My Bright Yellow AFS T-Shirt

I've finally arrived in Italy one year of planning,frustration,stress,fun and a whole lot of craziness and im finally here in RIMINI!!!!

AFS Rimini :D The first time we all met

I arrived in Rome with 5 other New Zealand AFS exchange students; Alyce Taylor, Morgan Gatland, Angela Curtis, Taylor..... and Abbey Mahon! We travelled about 32 hours altogether.

All the girls from New Zealand. From Left (Me,Taylor,Morgan,Abbey,Alyce,Charlotte and Angela)

When we arrived it was so hot my shoes were sticking to the pavement! But it was so amazing to actually be in... ROME! ITALY! We met up with some of the other exchange students from around the world and took a bus to the hotel where we would have our orientation camp. I was so tired by the time I got there that I just wanted to collapse on my bed but we had to go through the prodìcess of getting our name tags etc so we had to wait out in the italian sun and being New Zealand of course we were one of the last groups to go through. i was so glad to finally be in Italy though that it didn't bother me to much. After we all went for lunch and got to know the other students a bit. All we really wanted to do though was sleep so most of the New Zealand students went to our room and talked and then eventually fell asleep. The whole camp pretty much prepared us for meeting our families and gave us a chance to get to know eachother and the students that will be in our region for the year. Thats where i met Chloe Eberly for the first time :D On the finally night in the hotel all the students were taken to a giant marque where the president of AFS Italy spoke to us about our year and new lives in italy. He said that this year would change our lives and that just taking the chance and actually getting to Italy to be here on this night was the biggest step. It was amazing to think that there were 500 students in that Marque that night and each and everyone of them had gone through what I had gone through to get here but in their own way. We had the whole world in one room. He spoke to us about AFS and what it means and got every country to stand up and give a cheer. New Zealand even got a special shout out because we were the students who had travelled the furtherest to be here.Finally he said the next time we all meet we will speak in Italian :D

The next morning everyone left for their new homes and families here in italy it was actually kind of sad because even over that short period all the New Zealand students had grown close, we had travelled halfway around the world together not knowing what to really expect when we got here and finally we had to say goodbye. It was both sad and yet exciting, it seems that every goodbye leads to a new hello on this exchange which is something I will never grow tired of. I travelled by train to Rimini and on the train I got to know Chloe Eberly from America. She is exactly like my twin but from America I swear we could have been seperated at birth, Im not kidding. We have so many things in common that It actually started to freak me out a little bit :D She arrived at her new town before me so i got to see her meet her new family for the first time which made me even more nervous to meet my family!I wondered what they would think of me (oh and just so you know all of us were really sweaty from the train ride because for some meraculous reason the air conditiong on our train died and also i was wearing my bright yellow AFS t-shirt with a nicely matching floral dress :/ It was the only thing i had that was clean!!!!!) so you can imagine why i was a bit nervous to meet them! haha Once I arrived at Rimini I saw my family and the other host families for the first time! for a moment they didnt see us which gave all of us a chance to take a deep breath and get ready to meet the people we had only ever emailed and read about for the first time. It was one of the most scariest but wonderful moments of my life. They had a giant sign with my picture and "Benvenuta Ariana" on the front! everything happened so fast one minute I was leaving New zealand and the next minute i was meeting my host family! Its the most weirdest feeling to meet a family that you have already imagined from pictures and emails in real life.... they are even better than i thought they would be :D and the minute i met them at the train station all my worries of them liking me and me fitting in went away but then another worry came up...i dont understand ANYTHING!!!! :D my family was hugging and talking to me and im sure they were being super nice but i wouldnt have even understood if they were saying i was nice or the weirdest looking thing they had ever seen!

chloe and me on the train in our sexy yellow AFS t-shirts on our way to our host families :D

The first time I met my host family :D

The first few weeks were defiantly interesting......my mouth was constanly open trying to comprehend that i was actually in Italy! I had to pinch my self every morning to make sure I wasnt dreaming! when AFS New Zealand told me I wouldnt be able to understand much i was like oh yeah thats ok im sure ill catch on eventually...but literally you understand NOTHING! im not joking you think youll be able to understand the general gist of whats happeneing but i couldnt even understand if my host mum had just asked me to go to town with her or feed the dog!! and there are many a times when i'll have a conversation and not fully understand but think that i got the general base of what it was about only to later on find out that no i wasnt going to stay home and do homework i was going to go out with my mum! i was defiantly caught off guard a couple of times chilly in my trackies and a hoodie when my host mum comes in and says ok were going now...wait why arent you ready?!?! and im like ahhhhh what? were going somehwhere? I have defiantly learnt to laugh at myself alot. i mean even now i still get things wrong but ive learnt to stop and laugh at myself for a few minutes like a madman when ive realised whats happened then move on to the next thing!
"I havent failed 1000 times. I have sucessfully discovered 1000 ways to not make a light bulb" Thomas Edison