Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, oh my!

     sorry everyone it's definately been a long time since i posted, and a lot has happened since the last time. my computer has been broken so until i get that fixed, it might take a while to post again. last time i posted i think it was just a bit before thanksgiving, so i'll start from there.

     for thanksgiving i made stuffing, corn, and mashed potatoes for my family, which they really liked and were excited to try. my host mom also made an apple pie that night because i had told her before that we usually have that. it wasnt a super big deal because they dont celebrate thanksgiving here, but it was still a nice night with my family. 

our beautiful hotel in florence!

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

     about a week before christmas break, i went on a trip with my organization to florence and it was just beautiful. we stayed at the hotel pendini which really looks more like a monument than a hotel so that was a great experience. there were VERY MANY statues of naked men around, especially in the museums that we went to. i also got to see the painting, the birth of venus, which is very pretty and of course a very famous painting. i was proud of myself because one of the nights, we went out for dinner and one of the appetizers was chicken patè. for those of you who dont know, thats chiken liver. anyways, as weird as i thought it looked/smelled, i tried it, beause c'mon, you gotta try everything once dont you? but i stopped at trying it, for me it's just too much like canned dog food. glad i tried that though. 

     on the last day of school before christmas break, when the last bell rang, everybody ran outside, half of the people smoking (like normal), the other half popping bottles of champaigne and splashing it everywhere. great fun italy :) most all of the break i spent in minori, a town on the coast, with my host family and their grandfather. christmas was very nice, we had a lot of family over and a great big feast. its traditional in italy to eat fish on christmas so we had that and squid. 

All the family, at nonno's house for christmas :)

     a few days after christmas, i went to naples for one of my friends birthdays, we had a big party for him with a lot of food and a lot of people. that boy is from australia, and there were two more from there, plus one from quebec. they had actually put out a platter of nutella sandwhiches, and he had snuck about 5 of them in there with vegemite instead of nutella, and so when some of the italians bit into those, oh their faces were just priceless! all of us exchange students spent the night there, and the next night too because it was new years then. they had another party for new years, and had stocked up on about 500 fireworks that we shot off from the balcony. i even got to shoot a gun too! blank bullets of course, but still a real gun! and the view was just breath taking. from one window in their house, you can see vesuvious and the coast, and all of the houses in between there it seemed were shooting off fireworks at midnight. amazing! 

     after all the comotion of fireworks and such went down (well really only a bit of it had calmed down, but hey its naples) we went to a disco that ended at 8 in the morning. as completely exhausting as that was, it was soo much fun and im so glad i got to do that. 

     the 6th of january was befana day, which is something we dont do in america. the befana is an old woman, usually shown as like a witch (a nice one) that comes around and puts candy in all the stockings. so we got some more chocolate and candies that day. 

     now finally, the last thing. The Salerno lights. around christmas, the entire city of salerno covers itself with amazing, beautiful lights that i was lucky enough to go a few days ago to see. there is one street that all the way down has shooting stars, a moon, galexies that kind of stuff, plus a piazza with the entire solar system 

and all the planets. one street has flying carpets, and anoth with flowers. the main place to see though is the central park that they have filled with fairies, mushrooms, and butterflies. squirrels, a peacock, and a polar bear. big swirly trees and some elves hiding around. all this made of lights  of course. plus when you just walk in, you walk through a huge silver tunnel made all out of the lights. we were lucky because when we went, it was a while after christmas, plus it was rainy that day so there was barely anybody else there. my friend had said that when she went there before, there were so many people you could barely see anything.  so once again, sorry it's been so long, i'll try to post again soon! ciao!!