Halloween

We had a Halloween party last night. Such a small imitation of such a wonderful holiday...
Oh well, at least we had something. It was fun - we dressed up all day and then had a semi-party in the evening. I dressed up as a mermaid - wore my sparkly jeans and my blue scarf as a fakebra and had my hair long and wet. Then in the evening I became Little-Mermaid-as-Princess and went to the party, barefoot but not mute. We came late, Nevin and I, and didn't stay long, but long enough to get some cool pictures.

Michael went as the Hulk. He had a lot of fun flexing his muscles and making scary faces.


My roommates and I. Marta (in the middle) went as a mummy but had lost most of her toilet paper by the time I got there. Nevin didn't dress up because there's only so much you can do with limited supplies and religious restrictions.

Ramadan

I probably should have talked about this before. Oh well, here it is.
I'm doing Ramadan this year, the Islamic month of fasting. It's very interesting, it's changed my perception on a lot of things.
One is levels of hunger; I don't consider myself hungry until I'm truly unable to think of anything else because it's impossible to ignore the pain in my stomach. Where I once said, "I'm starving!" I now notice the feeling impassively and go on with my work - it's not important. Also, the psychological difference between can't eat and won't eat is huge. When, for example, I was in Florence and fasting, I tried to ignore the hunger until 6:30, when I suddenly became ravenous and searched for food like a maniac, and if I couldn't find it, I was furiously frustrated. It wasn't that I was more hungry, it was that I could eat but wasn't.
Another is my take on food in general. Wow. Do any of you know how gloriously wonderful an apple or a piece of bread is? Have you savored every bite of it, reveling in the foreign sensation of something in your mouth? Food is so good! I'm amazed that I've taken it for granted for so long.
There's a strange psychological/physical dynamic about evenings in Ramadan. After one meal, I'm full, but I want to/need to keep eating. It's like my head is hungry but not my stomach. In the beginning, this ended with me having a constant bellyache - in the day because I was hungry, and in the night because I was too full. But now I've figured out a pretty good balance of eating and not eating at night, and so I'm relatively comfortable all the time except the 3ish hours before I can eat again.
My favorite hour of the day is now 5:30 to 6:30 - half an hour before I can eat and half an hour after. It's wonderful to count down the minutes until you can eat, and that moment of finally putting something in your mouth is heavenly. Then the half-hour after is great too, because you can eat happily and heartily without worrying about getting overfull. (after that I have to start controlling myself)
And it's more than half over. I'm enjoying it a lot, but I will be very happy to see it end. I really miss breakfast and lunch, and the weird eating schedule is making me fat. :(
It's really great bonding time with the Arabs, sharing break-fast and late night snacks. My rooma is surprised each day that I fast - she keeps thinking that I'll give up half way through. Ha.
Funny how much impact it's had on my dreams. Nearly every night for the first weekish, I dreamed about forgetting and breaking my fast unintentionally, and I still have those dreams periodically. you'd think the subject would be exhausted by now, but there seem to be endless variations on what food I accidentally eat and when. Very interesting.
And now all this talk about food is making me hungry and I still have 3 hours to go. ug.
Ciao!

2 months

It's been officially 2 months since I left home. The longest I've ever been away from my home/family. And yet it doesn't feel like that, I catch myself thinking that perhaps life in the US was just a dream or something, certainly not as real as this.
Sure, random bursts of homesickness are more common, but not as bad as I thought they might be, and on the whole I'm noticing a distinct sense of home radiating from this place.
symptoms include:
1. Being bored with class
2. Dreaming of people here more than people at home.
3. Thinking in broken/accented English. (There's hardly a person here who speaks "normally" but I'm totally used to it.)
4. Having both good and bad days (in the beginning, it was only good days)
5. (Sadly) not being awestruck by the view out my window. (though that might have something to do with the scaffolding that completely blocks the sight)
speaking of scaffolding:
Foresteria (my residence) has been defiled for the sake of its roof. The walls are covered in plastic and metal scaffolding and there are strange men walking about at eyelevel to our 2nd floor bedrooms (sort of uncomfortable...). It's annoying because we can't use the outside stairs, because our view is ruined, and because the bathrooms look right out onto the scaffolding. (or, more importantly, the people on the scaffolding can look right in) Grr. Hopefully it'll go away soon.
I have to do Climbing homework now: find my way to the top of the mountain and back before sundown. Good luck to me!

