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just a bit more general stuff

well its the last week of my italian course, yay for no more early mornings!  i have my exam on wednesday although i have no idea how i will find the time to study.  i am continuing on with the lessons but they drop back to only 2 per week and dont start till 12.30 so thats a relief.  the courses have helped me understand the language a lot better, but now ive met all these other ppl who speak english i find im speaking even less italian than before!!!

federico msgd me last week, just a nice general msg that said that i should go to bolonga for a weekend when he finishes his exams.  i really do want to cos i wanna get out there and see as much as i can but i was really wanting to have a big picnic in the park for all my friends this weekend.  well i dont actually know if i should be going this weekend to bologna but i kind of want to get it over and done with and find out how it is between us.  my dilema is that i dont want to show up and look like i couldnt wait or his to say he was finished his exams (although im pretty sure he has by now) but then i dont want to wait for him and let him decide and tell me what to do, so i dont know.  

any way i have to go enrol in this next italian course right now. 

bye 

as of monday

well a bit has happened over the weekend.  nothing too exciting but i did get to do a few things. 

saturday i had plans to go to this place called sirmione.  nothing special i just wanted to go there.  i was trying to get organised to go but then friday night the family said that i would probably be working sat morning so i re arranged my plans.  I waited all night for a msg from elisabetta to find out when i would start the next morning - nothing.  woke up at 9am, msgd her - nothing.  10am got a reply saying no i didnt have to work but i might be needed that night so stay tuned!!!!  what.  so i waited then at 4pm i got a msg saying no i didnt have to work at all!!!  i wasted a whole day basically waiting to see if i would be working.  so instead of going to see this little town at the bottom of garda lake, i hung out at a friends house and watched movies. argh!!!

sunday i got up early to see what my housemates had planned because i have been thinking i should hang out with them a bit more but they didnt get up till later - 10.30/11.  i managed to get them ready pretty quickly though and we went out to riva del garda, a town at the top of garda lake.  i thought it would be a nice day hanging out with the girls doing a bit of bonding, but i spent the whole thime there just wanting to go back n hang out with my uni friends, even though i knew they were doing nothing.  i dont know, i think maybe these girls i live with are just better as housemates.  i would like to be friends with them like i was with the last bunch but i just dont really want to hang out with them as friends.  they are nice girls, theyre actually really lovely, a little messy, a little lazy but i just cant/dont want to be friends with them.  it kind of puts me on the outside as i feel like i cant rely on them as much as id like to be able to but i kind of like having this seperate group of friends. so now im kind of spending as little time at home as possible and if i am there im just doing my own thing.  its also pretty hard tho as the have heard so much about my uni friends and they want to meet them.  i was all up for that at the beginning but now i dont want them to.  these guys are my friends and ive put in the hard yards to build these friendships and i feel very special being the only aussie girl in the erasmus (international student population) group.  it sounds kind of mean i know but at the moment im happier than i have ever been here and i dont want it to change.

 its been a fun week in the way of going out and partying.  being involved with the erasmus group there is no shortage of party invitations and they seem to be pretty good at making an awesome night out of nothing.  friday we decsended upon this little club in trento which is usually pretty bad but when about 50 students all rocked up and filled the dance floor, it was one of the best nights ive had.  i met a load of new people, mainly the english and we just danced and chatted all night.  ive never seen that club so full and fun.  then satuday night there was a house party and i some how ended up in the group that was playing drinking games all night.  it was hilarious as this one game called yeehah (similar to zip, zap, zop) where you have to scream really loud to pass a yeehah around a circle, lasted at least 2 hours.  those of us involved in the game have now grown quite close and we really connected over this game and we all had an awesome time however we only found out yesterday that everyone else not involved in the drinking game group didnt think the party was all that great?!

 

this week

oh and to add to the last entry the fashion over here in milano right now is exactly the kinda stuff mum would wear -  i swear ive seen photos of here in similar dresses!  so that made it really hard to want to buy anything, not cos i didnt like it but because its really weird knowing that if shed just saved all her stuff from back then i would have a really awesome vintage wardrobe right now.

anyway this week. . . .

