US Dollars ofcourse it's more.  Without fries, too. That's just wrong. D:

I guess it's Italy's way of keeping everyone from getting fat. xD

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I keep having dreams about zombie apocalypses getting sent back to the US. Not because I've done something wrong in the dreams to get me sent back, it's because my tutors say my trip has ended early for no reason. I don't care if it's three months early or two days I don't want to go back to the US yet! I'm having a good time and so many people worked hard for me to be here. The dreams are so real though! I wake up in a panic and when I see I'm still in my Italian bedroom, then, I am happy. Phew.

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Last week I lost my bus card.

In Treviso, they pull surprise trips where coordinators get on the bus and check everyone for their tickets to make sure no one is cheating the system. Sometimes you think you get through the bus ride safe but then you're about to get off and they're there standing at the doors waiting for you, too.
(They're so strict about the tickets but they don't care enough to get their buses to stops on the exact time. Fair enough yes. =/)

Anyways, it just so happens the week I accidentally lose my bus ticket they crank up the security for the buses hard. ಠ_ಠ So instead of being able to sneak on the buses, I had to buy 2,50 Euro tickets each time I got on the bus until I found my card. My wallet is still crying.

So after waiting for a couple of days to find my ticket I lost hope and just bought a 10 Euro duplicate. But the same night someone found my old bus card on the ground after skating practice. What a waste of 10 Euros! I'll just think of it as a donation to the douche bus company.

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now i need to find something to do for new years'

Adventures away! zooooooom ciao <3

Sono ancora viva!

My brain is so fried from this week.

While my class was being hosted in Germany I stayed in good ole' Treviso going to my school's main building; answering the same repetitive questions in English for Italian students. Oh yeah!

It may sound easy, but after a while it gets old. Then there's the 120 students I can now add to my list of acquaintances that randomnly say hi to me on the streets. Seriously I think I know about half the city's students now.

Not a bad thing. I would love to hang out with them. If they weren't all studying haha! Italian teenagers work so unbelievably hard...

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Last week there was a four day weekend and my family decided to spend it in the mountains. At first I wasn't too happy about this decision since I'm not a very big fan of swerving mountain roads but it wasn't that bad this time.

We went to the region of South Tyrol I believe, an area of Italy that is bilingual; the inhabitants of this area spoke both German and Italian.

You can imagine how useful my three years of forgotten German and poor Italian were to me.

It was a relaxing adventure. There was a nice sauna and indoor heated pool at the hotel we stayed in so I was good to go.

And since my parents are very healthy and think children should be outside more than playing games indoors, we took a nice 4 hour walk around the mountains. I was actually really tired but I got some nice pictures!

After that I wanted to go to sleep but my parents made me study for a Physics oral test I had coming up. (By the way, I failed the exam horrificly. D:)

The town we stayed in was some sort of witchcraft like place where a lot of people believed in weird monsters, witches, and other odd things...

For instance, along the trail I would find distorted wooden benches like these:

people claimed to have been made by witches. They were kind of creepy...

Later on the last night of our trip, there was a festival of monsters! Apparently every year, the teenagers of the region dress up in hiddeous costumes, make cars to ride in, or weird objects and parade around a designated trail through the small town scaring everyone.

Now this wasn't your ordinary scare fest. The monsters at the theme parks in my city of Cincinnati don't grab you. They just scare you and get in your face some. No,  these monsters actually kidnap you into their parade and take you half way through the trail before releasing you somewhere in an unwanted destination.

Luckily I didn't get captured but some monsters tried to get me. I had to stay clear because some of them had fire and dangerous smoking weapons. A lot of the monsters wore gigantic cowbells around their waists so you could hear them and get out of the way before they caught you. But all the university students were so drunk on German beer I guess it didn't even matter.

I couldn't get any good pictures since the people dressed in the outfits moved around too much.

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There was a huge high school of musical students in the town. Students would come and play Christmas tunes in the middle of the Piazza.

My mom is teaching me how to cook! <3

I learned how to make coffee with this weird contraption. It's unbelievably easy and fast! I plan on taking one back in the United States for my family!

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My parents went shopping in the town's market center. I also took some photos of this.

Nutella is everywhere!

There's a lot of cheese in the super markets! :O

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-sigh-

I think Italian traffic needs it's own special section everytime I make a new post.

I'm pretty much angry with Italian transportation and traffic at the moment. With their random strikes, crazy drivers, and no common sense crossing the street. (Goodness, since I've finally adopted the way Italians cross the street, I've forgotten how I would even do it back home in Cincinnati...)

Italy needs to get it priorities straight with these buses.

1. Because when there is a strike with the buses, there will be less of them, and they will be much more crowded than usual, or people won't have a ride home at all. Some students had to walk over an hour and half home two days ago when the last strike happened. Lucky for me, I rode my bike in 30 minutes. And it was raining. =|

AND

2. I am annoyed with terrible drivers! Seriously! My bus got into an accident yesterday morning because a lady pulled out in front of us and the bus driver, using his already wonderful NASCAR skills, had to suddenly brake. No if it weren't for good handrails I could've been seriously injured and not have walked the rest of the way to school. But I'm fine. Now as for some of the other people on the bus with me that's a bit different. Since many of the people that catch the bus are old and don't have a strong grip, they went flying to the front of the bus in a huge dog pile. It was terrible. Ambulances and firetrucks were called to the scene because I think some old ladies dislocated their hips, but other than that I believe everyone walked away fine.

Damn Italian traffic.

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AFS Christmas Party tonight, woo!

I'm actually really interested to celebrate Christmas in a different family this year. I'm curious how this is going to work.

Along with my mom and siblings we put up the Christmas tree at the beginning of the week! It's so cute!

I made my presents for my friends at home and mailed off the package! (It was hard to do so because the postage women didn't really want to help me out much when they found out I didn't speak very good Italian :O But in the end I managed with the help of good citizens.)

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Eeeh! I'm feel like I'm growing up a little bit too much. Having a little brother and sister has brought out and even more responsible side of me. Even though I'm still a bit lazy, I've stopped procrastinating more because I realized how important time is. And I'm taking care of other people on a daily basis than myself for once. I was never used to that...

It's a weird feeling but I'm sure during my AFS experience I will continue to grow and build even more character as the months go by.