Dinners

As Mensa food is not high-class cuisine, students tend to plan lots of dinners, where everyone gets together to cook and eat food of a much higher quality. Some of the most noteworthy of these dinners happened this past weekend: Christian dinner, Asian/Middle Eastern dinner, and Nonlatin, American dinner.
Christian dinner was friday, and I decided to go because (despite being a rather reluctant christian) I was hungry. (they noticed that there seemed to be a lot more christians in the college once there was food involved. I wonder why...?) It was well worth it. I was struck by the blessing before the meal, though. It wasn't really like our grace at home, but just the act of holding hands with people around a table before a meal made me homesick for "for health and strength". I wonder what my family is doing without my voice in the rounds we sing? Can McKinley sing strong enough to hold her own? I feel minorly bereft, without that evening ritual.
Asian/Middle Eastern dinner was Saturday, and exclusively for the aforementioned, but I managed to get in.
How, you ask? First I told everyone that I was really close to being Asian, having lived in Japan and all. Then I helped make dumplings with the Chinese girls. Then, in case people still had problems with me joining, I dressed up Middle Eastern: I borrowed Nevin's jacket and she dressed me up in her veil. She loved it, said I looked much better than with my hair out, and proceeded to bring me around to all the Arab guys to get their concurrence that I was "very beautiful". (she got it. yay! :) )
So now it's up to you guys: do I look better with or without a veil?

Then, on Sunday evening, I had my first triumph: I successfully arranged a Nonlatin American (US and Canada) dinner, because this week is Latin week, so we needed some North American Pride to tide us over through the onslaught of Latinness. :)
We had a lot of fun, I made Banana bread, donuts, and pancakes, three people made chicken of some sort, we had French fries and fried rice putine (aka heart attack in a bowl) and spinach dip/bread. And Ayanda made chocolate cake and Deanna made the most heavenly apple pie...
By the end I was bursting with way too much food. It was fantastic, but not particularly healthy - of course, it was american. And the next day I was just as hungry as I would have been without it. It almost seemed a waste to eat all that food.

Florence

I spend my 1st long weekend of my UWC career in Florence.
Great fun, many surprises.
1st of all, it was a heck of a lot of money. Wow. 130 euros for 3 days, and I was on the low end -Toni says he spent 250 - where did it all go?? Food, (gelato...aah) and sleeping and transportation. It's so different when it's your own money you're spending.
I went with Raisa, Nick, Alejandro, Artemis, Shahar, Evita, Umberto and we met other people in other groups. We all pretty much hang in the same place: around the Duomo.

It's so amazing to be walking around a city and then look down a side street to see this fantastic structure, and watch people passing by like it's nothing special... Everything there is like that: even the mundane is spectacular. That was one surprise.

My favorite surprise was how we were greeted: the first night we were there, we were met by fireworks on the river. An amazing show of lights and music, they were some of the best fireworks I've ever seen.

Another shock was how we spent our time after dark. We stayed out until 3:00 or later every night exploring Florentine nightlife. Bars, discos, we did it all. It was really fun, and strange, because I'd never encountered this kind of culture before. I'd always thought that it was somehow only in movies. Wrong. I've officially partied all night long in Florence now, and it was very entertaining. We had a train to catch at 5:30 am, so we slept in the train station:

It was a bit chilly, so we used my skirts as blankets (I love skirts) and we curled together both for warmth and so the crazyman wouldn't bother us.
He tried to offer me beer and talk to Evita, but none of us could understand him - it sounded like he was making a language up. It sounded a little like Hebrew, so Shahar had a long pretend conversation with him before we left. We all laughed superhard about it, but then again, everything's funny when you've been up all night.
(interesting, the parallel between going and returning, this is how we got to Florence:
maybe we just like sleeping.)