well one of the new girls, amber, has this thing where she burps, quite a bit. not ecsessively but enough for me to notice that she does it.  i may have mentioned this with elisabetta at one stage, when amber had just arrived and she asked how things were going, i was kinda like "what should i do cos i dont like it". anyway amber got caught at work on monday burping in front of the kids and boy oh boy, her work mother was not happy.  i mean these families are the upper class society of trento, they are the richest families in this whole town and they pay us to look after their kids and teach their kids so they arent going to be happy when the girls theyve hired all the way from australia is teaching their kids such bad habbits.  so she got a missive telling off and got told by the mother that the girls in the flat werent happy with it either!!!  so amber got the hint that someone had talked about her behind her back and came home and, well, there was a kind of fight, not really cos she not the fighting type, but you all know i am, and she was just like "why didnt you come to me about it".  she doesnt really understand the kind of relationship elisabetta and i have as no one else in the house seems to get along with their mothers as well as i do but i honestly didnt feel like i was talking behind her back.  in short things still arent good between me and amber, which im kinda ok with cos i dont like her much anyway. 

it does highlight the fact though that i have really been isolating myself from these australian nanny girls.  i figured out its cos i really dont want to get stuck in the same circle as the majority of the last group of girls who were so safe in their little group they left without having any italian/european friends.  ive kinda been spending heaps of time with the uni people and ive totally worked my way in with them, which is awesome and ive been spending a bit of time with angelina and her boyfriend and his friends, including michele the band guy, so thats going really well to.

anyway gotta go suddenly again cos i dont know how much this is gonna cost me and i left my wallet at home so i only have a few euros to spare.  will hopefully get back in the next day or so and update a bit more on other general stuff.

yesterdays entry contd

ok so last week, yes it was pretty much a routine every day.  i will say that it is was quite funny going to the gym.  the instructor looks at me and angelina like complete fools.  i think hes gotten use to us now tho and he just finds it amusing.  instead of explaining things he has to point a lot more than hes used to.

on wednesday i went to albere, a standing party thats on everyweek that almost everyone in trento goes to. i ended up talking to some new people, and i hung out with the uni ppl a bit so that was good.  i also ended up talking to antonios friends, who are now my friends.  one of them rick ended up offering me a lift home, which was great so i went with him and some other friends, but it turned out we werent going home, we were going to another friends house so they could cook up pasta (which is what you do over here at 3am - no mc donalds unfortunately) and keep drinking.  that wasnt too bad until antonio showed up with his ex-girlfriend/possibly new girlfriend!!!  it was sooooo awkward as i hadnt  planned on being there, i didnt want to be there, i thought i was getting a lift home.  i dont know if he found it awkward as were ok now, n just friends but this girls he was with is apparently a bit psycho.  anyway i was waiting for one of the other friends to leave as he was going to walk me home (we live near each other) so i ended up not leaving till 4am, and even then that friend decided he didnt want to walk so antonio and his ex/new girlfriend had to give us both lifts!  oh my goodness!

i decided on thursday night that i wanted to get my weekend organised so i checked with the girls what their plans were and we decided to go to verona one day and cavelese the next.  well being the way it is over here everyone changed their minds the next day - friday and decided that they wanted to stay overnight somewhere as they all had the entire weekend off (that only happens once a month for most of the girls).  they chose verona but i suggested that milan would be better as it only takes and hr by train to get to verona and it would be cheaper to do that 2 days in a row than stay overnight.  so milan was decided upon.  i was kinda upset cos i didnt want to go to milan - i wanted to go to the mountains, 1. because i genuinely am missing them - its soooooo pretty up there 2. kinda because i would then be able to see federico.  but the other girls kinda pressured me into going to milan, and i thought that if they were all going now then no one would want to go later on when i was ready to go.

so . . .

saturday came around and the nanny gals got ready and left at around 8/9am, i made the final desicsion that yes i was going to go to milan but i would go a bit later in the day with the irish girls from uni but i would meet up with the nannies later.  Suprise suprise though that never happened.  turns out only 2 nannies went to milan, when they all got to the train station the others decided that they wanted to stick to the original plan to go to verona so they went there instead.  WHAT!!!!!  i went to milan only cos everyone else was going and then they didnt!!!!!

oh well.  i ended up spending the entire wkend with the irish girls and that was pretty awesome.  one has a sister who is living in milan so i stayed with them there and didnt have to pay for accomodation (i also got an open invitation to return whenever i wanted).  saturday afternoon we went into the city centre and saw the magnificent duomo, which is undergoing maintenence so is covered with scaffolding, like all great monuments seem to be over here.  we walked the main street which was packed with people and was totally overwhelming for me as im a now used to this small little city. it totally is the fashion capital with everyone out in their best outfits, tyring new looks to see what will work, everyone is just gorgeous, and there was me completely awestruck.

