Monday, July 21, 2008

Email To Real Host Family

Buon giorno!

I wrote an email to my new host family today...don't worry, I didn't use an online translation service other than for one word this time haha.  This made it a pretty short email, though, because I do not know very much Italian.  I wrote:

"Hello!

My name is Ellie Frye.  How are you?
I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I am an exchange student with AFS.
Do you speak English?
I would love to know about your family, the school that I will be attending, and your lives.
I have two dogs, do you have any animals?

I do not know very much Italian, I am sorry.

Goodbye,
Ellie Frye (USA)"

So I hope that that is a more successful email than my last attempt.  No talk about narcotics in this one though, that's a plus!

I am really looking forward to leaving.  I'm almost at the one month mark!! That is crazy.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Host Family! (for real this time)

So while I was at camp my mom called me and told me that I got my host family!! AFS has not yet gotten the contact information, but the family has been confirmed.

I will be staying with a young couple that have a one year old son. It sounds great, I am excited that they are younger, it sounds like they will have more energy to go out and do things. My host father works in a ceramics factory and my mom stays at home. I am excited that there will be a baby, that will be fun to watch grow up and to take care of and everything. I will be attending the Francesco Orioli school, which I googled and the only sites that came up were in Italian, but from what I sort of tried to decipher, it is a Liceo Scientifico. Which means that it will focus more on math and science, which is better I guess because I am pretty good at them and they are the same in every language.

The area that I will be staying in seems beautiful. It is an ancient city an hour away from Rome, and the historic center of the city is surrounded by midievil walls. It is well preserved from the 11th and 12th century, which will be really cool to see. There is the "Papal Palace" and a bunch of gorgeous sounding churches everywhere. There are also a bunch of thermal baths all around the city, which will be really cool.