Nuova Rooma!

I have a new roommate!!

She's finally come, and I'm so happy. She came late Monday evening, and we've been showing her around ever since. She's picked up things quickly, and I really like her. She's so sweet, she showed me her Koran today (not letting me touch it) and read me some of the beautiful words (no idea what they mean) and talked to me about Islam, the fundamental principals behind it and how it relates to other religions... I was late for college service because of it.
She covers her hair (a shame, it's so beautiful) and it's interesting how the veil changes her face, she looks so different with and without it. I'm excited to be able to talk to her - of all the cultural differences, I think this will be the biggest/most important.
I watched her pray this afternoon, she donned a white veil and skirt and spread out her carpet, faced the wall and knelt down...I've heard of it so often, but never seen it done. I guess it'll be common to me by the end of the year.
And I have to be careful about when I bring guys into my room now, because she takes her veil off inside, so I have to knock and check if I'm getting something or showing someone music or anything. It's so strange.

Friends

Just to prove to you that I'm not hanging out with mutant semi-humanoid creatures, here are more pictures of my friends.

Toni, from Finland. The one who taught me my favorite word so far: blue in finnish "sininen". He's the only one here who can outdo me in constant sarcasm. He's fun to talk to, though all our conversations tend to end up with America Bashing. Funny, that...

Vanessa (singapore) and Eitan (Israel) They're also posing for another camera. Nessie (as I call her to her giggling annoyance) lives right next to me, if we knew morse code, we could communicate, but it's just too much work right now.
Eitan provides endless entertainment for us northerners when it gets cold - he puts on two shirts, a sweatshirt and a down parka when the thermomiter dips below 55. I still grin at the memory of the first time I saw him like that. I'll get a picture as soon as he does it again.

Tara (Sri Lanka). She's standing in front of the Bridge of Sighs - where the prisoners take their last look at the sea before their excecution. She's got the prettiest hair here, thick and rich and black. I'm just itching to get my hands on it sometime. She's also really sweet and calm, a good contrast to some of the more energetic friends.

My co-years. Nik, Elad, and Leah. Elad's nicknamed "The Lion King" and because Nik's always with him, and is smaller and has less hair, he's called Simba. I knew I'd be friends with Leah even before I met her, so when she got here on the 3rd day, I overheard her saying something about America to someone and jumped on her - "you're here!! I'm Anika!" and we've been friends ever since.

Michael (Canada) and half of Eitan. Michael is holding the only sugary thing I've ever seen him eat (but he sure went all out this time!!) He's crazy-buff and a little obsessed with health/muscle mass, but he says it's perfectly normal where he comes from. I never knew the Maritimers were so crazy...
He's a fellow fantasy lover, and we have fun on the nights when the moon is partly obscured by clouds by telling each other stories about what could be in that band of moonlight: a pirate ship? a sorceress? a procession of elves making their way to the otherworld?


And finally Bilkan (my International Show date;) ) who returned last week from Moscow where he'd won 4th place in an international physics competition. (I feel so small...)

Venezia

Ah, the joys of Venice on a sunny day.
We went on a school trip on Saturday: all of Venice for 5 euros: good deal, except we had to get up at 6 am. And it was Saturday morning so we'd been partying all the night before. Life is so harsh sometimes... But we managed, and I spent the two hour ride sleeping on Eitan who was sleeping on Michael who was sleeping on the window.
We got to Venice and spent the boat ride there taking pictures of each other:

That's Jale, Leah, and Hanne.

Then we went into the real deal. First thing we did was look at the Basilica St. Marco and learn about its history, that it took 400 years to be fully decorated and that the Venetians stole St Marks body from the Muslims in Istanbul and smuggled it out by covering it with pork so the customs officials wouldn't look too closely. Then they brought it to Venice and made a mosaic about it:

I had been disappointed with the Basilica last time I went. It was darker out, and more people, so I didn't really get a good impression. But this time was amazing - the combination of light to make the golden ceiling sparkle and a fantabulous teacher to bring the art to life was enough to set the Basilica in my memory forever.