it was good though.  we got a little bit of shopping done, i only bought a head scarf, then went to find somewhere for dinner.  aoefie (the irish girls sister we were staying with) took us to a canal in milan that has a whole heap of restaurants along it and from 6-9 they have a happy hour where you can buy one drink then get a free buffet.  we went to this one that was kinda morrocanny and it had some really nice salads and heaps of veggies - not pasta.  we totally stuffed ourselves and it only cost us E6!!!  and we got these really nice cocktails.  it was awesome, then we got gelati at this old fashioned place and boy was it good - the best gelati ive had so far - chocolate and nutella.

we got back to aoefies and slept.  unfortunatley we slept quite a bit and didnt get up till 11am the next morning so by the time we got back into the city we had missed breakky and had to settle for lunch.  we only had a few hours of shopping because the gaelic football final started at 4.30 and  was showing in an irish bar somewhere near aoefies place and that was kinda the whole reason why these irish girls had gone to milan in the first place.  so we had to cut our shopping short and make it back.  i watched a little bit of the match but after recieveing numerous smses from angelina who was bored out of her mind, i decided to catch the train back to trento that night.  so that was it.  

i dont think milan is a very pretty place at all and im sure youve all heard stories about it, but really, its only really any good for its shopping, there isnt any other real reason i can think of why i would want to go back.  im sure i will go back some time in the furture and hopefully it will be a bit more organised.

oh and you know whhat i just found out - pirates was showing there from the 14-20th in the afternoons in english!!!! i was there and i missed it!!!!!  noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! 

a week at uni

my week was so busy, heaps busier that what ive been use to in the entire time ive been here.  i have to get up at 7.30 to get ready for uni at 8.30.  i finish uni at 11 and hang out with uni ppl, which is work in itself cos i have only 3 weeks to get to know these ppl before i never see them again and have to rely soely on contacting them to see them and find out where the hot spots are.  then i go to the gym at 12.30 where the instructor looks at me and angelina like idiots cos we have no idea what we are doing.  he gives us warning and tries to explain the moves im sure, but i dont understand what he says!  he just smiles at us now and points to things a lot. i think after a week he finds it amusing that we still try.  so that finishes at 1.30 then by the time i get home and make my lunch i only get 1/2-1hr to actually relax before i start work which i dont finish till 9.  then with the way everyone over here is i dont get to bed till 12.  poor little me.

 its been good though cos ive made better friends with the uni people.  the german girls are starting to come out of their shells a bit more so thats really good.

anyway gotta go to the gym.  will hopefully finish this off tomorrow - still have to tell you about this weekend just past when i went to milano!

the weekend

that friday night i went to my first disco teca near verona.  this guy whom we kinda know offered to take us - me, becky, grace and amber.  it wasnt so bad but i was really missing angelina and jessica.  im used to hanging out with these girls who have a lot of class and are a tad bit snobbish and these other girls were not that at all. 

the next morning i awoke to find emma had arrived with the dad of her italian family, so that was a great intro, me in my non matching pjs and all.  she left to go have lunch with her family and i went into the city and met up with the irish gals from uni.  we were just lazing around when we saw this big procession/parade thing of all the ppl dressed in traditional medievil stuff.  the women in their long dresses with beads in their hair and the boys in their tunics and tights.  turns out there was an archery competition and houses from all around the northern area had come to trento to participate.  it was pretty amazing. we stayed and watched a bit - i was kinda dissappointed cos i was expecting it to be more like a robin hood type thing, all intense, but some of the archers were actually pretty crap.  we watched about 3-4hrs of it then left cos i wanted to get back home to talk to emma. 

turns out emma is 23, from sydney, a church girl, has studied theatre and done some teaching.  i was really excited cos it sounded like we should get along really well, she really is a very nice and kinda crazy gal (crazy is good), but i long story short ive been really busy with uni lately and i think ive kinda been separating myself from everyone in the house lately as i dont want to get stuck with them and only them so i still dont know her or get along with her as well as i could/should.

the next day, sunday, a bunch of uni girls were going to lake caldonazzo, the one i went to earlier in the week with jessica and angelina.  i was suppose to go but got to talking to emma again and missed the bus.  angelina and i decided to go in a bit later and on our way to  the train we ran in to emma and dragged her with us.  it was nice out there, very relaxing, i even found my uni friends for a bit so that was good.  we came accross problems though when we went to catch the train back to trento and found out the one we wanted to catch didnt actually come on sundays and we had another 1.5hrs to wait for the next one!!!!  i hate their stupid transport system.  actually it would probably be a lot easier if i understood what the little symbols (like *) meant.

