Update and Advice to Future AFS'ers

Ciao a tutti!  I have come to the conclusion that the only thing harder than going on exchange, is going on exchange an trying to keep a blog.  I am terrible at keeping this updated.  In my defense, this has been the craziest month of my life.  It has certainly been great… but crazy.  Anyway, I’ll try to update more often blah blah blah…  This post will be an update, but it came to my attention that this blog goes out to A LOT of people.  Like a lot.  Because of this, I will do an advice portion to any future AFS’er.

Many people claim that it’s around the six month period that you finally settle into you Italian home, but I think I’m an outlier.  I feel completely at home here, and I’ve only been here a month.  The language is still a barrier, but it’s something that has become a part of my daily routine, so I am not annoyed by it anymore.  Everything is just normal; I have a routine, I know the city well enough to take public transportation (which is confusing no matter where you go by the way), and I have a home here. 

The language is becoming way easier.  I have gotten to the point where I can understand 75% of what people say, but my speaking is still rough.  It’s very patchy for me.  One sentence will come out fantastically, and then the next will make me sound like a child.  I can live with that, as it provides some conversation starters with new people. 

Update

Since my last post, so much has happened.  It’s impossible to write it all, so I’ll just tell you two major highlights.

In late February, my brother Giorgio and I went to Teramo to visit one of my friends named Max.  A girl from Austria named Valerie also went with us.  We took the train from Pescara to Teramo, which only took about an hour.  Max met us at the train station, and we went to the city center to walk around for a little bit. (I’ll post some pictures at the bottom. Very beautiful city.)  After about an hour, we went to Max’s house for dinner with is family.  His house is pretty high up in the mountains, so the view was amazing.  We ate a really good dinner, and then spent the rest of the night talking around a fire (aesthetic). The next day, we ate lunch with Max’s family, and then took a train to Giulianova, where we walked around for a little while.  It is right on the coast, so it looked a lot like Pescara to me.  We caught a train going back to Pescara, and then got lost trying to get back home.  We eventually figured it out… 2 hours later.

Yesterday, I got to cross something of my bucket list.  I finally got to go skiing in on a notable mountain.  It wasn’t the Alps, but compared to Minnesota skiing, it sure seemed like it.  Giorgio, and family friend named Ana, and I went together.  It was exciting to actually be able to ski for more than 30 seconds before getting to the bottom.  I can’t really describe it in words, so I’ll just post some pictures at the bottom.

Advice for future AFS’ers

Here are some things I wish I would have known before I came here.  Granted, I have only been here for a month, so take these with a grain of salt.

1)      When you first arrive, you have about a two week window of being extremely interesting at school.  Everyone will want to talk to you, and you’ll be sort of famous.  Take advantage of this.  Invite people out, and don’t wait to be invited.  I did, and it took a lot longer to make friends.

2)      Stop talking in English.  It’s incredibly hard, but learning Italian is 100% harder if you talk in English all the time.  If your family speaks no English, consider yourself lucky.  It forces you to learn the language quickly, and it will make assimilation into the culture much easier.

3)      Download Quizlet now.  This is the best way to study Italian.  I have learned tons of verbs thanks to this app, and it was actually fun to learn them.

4)      Be open.  Everyone will tell you this, but it’s true.  I live on the coast, so some of the food is very strange looking. But, I always at least try it, and 9/10 times it’s fantastic.  This also goes for making friends.  The people you will meet are so different then the people you know in your home country.  You can’t expect them to act the same as your friends do.

5)      Learn what to call your host parents quickly.  There is nothing more awkward than not knowing what to call the people you live with.  I didn’t do this, and now I just casually start talking to the person hoping I get their attention.  It’s very strange.

6)      Be active, and drink a lot of water.  This is good no matter where you go, but it’s especially true in the beginning of your exchange.  You’re going to be tired all the time. If you try to combat your sleepiness (is that a word?) with exercise, you will feel a lot better.

7)      Be prepared to learn a lot about our country.  Exchange isn’t just designed to learn a new culture.  It’s also made so you can recognize your own cultural habits.  This one is hard to describe, but things you never thought about before you left are now the things you miss most.  The first few weeks are very reflective, so you will understand what I mean.

8)      Get close with other AFS’ers.  They are really the only ones who know what you are experiencing, which makes them the greatest people to talk to when you have had a bad day.  Which brings me to my next point.

9)      Download some super emotional songs.  Life is too short to keep pretending you don’t need Spotify Premium.  Get some super sad songs in a playlist, and feel those feelings away.  I highly recommend Sam Smith’s “In the Lonely Hour”.  Had some great group feels sessions to that one.

10)   Put the phone down.  This one, in my opinion, is the hardest.  When I am in an awkward situation, I immediately reach for my phone.  Unfortunately, every situation here is awkward to some extent, so I am constantly on my phone.  This is really stunting my relationship with my family, so just get into the habit of leaving your phone at home when you go out.  Nothing important is going to happen. I promise.

11)   You will question everything you do.  I don’t mean this in some philosophical way, I mean it literally.  For example, during the first dinner I had here, I had absolutely no idea what to do with my hands.  Like not even a clue.  I didn’t know if anything was rude or not, so I was just constantly changing hand positions to make sure I wasn’t being disrespectful. 

12)   Pick up on hints.  This is really important.  Something that I have noticed with my family is that they don’t take problems directly to you.  For example, I have an extension cord strip thing in my room.  I always leave it on in the mornings, but when I come home from school, it is shut off.  Obviously, my host mom keeps turning it off during the day, so now I know to shut off before I leave.  You need to be conscious of these things, no matter how small they are.

I hope those help.  I’ll keep posting more when I think of them.  If you are reading this and thinking about going on exchange, quit thinking and just apply.  You will not have any regrets.  If you are having problems deciding if it is right for you, please feel free to email me.  I would be more than happy to help!  My email is colingran@gmail.com.  Ci vediamo!

PS. So my computer is only letting me upload these two pictures... I don't know why, but I know I hate technology sometimes.