Then we had free time and went to have lunch. Picture this: A Ukrainian, a Guatemalan, 2 Russians, a Latvian, and an American sitting in a Cuban-themed pizzeria eating Italian pizza and listening to Salsa music. crazy.

This is us:

Iryana, Rinato, Anna, Bulat, Me, and Evita.

Then we went on another art/church tour. It was amazing. This is Henry Thomas talking about the bubonic plague and the church they built to commemorate the salvation of the city when only 1/3 of the city died of a disgusting and painful disease instead of all of them.

Can you see the passion and interest radiating off of him?

Then we went to a Scuola that had been decorated by one (very good) painter who worked on it for 25 years of his life. w.o.w. It was fantastically beautiful. I wanted to stay in there a month, but we only had a few hours.

I managed to sneak a picture of it before they told us cameras weren't allowed.

And that was about it, except that I managed to be exactly on time for the boat home (i.e. they were just leaving and saying, "we can't wait for the late people, we have to go. Peter, you stay behind and take them back on the train." but we squeaked in just in time) and if it weren't for me Michael and Eitan wouldn't have made it. yay.

I'll leave you with the last image I saw of Venice. No more need be said.

A Room with a View

I bet none of you can top this bedroom window view:

And someone asked for pictures of my friends, here are the ones I could find (Bilkan's still not back from Moscow yet)









This is Michael (Canada)..And Voytec (Poland) and Julian (Swiz.). And Alahandro(Venezuela) And you can sort of see Ayanda (South Africa)
There are lots more, these are just the people who are in the computer room with me now.

And I'm being a good ee friend, look what I did for Salim:
I'll deliver it this evening.

Ahh, Mensa calls again. I must fly.

Classes

It's been a weekish of classes (though not a full cycle-it's crazy, we have 8 day weeks) and I think I can definitively say things about my classes.
World Cultures: My favorite. We spend the entire class time looking at slides of African sculptures and discussing where and when they could have come from and why they were made and what kind of culture was behind them... It's fabulous. The teacher is so passionate about it, and he engages us all to be really involved too.
Italian: second favorite. I don't know why, because it's really hard, but I love it. The teacher speaks solely in Italian, and makes us speak Italian too. It's hard to understand and we do a lot of work, but I feel so stimulated and smart when I get something right. I'm learning tons and tons.
Music: Third favorite. Once again, it's hard to understand the teacher, because his English is not so good, but it's really fun and I'm learning a lot. There's a huge range in our class - from people who know everything (virtually) to people still not sure which note Re relates to and unintroduced to a minor third.
Environmental Systems: Hmm, a hard call between 3rd and 4th. It's science, so I have a natural aversion to it, but it's useful science, and the teacher's great. She's really funny and a master at self-deprecating humor and teasing. A woman after my own heart. And the people in the class are cool too.
Math: Boring. We're learning about the magic of exponents. yay. I've been spending my time writing little stories in my everything book. So that part's fun. What's weird is that he went around the class, asking if we had graphing calculators and only I and Tara (from Sri Lanka) had one. It's so strange; everyone has a calculator at home, and here, half the people haven't even seen them.
Health Watch: Absolutely useless. But we have fun anyway, talking about nothing. It's basically a slacker-block. But Bilkan's in the class... ;)
English: Sigh. Boring. Disappointing. Annoying. Daze-inducing. We're working on The Outsider, and I seem to leave every class with the mentality (or lack thereof) of Meursault: a nothing-matters-what's-happening-I-don't-care kind of mood.
So those are my classes. On the whole they're pretty nice, I'm quite happy. Besides World Cultures, my favorite block is my free block, which I have every day (yay!) because I'm a native speaker.
I'd post pictures of my friends and the views from my window, etc. But I'm on the wrong computer. Later, then.