so that was last weekend. i think

my birthday

well uni went a bit better on the day of my birthday.  got to talking to a few more ppl so that was great.  although i dont have many italian friends i now have a bunch from all round europe!!! 

i did manage to get the day off cos jessica and angelina were going to take me to some thermal springs however that didnt happen because the guy that was suppose to give us a ride ended up having to take his dad to hospital instead (dont worry it wasnt anything serious).  so as we always do we sat around thinking for way to long then realised that it was to late to do anything.  i was pretty peeved so i ditched the girls, they werent in a very good mood anyway, and went grocery shopping with grace.  we bought a whole heap of stuff and planned a big cook up for the night.  we cracked open the teriaki chicken, and had heaps of veggies with it and made sticky date pudding (the best ive ever had) and chocolate brownies for desert.  all the new girls came over for our little feast and it turned out to be a really nice night.  we stayed up till 12.30am just chatting and getting to know each other. 

the only thing that i found weird for the day was that my italian family gave me a cd of the top 20 songs (english ones) from 1984.  i think it was a freebie with a mag or something!!!!

the intalian course

i started my italian course today at 8.30am!  im gonna get sick of that real quick i can assure you.  it was quite good.  most ppl are from europe, only a few with english as a first language. theres about 25 ppl in the class, most are students - i think only about 5 are here for other reasons.  some how i got stuck with all the old ppl married people who arent really there to make friends so hopefully tomorrow i can get myself closer to the other students and get in to their groups. 

it was weird cos all we really learnt was the total basics - like whats your name, where are you from but the fomal stuff like when she pointed out plurals and when you use informal and fomal was helpful.  the teacher spoke in italian about 95% of the time and i understood it, which was good, and i think thats where a lot of the learning is going to happen, just having someone speak really slowly to you and explain the odd word here and there, really helps.  anyway the course runs for 3 weeks and there is a test at the end if i want to do it, so we will see.  it also runs on into another course so when its finished i can keep going, which id really like. 

gotta go eat, im totally fame (fa-me, means hungry)

ciao

 

the new girls

while i was away theres been one new girls move in - amber.  straight off i think shes a bit weird, i mean she was telling me how to light the gas stove - dude ive been living there longer than you!!!  oh and she tried to tell me how to clean a pot, argh!  all of you who know me, can tell straight away how much this annoys me.  i dont think ill get along with her so im not happy about that.  theres another new girl (the last one for our flat) arriving this weekend, so hopefully shell be better.  Im actually really happy about the other girl - the one i met in sardinia - grace, shes awesome and really sweet.  Her cousing becky, who is nannying just around the corner got here last night after working for 3 months in napoli and shes awesome to.  hopefully my first impressions of her are right and if so we will have a pretty awesome year together. 

currently two of the old girls, angelina and jessica (from ireland) and kinda staying with me so i see them all the time and theres this weird mix of old girls who are totally over the job and know italian and trento quite well and new girls who are all excited about the upcoming posibilites and are totally eager to explore, with me stuck in the middle.  i love these old girls but at the same time, these new ones are the ones i have to live with for the next few months and i still havent had a chance to be all flittery and excited cos ive been stuck with the old girls. 

 

the mountains

well i totally didnt expect to be away for another 4 weeks with no internet access!!!!  i was told it would only be 2 possibly 3 weeks.  definately 2 and then if the weather was crappy we would go back to the sea side, if not wed stay.  and theyd told me that things were much better in the mountains so i assumed that thered be more internet access available.  i obviously didnt learn from my time in sardinia DONT ASSUME ANYTHING!!! 

first off, the weekend before i went to the mountains, i went to a lake in another set of mountains, near where her family go and we spent the day sunbaking in bikinis by the lake.  well i based my ideas on what my familys mountain retreat would be like from that experience and packed some nice summer stuff.  WELL i froze the entire time i was there.  i only took 3 pairs of pants - my jazzercise tights, some comfy baggy knee length ones and some other daggy ones that get to big on me after one wear that id planned to use only if i had to.  well i had to.  3 pairs of pants for 4 weeks!  and i only took one light weight cardigan.  the most annoying thing was that we were only 40 mins away from trento and although the dad went back a couple of times they wouldnt get me anything else. i couldnt even buy more clothes cos all the shops up there were for mountaneering and i already had enough winter clothes back home there wasnt really any point - so i froze.

