Orientation Camp!

I know that it has been a long time since I last posted, but things have been so busy and wonderful here that I have found it difficult to find enough time to actually sit and type and entry. Now, I am unfortunately sick, so I have all day.

This past weekend was the Sicilia-Calabria regional orientation. After a month and a half of living with our families and attending school, they wanted to touch base and give us a chance to talk about how everything is going. On Friday, Tobias, the German exchange student here in Messina and his mother picked me up at ten in the morning. Taneli, the exchange student from Finland, was also in the car. We drove to the bus station in order to meet up with Halldis, the Swedish exchange student and with a Thai girl from Calabria. We all caught a bus to Catania, where we were for the next four days. Actually, we were there until Monday. Anyway, we drove down there and met up with all of the other exchange students. Everyone was incredibly excited to finally speak in their native languages. For me, I already get to speak in my native language, seeing that it is English. For those who speak Japanese, Thai, Finnish, German, French...etc..., they don't get to speak their languages because nobody knows them. For the rest of Friday, we had a planning session to learn about how the day was going to flow, split up into groups, and worked in groups. In the groups, we played games in order to get to know each other. We also talked about our problems that have come up with our host families. It became very emotional for some people. Dinner was at 8:30. Since it was our first night there, we had a special dinner of quiche, bruschette (plural), 4 different types of pizza, and gelato. The gelato was delicious! It was an amaretto flavor with a cherry sauce. I almost died it was that good! Then, we made country posters until midnight. I must say that our poster (USA) was quite incredible. :)

Saturday, most of the day was taken up by individual interviews. Except for a couple hours in the afternoon where we were in our groups, we were just hanging out with other exchange students. When someone had their interview, they would just leave and return when it was finished. Everyday we were there, at midmorning and midafternoon, there was a coffee break and a snack. All of the food was delicious! I have also come to the conclusion that by the time I return to the United States, I will be addicted to coffee. I love coffee here. :) After lunch, we split up into our groups and did more activities. All of us were feeling the fatigue of staying up until midnight and waking up early. As a result, no one was too into being energetic. After that, for the rest of the day, people had interviews. I had my interview at 6:30. It was really great. The woman who interviewed me just asked me questions and to rate different things on a scale of one to ten. We also had an opportunity to talk more in depth about problems that we have. I don't really have any problems, so I was happy not to have to talk about them. Once again, dinner was at 8:30 and we stayed up until midnight. This time, we had huge lecture about how disrespectful some people had been to volunteers and that they weren't participating in the activities. As a result, all of us, even if we had not done anything and had happily participated in every activity (like me), lost our first chance. We have two chances to mess up before being sent home. I have now lost my first chance and I did nothing. In an attempt to lighten up the mood, the volunteers had us play two games. The first one was the one where you suck a piece of paper to your mouth and you have to transfer the paper to someone elses mouth. It was really fun and we were all worried that we would end up accidentally kissing the person next to us because the paper fell. The second game was one where we had to all kiss a part of an origami crane. Then, depending upon where we kissed, we got a sticky note saying where we kissed it. When everyone had kissed it, we found out that we had to kiss the person next to us where we had kissed the bird. Thankfully, I chose the neck. Some people though had chosen the butt or the beak. The funny thing about the beak though was that everyone thought that it meant kissing on the lips. As it turned out, it really meant that they had to kiss the person on the nose. :) Hahaha. Everyone who chose that was kissing on the lips. That finished pretty quickly, so we actually played one more game. We split into four different groups and had to put as many of our personal belongings, clothes included, on one person. After four minutes, we had to count how many to see which team won.

Sunday, we played games and split up into our groups again. It was a really fun day. In the evening, the volunteers finished up the individual interviews and we had free time. After dinner, we watched/participated in the talent show. It was really incredible to watch the many different talents or random things that people came up with. The show started with the volunteers doing their own show. They performed a bunch of national dances that they have learned over the years. After they finished, it was our turn to show them and everyone else what we knew. The people from New Zealand performed the Haka (?) and people from Finland, Japan, Norway, and Russia performed songs. Some people, like Thailand and Indonesia, performed their dances. It was a really fun night. :)

Monday was the day we had to say goodbye. The camp ended and then we basically got to hang out with everyone until lunch. I was so tired from staying up until midnight every night that I had zero energy to do anything. People made origami, talked, played soccer...it was a really relaxed environment. Then, right before lunch, one of the American girls was thrown into the pool. After she got out, she chased down the people who had thrown her in. She seemed really, really mad. She was soaking wet. We all had lunch and then got on a bus to go to the bus station. Everyone had to go their separate ways. We will not all be together until June! It was really bittersweet. We had all become really good friends in the span of four days.

Ok, so in the time that I haven't written, I turned 17! My birthday was incredible!!!!! I don't have time at the moment to talk about it, but my next post will be pictures and I will put some on there. :) I must sleep now, because my eyes don't want to stay open.

Ciao!!!! :)