In the words of Swedish House Mafia "Don't You Worry Child"

Piacere il mio amici :) I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling pretty pumped for September!!

Oh really? I'm the only one who wants summer break to end? That's so surprising!!

Okay, so unless you're an exchange student you probably want to savor every ounce of summer that you have left, and I respect that!

However with that being said, SEPTEMBER HURRY UPPPPPP!

Thursday night I officially got my flight schedule and pre-departure orientation information! The magic date is *drumroll please* September 4th :D :D

I arrive at the Hilton Hotel in JFK Airport by 4pm (16:00 for all of my non-American readers) for orientation :) This is where I will meet with all other AFS kids from America who are going to Italy, because every country has a gateway city and Italy's from the US is NYC. Then, the next evening I fly out of JFK to Zurich, Switzerland, and get my connecting flight from there to Rome, landing in Rome at 2:05 PM (14:05) Friday, September 6th :)

My official flight schedule!

 

Once in Rome I will attend another orientation, but this time it is for EVERY student from around the world who will be staying in Italy! I am so beyond pumped for this, you have no idea. Already I have made dozens of friends from all over and to meet them all is going to be like seeing your friends that you haven't seen since last school year 3 months ago on the first day of school, but like times 100000.

 

And then on the 8th or 9th of September we are all whisked away by train, plane, boat, rickshaw, or camel across the country to go meet our families! It's literally like one big roller coaster of excitement that just doesn't end!

 

Another huge thing happened today too - I got to speak with my host sister <3 (this is what the post title is referring to)

 

As soon as I read my family profile, I was amazed by how perfectly matched up we were! As I mentioned before, it was almost surreal how fantastic my family seemed for me. However, the difference between reading someone's basic information and likes/dislikes on paper, and then actually meeting them is quite drastic. Both I and my host sister are the same school year, and that could either be a blessing or a curse. I was SO nervous that she or anyone else wouldn't like me, after all, I am a complete stranger that they have decided to let live with them for 10 months. And then if she didn't like me, I would be going to school with her everyday, sleeping in her room, and it would just be a bad situation. My heart would just break into a million pieces if I didn't end up clicking with my new family :(

 

However, today my host sister found me on Facebook, and we began chatting! What started out as a chat became a 3 hour long conversation (her English is fantastic btw) and any worries of not getting along with her have pretty much vanished! We started out talking about me (where I'm from, my family, school, etc.) And when I told her I'm from PA, she responded with "OH! Do you live near Rosewood?"

 

Okay, anyone out there who watches Pretty Little Liars should be cracking up right about now ;)

 

And of course I explained to her that Rosewood doesn't really exist, but Philly does and PA is very much a real place! I am also a HUGE PLL fan, so we bonded over that (they have it in Italy and it's broadcast in ENGLISH with Italian subtitles, scoreeee) and from there on out we really clicked :) She is so sweet and she really loves America and wants me to help her improve her English, awwww :) She showed me pictures of her gorgeous house (I guess my house now too?) And told me all about the best places to shop and the best beaches to get a tan! In addition, she loves to travel, and has literally been to about everywhere except the USA! All in all, I think she might just become my sister from another mister ;)

 

That's all for now folks, arrivederci :)

 

 

Sweet Baby J I have a host family!!!

Whew, I am literally typing this out of breath, because I just ran around my house screaming my lungs out for about 10 minutes solid.

Okay, now that my pulse has returned to normal, I HAVE A HOST FAMILY!!! :DD

Actually, funny story about that.

So about last Monday my local PA AFS rep, Deb, posted on our Susquehanna Valley Facebook page that I have a host family. Well, I am the second one out of the 5 of us going to Italy who got their family, so I was pretty pumped about that. However, the first girl Lauren had about a week in between when Deb announced that she had a family and when she actually got the confirmation email with details about them and where they live.

So, when Deb announced that I had a family, I knew I was in for a bit of a wait.

greeeeeeaaaaaat.

 if there is one thing I am TERRIBLE at, it is patience.

...... I literally had to take up the hobby of crocheting just to keep my mind off of the wait (but I did end up making a pretty legit scarf so it wasn't too bad)

Fast forward to this past Monday, and still nothing (trust me I was refreshing my email about 30 times a day) and I decided to take matters into my own hands and message Deb on Facebook.