i found the mountains much more fun though as we were constantly doing different things. we hiked a few mountains, went on a few picnics, there were a few high ropes parks that we tried out with the kids, the kids did the courses, i just held onto the dog.  i did get to try one ropes course which was good.  we also went cycling, ice skating (where ive started to teach myself to skate backwards!!!).  M routine consisted mainly of walking the dog, then walking the baby to put her to sleep, then walking the dog, then walking the baby. at least i had the stroller to put her in, unlike sardinia where she just stayed on my hip.

we also went to a few different restaurants which was good as i got to eat a bit more meat and try out more traditional food.  always in a different part of the mountains and valley so the scenery was just beatuiful.  One day elisabetta and i went to walk zara and the dog and we ended up being chased by goats!!!  and if that wasnt enough she then decided to take the kids to a goat farm where we got to watch them being milked.  There was always something to do so i have to say that i did enjoy myself.  One of the mountains we went up by cable car was aparently as high as kosiosko - and i didnt have to walk up any of it!  it was a bit strange though to see snow on the mountains in summer, definately something im not use to in sunny ol qld.  it was funny cos although there were heaps of things to do and the mountains were totally packed with tourists and holiday makers there was this whole air about the place that everyone is really just waiting for winter.  theres this huge ski track on one of the mountains that you see anytime you look up and it really freaked me out.  im starting to really worry about winter as i have no comprehension of weather that cold.  it did get down to 4°C one night, and thats totally freaked me out! 

I have even started cooking a few things for the family.  They really love my choc chip cookies and kiss biscuits.  the pavlova was ok but i know i can do better so ill try again in a little while i think. 

Ive even met the mayor of trento - after playing fuseball with a friend of the kids (somehow related i think but not sure) i find out after we went white water rafting with him and his dad that his dad is the mayor of trento!!!  two days later we are over at their house having birthday cake with the family as its his 50th birthday!  i think hes like, elisabettas, cousins relative or something.

anyway the last week in the mountains was probably the most eventful maily because i got to go white water rafting with the family, and i met this gorgeous instructor - federico.  now i met him as a result of elisabettas sister, i thought he was pretty  cute but she was the one who kept making sure we were near him and she started the converstation with him and then egged me on to go and talk to him by meself.  anyway i went and asked him and another young instructor, alessio, what there was to do around the place and alessio suggested that they would take me out.  whats a girl with no friends suppose to do?  GO OUT WITH THEM!  so i did.  turned out alessio couldnt come, but i was ok with that, so i spent a nice quite night with federico and a few of his friends eating gelato, and going to a wine bar, and playing fuseball. I saw him and his friends a few times since then, one is a girl who studies in trento so i will see her again soon when uni goes back. anyway, the low down on federico is that hes 23, in his final year of psycology in Bolognia (2hrs train away from trento).  hes really nice looking (ok, gorgeous) short spiky blondish hair, blue eyes, glasses, follows the milan soccer team, likes radio head and ac/dc and before he was rafting this summer he was working with disabled ppl.  i dont know doing what exactly, we struggled to just get accross the info that he had worked with them, teaching or something.  Now all this sounded like it was too good to be true and i finally found out that it was.  he has a girl friend!  he told me after wed said our last goodbyes, just before i came back to trento when he realised that there was a bit more of an attraction there than just friends.  hes said that theyve been having problems for the last 2 months and now hes not sure what to do, at the moment hes in greece for 10 days and i guess we will have to see what happens then.  ive heard from him a couple of times tho, which is a good sign for me but i know nothing about this girlfriend so i cant make any assumptions - i think i prefer it this way.  Regardless of what happens i still really want to be friends because hes exactly the kind of person i would want to hang out with at home - not the going out everynight drinking and partying type, but he still likes to have fun.  i dont class him as the typical kind of guy to go looking to cheat on his girlfriend, remeber he didnt suggest taking me out, it was me and the other guy - but anyway, we will see.

its been quite funny tho cos elisabetta and her entire family - mother, sister, cousin- have all been hanging out to hear about every move, every message.  even mario is in on it all. oh and federico speaks french - its so funny when he gets confused as to which language he should be speaking and he comes out with something in french.