EE Friends

The thing that's taking up most of my time right now is this: EE Friends.
Until November 2, all the secundi are stressed out about their Extended Essays, a requirement for the IB. So us primi help them out a bit by sending them chocolate, encouraging notes, flowers, coffee, and generally make their lives more interesting and happy. Each one of us chooses a second year to play secret-admirer to, and there is much intrigue and plotting among the secundi to find out who we are, and among the primi to keep it secret.
I, crazy person that I am, chose two, because I was feeling altruistic at the time. So I'm EE-friending Salvo, the boy who picked me up at the train station, and Salim, a guy from Afghanistan. It's great fun (they both think I'm someone else, which is quite interesting) but expensive - chocolate (and flowers and toys, etc) for two people every couple days adds up. And there's a toll on my imagination too, to make it exciting and interesting for both of them in completely different ways is hard mental work.
But I'm managing. I'm going to lead Salvo on a treasure hunt around Duino, and I'm working on a painting of the cliffs for Salim right now. And Trieste has lots of stuff I can get for them.
And they send me chocolate back, which makes it all perfectly fine by me.

Pictures!!

Ok. so I finally figured out how to get pictures here. Yay!

This is the castle I can see out my window. It looks really cool in the nightime.
This is my quarter of the room. As you can see, I've tried to make it as blue as possible.
These are the flowers Bilkan gave me. (aren't they pretty?) When I manage to track down the pictures of us, I'll post those too.
These are my co-years, Elad and Nick (the blond ones), on 80's night. Eru save us all.

I'd go around taking pictures of the landscape, etc, but it's crazily windy and rainy and gray today, and Duino deserves a better setting. So those will come later.

One Week Later...

