Matricole, Usini, Natale

So today is a good day. I got to sleep in. We don't have school (yet again) today or tomorow. I am beginning to feel like I will never have a full week of school. There is always something. Whether it's a strike, some assembly of teachers, autogestione, or university students coming to "liberate" us from school one or two hours into the day.

On thursday, friday, and saturday we had "liberatio delle matricole"which is basically when the first year university students come to all the high schools in Sassari, blowing whistles, yelling, coming into classrooms, dressed up crazily and we can all leave school for the day. They are "liberating us". Yeah... I don't really get it either. But that's Italy for you. Apparently they all get drunk too. And then they go driving around the city causing chaos and being crazy college kids. And I have a video of it too but it's not uploading here. :/

Ah here's another one from the internet. It's in Italian but you can probably get the hint. 

On friday I made apple muffins because I was bored and didn't have anything else to do. And of course everyone love them and they were gone within a few days. Then yesterday I made banana bread (which they don't have here and my family has never heard of it) and that was a success too and the loaf is already over halfway gone. xD

On Saturday after the "liberatio" I went to my friend Irene's (pronounced Eee-reh-ney not Eye-reen) house along with my friend Valeria. She lives in another town called Usini. Which is really small, but adorable. It has like 2,000 inhabitants. We were supposed to go there for "La Festa Del Vino"(The festival of wine, all locally made I think) which was on Saturday but we didn't really end up participating. :( I did, however eat more than maybe I ever have in my life. xD Valeria told me that whenever she goes there she gains three kilos and now I know why. Irene's mom is an amazing cook. And she made us homemade pizza, lasagna (pasta al forno as we say), chicken, veal, salad, really good sweets, and more. We did go out on Saturday but it was before dinner and we just ended up walking around because they said we would "participate" after we went out again after dinner. But we were so full from eating all the pizza from dinner that we had to lay down for a while and then Irene's friends went to Sassari and still weren't back and we were tired so we just didn't go out again. Then on Sunday we went to Irene's volleyball game in Sassari and her dad gave me a ride home after.

At Irene's house

Me and Valeria went to a bar during the volleyball game to drink some coffee. (I'm drinking a caffè latte.)

The sign for the wine festival (Also in Sardo.)

When I got home my host mom was setting up all of the christmas things finally! So now we have our tree up, along with other christmasy things. Not to mention we've been listening to a lot of christmas music in the house (which makes me very happy) because I love christmas. :D Enjoy some of our christmas-y house.

My host dad also has been preparing this "cinghiale" (wild boar) for a few days and last night I tried it for the first and probably the last time...Lol. I've been trying a lot of new foods here and this one wasn't my favorite.

There was this huge slab of fat with i'm pretty sure hait on it that he was cutting off... Which I then found pieces of in the next picture... Not my cup of tea.

We also made more orange peels. You take the peels of oranges and save them and soak them in water for at least a day and then heat them on the stove with A LOT of sugar. Like the weight of the oranges and the weight of the sugar have to be equal. And then you put them somewhere to sit for awhile and then you have caramelized orange peels. :) I think this is an Italian thing but I don't really know for sure.

We also eat Panettone (a christmastime italian thing) which is really good and probably really unhealthy and looks like this.

It is basically a sweet bread with powdered sugar sprinkled over it

One more random thing to add! The other day my friend Valeria gave me a bracelet with little four leaf clovers made out of silk with the colors of the italian flag so that was really sweet. :)