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Published: March 17th 2010
Blog:
As of three days ago, I am living with a new family. Sunday morning found me packing my things with not a little sadness, I really loved living with the Guerra’s. It was a warm social atmosphere and I got used to the almost constant companionship that comes with sharing a room with someone, I even liked it. I was very lucky with my first change because while I absolutely loved and still love my first family, the Eynards, the Guerra house already felt like a second home. I would go there almost everyday before I changed families to go running with Giulia and so on, so my moving in seemed natural. I am also lucky with this second change in the sense that I’m now neighbor to the Eynards and my host mom is Marco’s (my second host dad’s) sister. I am in a central location, making life easier than when I had a fifteen-minute walk to the nearest bus stop, and I have my own bathroom and room… Normally this would be taken as a very good thing, and it is, but it’s a bit strange now after three months with Giulia. The house is lovely, but strangely quite after the rambunctious lunches and enthusiastic arguments of my second family. My new family is composed of my host mother Eleonora, and my two host sisters (13 year-old Gaia, and almost ten year-old Jacky, or Jacline). I have found what seems to be a rather obvious metaphor for the family changing process, but it seems to me to be a good one; if I were a little tree, it would be like transplanting myself (with help, of course, because the tree can’t do it by itself!). The tree is comfortable in familiar surroundings, good soil, all settled in, then it must uproot. This is a generally rather unsettling experience, exposing the bare roots to the elements, but soon it is plopped in another hole, and tucked in as best as can be done from above ground. The tree is obviously uncomfortable at first, even if the soil is rich, it has to adjust, settle itself. In the mean time the gardener hopes that the plant will thrive in its new situation, and so does the plant. I am still in the settling in stage, but I think in the end this transplant will take just fine.
(“And now for something completely different…” -Monty Python)
The other day I went to Giulia’s house to pick op some things I left there and was fortunate enough to meet her cousin. We all sat down to tea, and when I spoke I noticed something strange almost immediately. It was an accent, but not foreign, so I leaned over and asked Giulia where he was from, she looked with slight surprise and said he is from the south of Italy, Puglia to be exact. I trilled with joy that I had noticed when Giulia told me that in fact, while noticeable, his accent wasn’t really strong. It is the sort of thing I wouldn’t have picked out two months ago, and I am so thrilled I can now.
It took a while for the weather to make up its mind to be spring. Just a week ago it would play nasty tricks, like being bright and sunny in the morning, with birds singing, and fresh spring smells, then it would snow after lunch and continue all night, making it seem again like the dead of winter!! I think that now I can safely say it is spring now that the temperature has risen a decent amount above freezing and stayed there for a few days.... but I will never be sure.
To continue the trend of this blog with another random bit of writing, yesterday I did an, ‘orienteering race’. This meant I took the bus with a friend from school to a large park a little bit out of the city and walked out with a group of students to the area where the course was laid out. It was a lovely spring day, tepid and sunny, with little flowers blooming all through the wood. I have never taking an orienteering class, but do know how to read a map, growing up where I have. An orienteering race goes as follows, you get a small piece of paper with numbered boxes and a little map. The map has points in red that are numbered (corresponding to the numbers on the paper) and you must go from one point to the other in the forest, using the map to find them, and write the letter combination you find there (generally taped to a tree or stick). You do this all as fast as you can, and it is SO fun! You tramp around the forest like on a mission to find buried treasure, all the while enjoying a flowering forest and a nice day. I finished in 26 minutes and just today was sent an email saying I won the female division! It was a nice surprise, but quite frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if I were last after having such a grand time.
I’m sorry to say I have no new pictures to share this time, but I will try to put pictures of my new house up in my next blog!
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Alex
non-member comment
Fun
What a great game. It sounds like you're having the time of your life over there.