So it's been a week.
wow.
It feels like eternity. How could it not? An eternity of sunshine, sparkling seas, adventure, consternation, and parties.
We'll address each issue in a linear order, as I'm officially in school now, and that's how we do it.
Sunshine. Weird. So, I'm used to sun, like all weather, it happens. But for an entire week straight? No rain, no clouds, no anything imperfect (except a bit of heat, and even that wasn't that bad). It was ... Unnerving to have it be such perfect weather for so long. Maybe I should get out of the "top ten cloudiest cities in America" more often.
Sparkling seas. beau-tee-ful. Especially out my bedroom window. We get the gentle sound of waves all night long and I make a point to look out at the fantabulous view every morning and evening. Unfortunately, not quite so spiffy to swim in. I don't know what all the hype is about seas, I'm really not partial to them (and never have been - ask anyone who went to cape may with me when I was a little. I was a sandbaby) they're salty!! You get it in your eyes and your mouth and all over your body and it's ick. And not only that, they have nasty creatures residing in them like jellyfish and sea urchins. I haven't encountered a jellyfish yet, but they're around. And I have had close, personal contact with a sea urchin. It's funny, when I wasn't allowed to go in the water it was all I wanted to do, and when I was allowed, (having passed the swimming test) I never want to go in again (sort of). I was walking out to go swimming, and I was mid-thigh-deep in the water, just about to kick off, and I slipped and landed straight on an urchin. I look down into the water to see black spikes sticking out of my heel. Ow. I went back, obviously, and to the nurse, who couldn't pull them out, and so walked on tiptoe for the next two days, until she said they weren't dangerous and I could walk on my foot normally. I still have little black spots.
Adventure. I went climbing on the cliffs near the sea, which was amazingly cool, or rather hot. It was the hottest day yet, and the rocks were scalding to the touch. But we had fun, and I did some crazy cool rockclimbing moves, like maneuvering the corner that half the people (including the leader) fell from (into the sea, no problem. We actually wanted to fall, it was so hot) I was so proud of myself that I jumped into the sea. It felt great, and there were no urchin problems, but I was insanely thirsty by the time I got back. Oh well. And now I'm officially doing climbing as my physical activity. Starting tomorrow. yay!
And there were some other adventures, like the 20-some-odd people who got caught by the Carribinierri (police) for singing too loudly and drinking at 2:00 in the morning. drinking was no problem, but singing made people mad, so they had to write down their names and they're all not so happy. I, of course, was innocently minding my own business in Pala (one of the residences) singing yellow submarine and playing pingpong.
Consternation. Oh, I guess that is summed up in the phrase, "help! What classes should I take??" and other variations. I ended up dropping philosophy and taking world cultures, math, environmental system, English, Italian, and music. All classes but one are going to be cool. Some more than others, like World Cultures. Wow. I can say no more, I'm in too much awe. Maybe later. And music is cool too.
But -*gasp*sob*- English is awful. The teacher is no good and the reading material is all previously covered. I've read everything from Waiting for goaded to 12th Night to The Stranger. Poor me, I've been spoilt for the past ever-so-many years by fabulous English teachers, and now I get a normal one, I can't stand it. Sigh. I guess y'all will have to send me care packages of great classics. I'm requesting Dickens, Tolstoy, Shelley and some really great poetry. email me if you want to take up the job. I'll send you something cool and Italian back if you want.
Ah, Parties! This is great. We seem to have them for no more reason than someone has a laptop and speakers. It's great. Not only that, but I've lost my phobia/selfconsciousness for dancing. Now I'm the one telling people to let go and have fun, not the other way around. It's cool, I like it.
The secondi put on a great show for us primi Saturday night. It was really funny, they did everything from an abbreviated version of the coming year (unnerving) to a stripshow (male) to a modern dance piece (really beautiful).
And I had a date! =) The secundi assigned us all partners for the show, to make it more interesting. We knew about it all day, but weren't sure how it was going to work. So while we were on our excursion to Trieste (on a treasure hunt in which our team won a huge jar of Nutela: ambrosia-for-mortals) Bilkan, a Turkish primo, asked if I would be his partner. I said sure, and we left it at that until we got back. I found a card on my desk saying I was going with Marco, so I went to Bilkan and said I was, unfortunately, taken. He asked if we could switch, and I said, "I dunno, why not?" so he talked to Marco and it was all arranged. He came to "pick me up" at my room 5 minutes beforehand, and when I opened the door he presented me with a bouquet of roses "for a lovely lady" !! Hey, guys! What's with that? You all warned me about Italian men, but you never said anything about Turks!! ;)
Anyway, we descended the stairs to flashing cameras and jokingly jealous comments: "Hey, Bilkan, you were supposed to be my date!" I'll try to get some of the pictures of us and upload them when I figure out the camera-computer connection (along with all the other pictures I've taken so far). And the show was great and the dance after was wonderful and yay.
And gosh, it's time for mensa and I've written a crazyhuge amount. I wonder if any of you are still reading...
More posts (and pictures, I swear.) coming.