I was all "Yo Deb, you best be crack a lackin on my family cuz I wants to know who they iz, feel me shawty?"

Jk, it was actually more like "Hi, I was just wondering when I will find out the information on my host family. I talked to Lauren and she said to give it about a week and I have, but still no email from AFS. Just wondering if there is something else I have to do or someone I can talk to to find out, thanks!"

Anyways, she responded right away (gotta love her <3) and assured me I would find out my family information very soon and gave me the name of my town, Trecase, to hold me over until then.

Well, you can bet your sweet molasses I have been glued to Google maps for the past 72 hours. It turns out Trecase is right on the coast (score) about 2 hours south of Rome (double score) and about 12 miles outside of Naples!! (jackpot) In addition, it is 10 minutes from Pompeii, right at the base of Mount Vesuvius, and within 1.5 hours of Capri and the Amalfi Coast, which have some of the nicest beaches in all of Italy! So basically, everything you think of when you think about Italy is centered around my town :D

This is Naples!!

This is Mount Vesuvius!

 

Fast forward to 20 minutes ago, and my poor, sweet father who is currently lying on the couch because he just had abdominal surgery to fix a hernia in his side earlier this morning, screamed up to me saying I should check my email. Boy oh boy oh boy I was excited.

Right before opening it up, I paused for a second, about a trillion thoughts were racing through my head! When you spend 3 months fantasizing about what your life is going to be like for the next year, you have a lot of good thoughts and bad thoughts. Personally, I am a super athletic person who loves to workout, I'm not a huge fan of little kids, and I'm kind of shy so being in a big family would be a bit overwhelming for me, so any combination of those factors would definitely be a challenge.

Well, if I could have made a dream family  checklist, handed it to AFS, and told them to go find me the perfect match, I couldn't have picked a better family!

My family consists of a father (Antonio) a mother (Rita) a sister who is my age (: (Federica) and a little brother (Vincenzo) <3

Our house is large (according to Federica, who appears to have filled out the application) and is about 2km away from the school I will attend :) Of course, all 4 family members are stereotypical GORGEOUS Italians, so I hope some of that will rub off on me *fingers crossed* We have 2 dogs and a rabbit, and everyone enjoys exercising and playing soccer <333333

Seriously, if they are half as perfect for me as the application makes it seem, this next 11 months are going to be an absolute dream (hehe totally just rhymed there)

Ciao tutti :)

Eat trash because nothing new is happening in my life

Ciao amici, come stai? Well, judging from the title of this post, you can probably deduce that lately,  my life has been about as interesting as a grass growing contest. I'm sort of stuck in this awkward limbo between preparing for Italy but also trying to enjoy my summer vacation, which basically amounts to me sitting in my dark basement watching Netflix. As far as preparing for Italy, I can't really do anything yet because I haven't gotten any new information in about a week. The good news is I have a host family *insert brofist here*!! The bad news is I have no idea who they are or where they live.... so I've been pulling my hair out and slowly going insane for the past 6 days. I guess I could say it's teaching me patience and building character, but honestly it just makes me want to roundhouse kick my computer every time I check email and don't find anything :P

So, since I have no new Italy updates, I thought I'd take a step back today and talk about something that  I think is really important. Eating trash.

Now, I know what you're all thinking

What the beep beep beeeeeep is she talking about? Is she insulting my dietary habits? Is this code for some sort of amazing garbage-themed party?!?

Well, I'm not crazy, I'm sure your dietary habits are fabulous, and no I will not be throwing any dumpster parties in the near future.

What I'm talking about is America and our consumer waste problem.

Now, for all of my American readers out there, ask yourself a question; do you love your country? I would sure hope that all of you said yes, because I think one of the biggest issues that America faces today is the fact that SO many people (me included) take what we have in this country for granted. How many times do you go to the mall, only to complain that your mom won't buy you that 5th t-shirt in addition to your 4 and 3 pairs of jeans? How often do we throw hissy fits because there is nothing to eat in our house, when we are staring at a full pantry and fridge? How many times do we go to the grocery store and buy $100's of dollars worth of food, only to not even eat half of it? This, my friends, is our problem. We have become the products of an individualistic society. Instead of teaching people to share what they have and put the community before one single person, our society praises individual want and glorifies material items as a sign of a happy life. Sadly, this has resulted in a culture today that wastes 1/2 of all that it produces. I'm not just talking about food either. Clothes, fossil fuels, electricity, it is a never-ending cycle of overbuying and then throwing out.

