Famiglia Ospitante!

Ciao!
So today as I was moping in my room, having a somewhat bad day, I saw that someone was calling me . It was a weird number...But I thought maybe it could be important and I don't want to miss it (you never know). So I answered and this woman told me that she was my Italian host mom! We attempted to communicate in English/German/Italian for 15 mins and finally decided it would be easier to chat on skype! She also sent me 3 emails (4 days ago) that I had to dig for in my junk mail! (Stupid yahoo.) So they live in Sassari, Sardinia!

Sardinia is (as you can see) an island right off of the mainland. I have read about it, watched shows about it, etc and it seems so wonderful and amazing and beautiful I cannot wait!
There are 4 people in my family. My host mom Piera, my host dad Giovannino, my host brother Riccardo (30), and my host sister Ginevra (26). Ginevra is studying in Parma now, so she is not in Sardinia (but hopefully I will still meet her!) My host dad likes cooking (yay!) and my host mom likes listening to music and going to the theatre. Everyone likes reading in the family.
She said Sassari is very beautiful and they live 14km from the ocean!(: There are 150,000 people in Sassari.
I am beyond happy and excited with my placement(: I will also get to live (somewhat) near my good friend Rachael whom I have been talking to for a long time! (She was the first one I talked to who also wanted to go to Italy.)

Nicole

Travel and Logistics

Hey everyone,
I wasn't going to make a post on this, but "why not" I guess. So I received all of my travel information, dates I am leaving, when my orientation in New York is, etc, etc. I leave this lovely state of Minnesota on September 5th, probably sometime in the early morning to fly to New York (I haven't booked my domestic flight yet so I'm not sure). I'm supposed to arrive in New York sometime between 12:00pm and 4:00pm. Then I will meet AFS people and we'll all go to a hotel right by JFK to stay there for the night and have our orientation. All of the kids from the U.S. going to Italy will be there along with other students going to France and Spain I believe. They have different orientations though I guess. Im not really sure.
Then on Sept 6th at 10:00pm we fly to Zurich Switzerland! It's a 13 1/2 hour flight! (My friend corrected me in the comments. It's actually a 7 1/2 hour flight due to the time change!) Then we have an hour or so layover in Zurich and we fly to Rome. I am guessing after we get to Rome we meet up with all of the other students from all over the world going to Italy (at a hotel or something probably). There are I think about 470 of us so... It will be crazy and fun! After that we all part ways and go to our host families! Oh yeah that reminds me...I have yet to receive mine. -_-
I'm a little frustrated about that, but I guess I just have to be patient seeing as I might not get mine until a week before I leave (which I am really hoping does not happen).
Did I ever say anything about my visa? I also have to start working on that. There is a bit of paperwork that still needs to be filled out, along with birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc. And on August 21st I have to go in person to the Italian Consulate in Chicago to obtain it. Hopefully all will go well.

That's all for now,

Nicole