My First Day

I'm at UWCAd!
I got here yesterday, and was overwhelmed by introductions. I can't count how many times I said, "hi, I'm Anika from America" and got a name in response (which I promptly forgot) I seem to remember countries better: I've talked with Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Palestinian, Venezualen, Canadian, Sri Lanken, and, of course, Italian students, but I can't remember their names at all.
I got to the train station at 5:00 ish, and saw a group of teenagers with big bags. I introduced myself, and got a list of names and countries back: Finland, Italy, Singapore, and Vietnam. Then we got on the bus and came to the school. When we got off, I was surrounded by people shaking hands everywhere I turned. I would introduce, shake hands, and turn away, not remembering a thing about the person because I was meeting someone else. One introduction stood out though: One of the second years shook my hand and said, "hello, I'm __, from Iraq." I introduced myself normally, but thoughts and emotions were flying. "so here I am, meeting a guy from the country my country just decimated. wow. maybe I should say 'Anika from Vermont' I don't want to be known as an american. Does he hate me? I hope not. I want to disappear..." I felt awkward and guilty and excited - I wanted to be able to talk to him and learn what his life is like. (still do: I haven't been able to find him again)
My roommates are Italian (second year) Polish (arriving today) and Palestinian. She was supposed to arrive at midnight last night, so I stayed up to welcome her, but I went to bed at 1:00, and she never came. Now they say she had visa trouble and can't come until the middle of the month. oh well. Julia, the Italian, is very nice. she's shown me around Foresteria (our dorm) and talked to me about school and life and given me advice. Most of the second years' advice consists of this: life is good for you now. you have no work, no worries. enjoy it while it lasts. in a couple months, you will go crazy.
So here I am, enjoying it. There's a lot to enjoy. The view from my window is exquisite; we look out onto the ocean and on one side are cliffs and the lights of Trieste, and on the other side is the Duino Castle. There's a beautiful mountain behind us, and the houses are so picturesque - yellow walls and red tiles. There's a trail up over the cliffs beginning right at my doorstep, and it has great views. I want to hike the entire way, but I haven't gotten to that yet. The people are wonderful, all as excited as I am, and really fun to talk to. Last night, the Italian who picked me up (Sergo, I think.) took me and a group of other people down to the "Porto" the port, and we sat on the rocks, looking at the stars and the sea and the lights across the water (it reminded me of New York, and I had to keep reminding me that this was a sea, not a lake that I was looking out onto) and talking. It was beautiful, wonderful, relaxing.
And, of course, I sent my mother off this morning. It wouldn't be right not to mention it - it was important; now I'm all alone. But I don't want to think about it. There's so much else to do, I don't want to be caught up in homesickness the second day.
And now: off to meet more people!!

Italy's Finest

Doing the mini-grand tour here - venice and florence, and then to school.
Venice was spectacular. we skipped the major tourist traps and wandered around back alleys and had much more fun. I think, when I have free internet (this one's 1 euro for 15 min. bleah!!) I'll devote an entire post to it.
Florence is nice too, but hotter and much more expensive: all the muesums cost waaay too much. so we've been biking around and gazing at the river and the pretty houses.
And tomorrow I go to school for real. I can't belive this, maybe on, like, sep. 28th it'll sink in. oh well.
more later, the countdown's on for my internet.

Weeeee're Off!!

In the minute left before the airport internet guy kicks me off the computer, let me just say:
I'm off!! in 15+ hours I will be in Italia and in a couple days going to school. Aaaaaaaa... (help?)

A New Home for the Jameses

My family's found a house! It's huge: 3 stories and lots of rooms. They have no idea how they'll fill it all, it doesn't have much furniture, and what it does have is not fully functional. But it's a lot better than the other options, and it has lots of potential for future coolness. They're moving in today, after the cleaners come and make it spick&span, and the first thing they're installing is an air conditioner, closely followed by a fridge. (it's blue! I helped choose it. :) ) And beds. But the rest is going to come from Ikea (there are 4 in Taipei, the capital, (yay!!) so we'll get stuff there and drive it down with their new car) It's so hard to write they instead of we. I still can't believe I'm not really part of this all. That I don't have to make every appliance blue because I won't be able to see them... But it's fun to watch and help and I'm glad I know where they're staying. We're checking out of the hotel now, so I've got to go, and there's no internet for a while. Oh well.

The Voyage Begins

I'm sitting in a hotel in Taitung, Taiwan, having left my home for good. Yesterday (sort of - it's all so complicated with time zones...) we flew up and away from Vermont through cotton-candy clouds that peppered the sky, making the departure almost magical in its perfection. We fulfilled our family description once again and got to the plain in the nick of time: 30 minutes before the flight left. (I hope to cure this addiction to lateness, but I'm not sure how much success I'll have) After that, though, most things went well.
Have I gone over the general plan yet? It's this: I'm going to Taiwan for 10 days with my family, who are spending the year there to give my 8-year-old sister, McKinley an international experience (their blog: adventurejames.blogspot.com). I'm helping them find a house and make it a home and see their schools (my dad's a teacher and teaching English in 5 schools in Taitung) and get a car, etc. Then my mother is flying with me to Italy for a few days to do the same (minus the car part...sigh)
I'll write more later, I'm really tired.

The crown of ribbons 

Birthday Party Fingerpainting