Listen to the cute kitty, he knows what he's talking about

Recently I watched a documentary called Dive! all about our wasteful habits as a country (but it mainly focused on food) and let me tell you, it was pretty eye opening. The filmmaker and his group of friends all decided to live off of nothing but food they picked out of dumpsters. (hence the title hehe) Their slogan is "eat trash" because of all of the perfectly fine food that is thrown out everyday. And although that sounds utterly disgusting, you'd be amazed by what grocery stores will throw away. In order to avoid potential law suits, grocery stores will throw away any produce, meats, and dairy the day before it's sell by date. These people were leaving every night with thousands of dollars worth of meat, produce, and dairy... so much so that they ended up needing to buy a second freezer just to store it all. The main filmmaker tried very hard to talk to grocery store managers, owners, and even CEOs to see if instead of throwing out this still-edible food, they would consider donating it to food banks. None of the stores would even allow him to talk to them, let alone consider what he had to say.

I am NOT condoning dumpster diving in any way, shape or form, because I find it just as nasty as you. However, I am urging you to just stop and think for a minute about how truly blessed you are. Everyday, over 1 billion people worldwide will go without food, and about 10 million of those people live in the United States. Poverty and hunger are very big problems in today's society.. even the richest country in the world can't feed all of its citizens! As the upcoming generation, it is up to us and our ideas to shape America into what it will become. In as little as 10-20 years, it will be our turn to be the proletariat and control what is going on in this country. I say, if we all just paused for a second the next time we were out shopping or getting food, and thought "Do I really need ALL of this?" then we could cut down our waste intake by about 15%. 20% of all waste going into landfills is purely discarded food, and if you think about how much time, energy, and money goes into producing that food, we would be saving so much more than just space for more trash. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that things only start to improve when people actually start caring, and if I can get just one person who read this post to take that 10 seconds to realize that they should care too, then I've done my job.

It's time to stop treating our planet like our own personal snack cabinet/trashcan and start respecting it for the life it gives to keep our lives going.

Ciao tutti!

Facebook is officially cool again

Ciao tutti, e benvenuto al mio blog! Whoa. So you know how whenever your English teacher assigns an essay, or you're meeting someone important and you have literally spent hours planning out the perfect words to say?  Yea, me too. Last night I had to contain myself  from posting again on the same day, because I was that excited that my blog had 99 views as of 10PM last night! (grazie tutti) However, its amazing what a difference 12 hours can make, because I'm basically banging my head against the keyboard trying to recall any of the brilliant brain storms I was having last night.

 Why. Didn't. I. Write. Them. Down.     

Just as I thought all hope was lost and was about to start describing how I'm cleaning out my closet, a got a Facebook message from my friend in Turkey and inspiration struck!

Okay, so it was more of me responding to her and then trolling my newsfeed for a good 15 minutes while I ate a bowl of Frosted Flakes and jammed out to Disney Pandora, but eventually I had the idea to talk about how amazing Facebook is! (This is some damn good free publicity, you're welcome Zuckerberg)

I know of the big 3 (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) Facebook is the oldest and least cool. Like so many other American teenagers, you probably got your Facebook when you were in 6th or 7th grade and then the rest of your middle school experience is documented on it because you used it 24/7. Then, your grandma and weird uncle from Minnesota that you only see at Thanksgiving decided to try out this new fangled internet thing and get a Facebook too. Boom! Next thing you know half of your newsfeed is made up of nothing but old embarrassing family reunion pictures and your grandma's statuses about her lucky night at bingo.

 

Oh god, the horror and the reality of this picture.. I just... I can't.. Internet.....stahp....

 Needless to say, most of us have moved on to bigger and better (and more complicated) social networking sights, where we are free of our family and any emotional wounds they may inflict upon us. Personally, I chose to hide my relative's posts from my newsfeed and just kept on using Facebook. I thought of Facebook as that one childhood friend that isn't as cool as they were when you were in elementary school, but out of respect and kindness you still let them sit at your high school lunch table with you.

