My sister made it
to Italy today! I met her at the airport, where we then waited for six hours
for our flight to Catania.
We got a taxi to
our hotel, Hotel Miramare – and paid 20 euro for a five minute drive, I might
add. This was the first experience I have had really trying to understand
someone speaking Italian, and trying my best to use the Italian I know to
respond.
We were starving so
we asked where we could go to eat and were told to go to Cucaracha right across
the street. The interesting experiences continued. The tables were set up in a
circle around what looked like a dance floor – we felt like were intruding.
There was a cute
old man taking money at the door who didn’t understand us and vice versa, but I
was able to understand “mangiare”, which means to eat, so he retrieved who
seemed to be the owner who spoke some English and got us a table.
The pizza was
impossible to cut with a fork and a butter knife, but I felt like I was already
imposing on some event so my sister and I tried to be polite and use our fork
to eat the whole time.
Then the DJ turned
the music up and the dancing began. I swear to you, for every new song that
came on the DJ turned the volume up, but the dancers were very entertaining.
This was some authentic Sicilian culture we witnessed, and at one point I
wished I could have joined in on the dancing!
I stayed up late
Friday night to skype my Leadership family in the Leader Advancement Scholarship Program at the
All LAS meeting the Leadership Institute was having to kick off the 2015 LAS
Competition Day. It was so great to see so many faces (even though they couldn't hear me), and priceless the reactions everyone had when they realized Katie wasn't just showing them a picture of me..
Follow closely... this is a screenshot of a snapchat of a screenshot of my Skype session, featuring the one and only David Walter.
Today also is the first day of the Spring 48 hour film
competition I normally participate in. My friends in Central Premiere
Productions that I was on a team with last semester said I’m their honorary
member, and even said I would make an appearance in the credits. And the winner was: “Probably ate spaghetti this weekend.” First of
all, there’s a good chance I will eat spaghetti. Second, 5,000 miles apart and
these people can still make me cry with laughter. (They didn't actually put me in the credits, sad face).
I would be lying if
I said I wasn’t sad that I’m missing all of these things – I already missed my
cousins wedding on February 7th, shout out to Betsy and Clint
Schneider! However, with the short time my sister has been here, I have been
able to put in perspective how much I have learned from my month in Rome. It’s worth missing one semester of things at
home to have and create completely new experiences in my adopted home!
Observation of the Day: You're always missing something somewhere, so enjoy whatever it is you are doing here and now.
