Beginning of September

I have not been updating the blog nearly as much as I should I am so sorry! I’m finding it hard to find a block of time to actually sit down and write everything I want to. So where did I leave off?

 Settling in here in Trieste has been going fairly smoothly. I still do not feel like I have experienced any culture shock at all. The little things I was worried about have not been hard to adjust to at all, like the time difference, a 24-hour clock, using Euros instead of dollars, ect. The language really is still the hardest thing for me. Church is actually the biggest help with that right now though. Even this week they did the sermon in Italian and English, so that was really helpful. I am picking up words and phrases here and there, but I couldn’t hold a conversation if my life depended on it hah! It is just much harder to pick up than I thought, because I work with English speaking people, my kids at school speak English, my roommate speaks English…so really the only Italian I interact with is when going to the grocery store, gelato, restaurants, things like that.

 Really the hardest part of moving overseas has been how much I miss the PEOPLE back in America. I really do not miss the US AT ALL actually…the only thing I am longing for is the people L So if everyone could just move over here with me, haha my life would be PERFECT!!

 Let’s see-last weekend was very busy…on Saturday Carrie, another teacher at IST and me, went to Slovenia, which little did we know is absolutely GORGEOUS. She has a European friend that does tours throughout Europe, so he invited her to join in on this wine tasting in Slovenia for free. So we tagged along for the day with a group of old Danish people and got an incredible tour of the biggest wine manufacturer is Slovenia, Vinakoper. We stopped in Isola for lunch…had an incredible seafood feast! Then, we went to Piran for the rest of the day and Claus (Carrie’s friend that lead the tour) gave us a personal tour through the city! He lead us up to this city wall, the highest point in the city, where we saw some incredible views, then he took us to this hidden wine bar off the beaten path, then we sat in Piazza Tartini for a while enjoying some music and the beautiful day. It was an incredible day!!

 The next day a group of us took a day trip to Venice…I LOVE that I can do things like that because I live in ITALY!! Trieste really is an incredible location, because its so far north, we can travel to so many places in such a short amount of time! Venice was incredible though, I LOVE that city…for many reasons J We went there for the Regatta Storica, a boat racing festival, but we walked around for most of the day enjoying the city, having a nice long lunch…followed by gelato of course! (which oh my goodness, this is NOT good for me to live in a city that is known for its ice cream….its not even ice cream though its better than ice cream!!! Im trying to limit myself to a few times a week, hmmmm however so far that has not been very successful J) Venice was incredible though…I really would love to go back again in low season when there are not so many people though. GREAT day J

 Then this past week was the first week of school! My gosh they have long school days at IST though…the kids are there 8:30-4:00, and that’s with very little time for specials. So add an hour commute both ways (we take the bus or walk to the tram, which is a 30 min ride, then we have a 10 minuet walk to the school) and with staying after to school to run sometimes…its makes for a VERY long day. I really am going to have to build up endurance; I was absolutely exhausted everyday when we finally got back to the house at 7pm. But I am in third grade this year; there are 2 third grade classes with 18 kids in each, so I am splitting my time between two teachers. I’ll be in charge of teaching history; since there are 3 of us, we are able to really spread the workload out, which is really nice and means more time to be able to enjoy the city and traveling! My kids are adorable though, I have never had a class of more beautiful children….ahhh and they all have the cutest little accents!!! Its so great! I really do LOVE the way you can teach here, no standardized tests…and we can actually do art projects and have time to read stories!!! Its great, makes me remember the teacher I really want to be J Although they do things veryyyy differently here, so that is going to take a lot of getting used to. But already it has been such an opportunity for learning and seeing new ways of doing things.

 And this Thursday I leave to come HOME!!!!!! I could not be more excited to come back for the wedding…I am literally going home for 48 hours, so I am going to be incredibly exhausted…but it will be MORE than worth it! Yayaya!!! I am so excited!!!! Ill try to write again soon. We already are planning on going to Croatia the weekend after I come home…so I will have much to write about! There is possible talk of Oktoberfest too…so we will see. I love living abroadJ If only everyone could just come live here with me, I’d be the happiest girl in the world!! J