It's Christmastime!

Buon Natale a tutti! J Christmas is only five days away and I am SO excited to experience it in Italy. I’ll be going up to a village in the mountains with my host family (they have a house there) to celebrate, and it’ll be wonderful to get some mountain snow this year. The holiday season has been pretty busy for me, tomorrow is the Christmas choir concert and last weekend was the Rotary Christmas lunch. I’ve gotten some good travel opportunities in as well- the other day I attended a lecture on belcanto (classical Italian singing technique) in Venice, and one evening some exchangers in our district took the train to Verona for our exchange friend’s birthday! As for what I’ve been up to on a daily basis, here is an outline of my average day as an exchange student here.

Every day I go to school and recently I’ve started tutoring in English. I really enjoy teaching English, which is making me think that ESL may be a good career choice for me! Today I helped three girls prepare for their English oral exam in January. After school I come home for lunch, then usually practice piano (tomorrow I have my first piano recital!). I’ve started doing some different after school activities: zumba (a type of dance with latin-ish music, very fun), choir (of course), and Italian class (I’ve been improving!). We eat dinner at around 8:00 and I usually go to bed pretty exhausted.

I’m hoping to do some winter hiking during the Christmas break, so we’ll see if that works out… I’ll post a bit later when the break finally gets here. Only one more day of school, thank goodness!

With a street performer in Verona

Christmas lights in Verona!

Shopping in Verona!

Decorating the Christmas tree with Marco :)

The view from my window at school... and the reason I have trouble paying attention in class when the beautiful snow covered alps are so close

This is "lardo"- instead of bacon with meat, it's just the fat. The white part is the fat, and the pinkish strip is the meat. I was a bit skeptical at first but it's S0 yummy!!

Little treats from the Pasticceria... aka my Italian substitute for cakewalk :D

Headed to a voice workshop in Venice with a friend from choir!