Awkward

Saturday September 6th, 2008
-We were to be at the bus with our stuff loaded by like 6:30! So it was an early morning
-We drove along the coast again to Paestrum.
-We were given two hours to walk around the site and look at the ruins and the museum.
-The temples were way cool Temple of Hera 1 and 2. They were great examples of Doric and ionic order. It is still cool to me that I am seeing things in person that I studied. I was mad that I couldn’t remember more about the different orders.
-The museums was pretty cool. It was mostly pots and parts of the temple on display. They had these big pieces of stone with frescoes on it.
-Boarded the bus and made our way to Siena which was like a 7 hour process. The bus was insanely uncomfortable. Sleeping was a struggle. I attempted to watch Newsies but quickly lost interest. The rest was being lazy and attempting to sleep. Then I worked on my blog entries the rest of the time. We arrived in Siena a little after 6:30 and our families were supposed to be there about 7:30. It was so funny how everyone got so excited/nervous you could feel the nervousness in the air. We were all thinking oh my gosh we are finally here we are going to be meeting our host family that we have to live with for the next three months, yikes!! Me and Karli were getting so nervous just standing there as everyone was leaving with their families. Most of the people that came to get everyone spoke a few words of English and seemed really nice. Then this older man came up and apparently it was Guiseppe our host dad. He helped us get our stuff in the car. He was not really speaking to us and when he did it was in Italian. I am thinking to myself he speaks no English this is going to be interesting. On the way from the train station to his house we just sat in silence. I obviously was too tired to even attempt to understand the Italian. The apartment or I guess villa was not too far from the train station. We unloaded our stuff and took it into the house. He is explaining everything in Italian and we are just like nodding having no idea what is going on. They live on the first floor. Our bedroom is on the first level of the place. Our room though is actually not that small. I feel good about it. We have a toilet and a sink with a mirror. A shower head is technically on the wall but we are thinking the sign says no showering which is fine because that would be awkward to shower in there. But I am fine with showering somewhere else but at least having the essentials of a toilet and sink. He directed us also to the bathroom down the hall which we assumed was for the showering aspect. So we headed back to the room and he motioned for dinner. He shut the door behind him and left me and Karli in our overwhelmed state. We honestly were just like freaking out saying how we couldn’t believe what we got ourselves into. We were just like they seriously do not speak English. We both had figured that since we were beginning Italian students they would put us with people that spoke some English. Some people in the group do speak a little Italian so put those students with those people who speak no English and people like me and karli with people who can speak some. We witnessed the other families speak English to people in the group. Pretty much we were definitely in culture shock and did not know what to do with ourselves haha. I decided that we should go ahead and unpack our stuff. We weren’t quite sure when dinner would be. The room is insanely hot especially while we were unpacking. It is definitely going to be a sweaty few months until it gets cool. We heard some rustling of dishes downstairs and it sounded like they were eating so we were like ahh…do we go downstairs or what haha. We honestly just felt so awkward and had no idea what to do. We figured that they would come get us for food so we kept unpacking. Finally, Fiorella knocked on the door and said hello. She was just speaking away in Italian like we understood and then we were like eat. We headed downstairs. There is a small kitchen with a table. In the other room is an old couch with a tv and another table. Frederique was laying on the couch watching the tv with Guiseppe. She was an interesting person of large proportions. Giuseppe had changed and was now wearing these crazy shorts and a tank top. Frederique was about the same in a bright pink tank top and black capris. Fiorella was in a green and white sun dress. They motioned for us to sit down. We ate pesto and spaghetti noodles which was awesome! They were laughing at me though because I had no perfected the twirl of the noodles on my fork. For some reason mine would just get all tangled haha so they had a good laugh. They recommended that I cut the noodles which eventually I did. I was the last one to finish my noodles. A few minutes later she starts bringing out the other food. I kind of waited to see what they did to know what it was I needed to do. They passed around these carrots with a certain seasoning on it. It turned out to be picante carrots which were actually very good. It had a nice kick at the end. Fiorella cute up some tomatoes and cucumbers then added olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I passed on the tomatoes and put those sauces on my cut up cucumbers. They handed me lettuce which even now I am confused as to why it was on the table. Nobody else put it on their plate but me and Karli. I decided later to put vinegar and balsamic so that I awkwardly wasn’t eating just plain lettuce. At this point they figured out that we did not speak a word of Italian. Guiseppe kind of motioned that we will talk through gestures. I guess whatever works right. The main dish of the meal was prosciutto and sausage with these green looking things. I put some meat on my plate and when I started cutting that up they gestured to the green thing and said that I needed to eat it together. I obviously didn’t take the green thing because I had no idea how to go about eating it. I was thinking I would need to peel the outside shell. Apparently you just cut up piece of this fruit and eat it with the prosciutto. This also included sausage so I just grabbed one. The unknown fruit I thought wasn’t too bad. I rather enjoy it although Karli did not. The fruit had an interesting texture but it was surprisingly sweet. Anyways you were supposed to eat the prosciutto with this green fruit whatever it may be. Sidenote: We found out later that it was fig and apparently they are in season right now. They have this soft outer shell and its almost mushy/grainy inside, end note. We finally made it through dinner. The dad was asking about Gramsci square where we needed to walk to meet everyone for church. When we were driving to the house he pointed up this street for Gramsci so we were glad thinking it was a close walk but we were completely wrong. He found a map for us and gave us the directions to where the square was located and determined it was a twenty minute walk. Church will take like a 45 minute walk every week. He also showed us where the school was located. Its funny they are just completely opposite of each other. After dinner we cleared the table and they were asking us questions about what we drink. He said no to coffee and tea. He asked about this latte drink and we said no just to be safe but then realized they were referring to milk haha. They showed us this other drink which we think its caffeine free because it said it was natural and had a wheat symbol so we said we could drink it. Oh the joys of communicating with those who speak a foreign language. We just went back to our room to finish unpacking. One again freaking out that they speak no English. We also asked him about how to get in and he gave us the key. Leave it to Italy to actually skeleton keys its pretty cool. We then debated for a while about the shower and whatnot. We stole a roll of toilet paper from the other bathroom so that we could use it. The shower was fine just smaller than I am use too. When showering I had a bit of an issue. I swear either the water was extremely scolding hot or it was frigid. At one point it completely shut off and I still had shampoo in my hair. I was figuring that I would have to continue to wash it in the sink or something haha but luckily it didn’t come to that. Anyways we are completely cultured shocked and that’s putting it lightly. The room is still way hot even after the shower. We just wrote in our journals the rest of the evening. Anyways I can’t say it enough I feel so awkward here and out of place. Most of what they are saying just blows past me. At this moment in time I am so grateful for taking Spanish and being able to remember some words. Between mine and Karli’s Spanish we could figure out some things of what they were telling us. Also, there was this dog that sounded as though it was dying. I also heard polizia sirens which I sure hope I don’t hear those all night. Its interesting that the window open is the cool down. I guess that’s like Hawaii but in Hawaii it actually works here not so much. Hopefully tomorrow and everyday following will improve just a little. Anyways just getting over the culture shock. I know this will be an awesome experience just can’t wait until I get a schedule down and everything is not so new.