Here’s the second part of my giant blog!
Last Thursday, I was able to go to a
Symphony with Nonno at Teatro Lirico di
Cagliari, which is a beautiful concert hall in Cagliari.
Ale and Nonno have season tickets to the Symphony, but Ale couldn’t go
that day so I got to go in his place!
The music was great, and Nonno was so friendly. He told me that the concert hall also holds
ballets and operas, and that the opera Carmen
will show soon. I hope I get to go,
because I have never been to an opera before.
And how amazing would it be to have seen my first opera in Italy!?
On Halloween, I visited my friend Natalie. I met her host family, and I joined them for
a lunch of Pasta alla Carbonara, a pasta dish that I have had on a few
occasions with eggs, cheese, and pancetta
or bacon. Later, I helped Ale make a mad
scientist costume for himself. In our
bedroom, we splattered ketchup on a white doctor coat to make it look bloody
and dried it with a hair dryer. I think
even now our bedroom smells of ketchup.
Silvia splattered some nail polish on a surgical mask. It turned out excellent!
The next day (We had a mini fall
vacation of Sunday-Wednesday), I was going to meet Christine, Matthew, Natalie,
and Suzanne, a few exchange students at a certain piazza in Cagliari so we
could all walk to one Christine’s host house to eat lunch and meet her family. I waited for the most convenient bus by my
house for nearly 20 minutes, but it never came and I never saw one passing in
the other direction. So I walked the 15
minutes to the other side of my house to catch the less convenient bus. I had been waiting for 15 minutes when my
host family drove up, on their way to Nonno and Nonna’s for lunch. They asked me if all was well and I said I
was just waiting for my bus. It was a
rather awkward meeting, because I could tell they were worried. They left, and I waited for about 10 more
minutes at the stop. I was about to turn
and walk towards the meeting place (a 45 minute walk more or less) when the bus
finally arrived. I rode that bus and got
off to catch another. I waited for that
bus for nearly 10 minutes. I usually
don’t have to wait even that long for a bus, but maybe I have just had good
luck with buses before this. I finally
arrived at the meeting place, an hour later than planned. I apologized many times and we began to walk
towards the house. We finally arrived,
much later than planned, and again I apologized many times this time in Italian
to her host family. We met her host
parents, her host grandma, and we talked with her sister and her friend who we
had already met. We were given a tour of
the house, which was extremely nice.
Christine’s room is a really cool shed (shed is such a negative term for
what this is) on the roof!
Later, we were served a dinner of malloreddus (a dish of small grooved
pasta with tomato and meat sauce; I recommend that you look it up, because I don't have any pictures), roasted lamb, salad, 3 types of cheeses,
assorted fruit, finishing with tiramisù,
2 types of cakes including a type of raisin cake, and of course caffè.
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| From left to right around the table: Christine, Chiara (Christine's host sister), Natalie, Michela (Chiara's friend), Christine's host mom, Christine's host grandma, Me, Matthew, Christine's host dad |
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| These pictures of this meal courtesy of my exchange student friends! |
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| Variety of cheeses |
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| bread served to us at lunch |
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| Tiramisù |
While we ate, the host
grandma seemed to grow fond of Natalie and me.
Once, she grabbed my hands and said to me, “…che bel ragazzo!” which means “…what a handsome/great boy!” along
with other stuff I couldn’t understand after I helped hand a tray maybe a foot to
the host mom that she had been trying to hand to her herself. Also, she called Natalie “dolce”, “carina”,
and “simpatico”, which mean sweet, pretty, and nice. Over the afternoon, Christine’s host grandma
laughed at Matthew for saying “Chicago” in an Italian accent because apparently
it sounds exactly like an Italian phrase pertaining to taking a shit (cagare is a vulgar verb meaning to crap
or shit), she told me to be aware of the girls, she told Natalie to be aware of
the boys, she told both me and Natalie to be aware of the bad people in the
world, and she said that Natalie looks Asian (which was actually a joke between
all of us before she said it, which made it all the more funny).
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| Me and Christine's host grandma! |
We said goodbye, got a
few pictures with Christine’s host grandma.
After a few choice pieces of advice from Christine’s host grandma to me
and Natalie, we left and were on our way to San Gavino!
We had planned to leave after lunch
for San Gavino, the village where Matthew is staying about an hour away from Cagliari. However, we missed the last train, so is host
dad picked us up. We arrived in San
Gavino, a town of nearly 9,000 people (according to Wikipedia) but I saw maybe
10 people in all. We walked around later
that night, seeing the small piazzas, churches, and stores. We went back to Matthew’s host dad’s house,
and we had a night of music, eating, picture sharing, and movies. It was kind of like a self-organized exchange
student camp.
The next day, early afternoon, we
left for the train station to catch out train back. We bought our tickets, said goodbye to
Matthew, boarded the train, and left. We
saw a few strange people along our journey home. One man heard us speak English and as he
walked by said “OK! English!” Another
man ran through our car at a stop, and we suspect that he wanted to get off
without being caught without a ticket.
Regardless of the strange encounters, the trip was fun. It was only my
second train ride. It was beautiful
watching the countryside as we headed for the city.
On Sunday the 30th of October, a few weeks before all of the
previously mentioned stuff happened, I had gotten out of the shower and had
just dressed when I got an email from my parents saying that they had to put
down our Border Collie mix JoJo. She was
over 14 years old, but she seemed perfectly healthy when I left home. It came as quite a shock for me, and needless
to say I was and am very affected by it.
Apparently she had a tumor that was infected and getting worse, so my
parents had to put her down on Friday the 28th of October. She lived a great and long life, but I really
regret not having been home, regardless of the fact that I am having such a
great time here. I think it will take a
very long time for it to sink in for me, especially because I’m not there at
home. My family has had her since I was
5 years old, so I don’t remember not having her. I grew up with her. She was a part of the family. I’ll miss you JoJo.
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