So, once I got accepted into the AFS program, I realized I would be meeting a lot of new people, (just one of the trillions of perks of being an exchange student) but I severely underestimated just how much "a lot" was. The first group I joined was the speedwell winner group. This Facebook group has about 30 kids in it, and it is for anyone who will be traveling abroad next year on the Speedwell Scholarship.(click for a link to the scholarship application page) That is where I met 3 of the other girls going to Italy with me, along with dozens of other kids from around this area who are going to various countries, such as Germany, Argentina, etc. After that, I got to meet even more students through the Susquehanna Valley AFS group, where kids from all over central PA AND any foreign kids who are currently living with a host family in the area are a part of. Because of that group, I now have friends from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China (that's right be jealous). Finally, my friend Kara added me to the best group of all, the 2013/2014 AFS Italy group. This group includes anyone from around the world who will become an exchange student in Italy through AFS. Let me tell you, being in this group is about the equivalent of joining the UN. So far, I have met and am friends with kids from Chile, the Dominican Republic, Quebec, Mexico, India, Egypt, Turkey, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Germany, and even some who actually live in Italy! It's insane when you are talking to someone at 10;30 AM here and they are just crawling into bed because it's 11:30 PM there! It really makes the world feel like such a small place, and although most of them don't speak very good English (and lord knows I can't speak Thai or Arabic) we still share so many of the same likes, dislikes, and interests! Did you know that Imagine Dragons is HUGE in Japan right now, or that schools in the Dominican Republic are currently in final exam week? The best part is that whenever I get sad that it's unrealistic for me to ever fly to Hong Kong or Germany to meet any of them in person, I know that in just over 2 months we will all see each other in Rome :D All in all, I think that choosing to become an exchange student has already changed my life for the better, and although I will get homesick at times and miss my junior prom, the benefits of this program FAR outweigh the drawbacks. I might just be a naïve teenager, but if we all took a step back for a minute and looked at how much we all have in common as human beings, regardless of race, gender, or birthplace, the world would be a much happier and peaceful place! Until next time, ciao amici :)

I am no longer a virgin blogger!

First and foremost, welcome to my blog! My name is Katie Grobengieser, and I am currently a 16 year old junior from Amish country USA! I live in what is essentially one giant cornfield in Pennsylvania, with a few gas stations and a storage depot or two thrown in for good measure. I've been toying around with the idea of starting a blog for a while now, and although I'm definitely late to start, I will try to keep up with it as much as possible! The reason I'm giving blogging a shot is that I am leaving in September to become an exchange student for 10 months in Italy! Long story short, I won a full scholarship (it's a 14 thousand dollar value so not too shabby) through the amazing Speedwell Foundation. This foundation is a part of the larger organization , AFS, and every year they hand out about 30 scholarships to high school students from central Pennsylvania who want to spend a year abroad in a foreign country. When I was in kindergarten I can remember seeing a map of the world and just trying to wrap my head around the fact that there are 7 continents I could explore and 7 billion people I could meet on this planet. Although that's probably a tad ambitious, that thought eventually grew into a love of traveling (to this date I've been all up and down the east coast and to 7 Caribbean Islands) and also of other cultures in general. When you've spent your entire life living in a place where people still live without electricity and use horse and buggies for transportation, it can be a little suffocating. As much as I love my quiet little town, the older I got the more I realized I would not be happy with my life unless I took advantage of every possible opportunity to see as much of the world as possible, YOLO if you will. So, by the time I found out about the Speedwell Scholarship, it was late March and they had already selected the winners. My first thought was "well there goes any hopes of that ever happening, better get back to living my exciting life of  watching Netflix and  eating ice cream!". However, my parents were surprisingly encouraging (okay so I might have left out the part about being gone for 10 months to them initially) and they urged me to contact the AFS organization. Well, sure enough I must've done something right, because over the next two weeks I, along with my incredible application advisor Kendall, completed an application that was designed to be done over the course of several months. Once it was all done and I could finally breathe again, then came the agonizing reality that since I was coming into the process so late, there was a chance that I wouldn't be offered a scholarship. So for an entire week, I rode the most insane emotional roller coaster ever imaginable! I mean, I would allow myself to get excited at the thought that I could actually escape the cornfield and do something totally amazing, but then a minute later I would tell myself I was too late and that I would just have to suck it up and take the impending rejection like a man. Well, I can assure you that there is a God, because exactly a week later my prayers were answered and I got the call that if I was still interested, there was a Speedwell Scholarship with my name on it! Now, aside from the initial moment of "OHMYGODWHOAMIWTFHALLELUJAH" a million things were racing through my head. I had to pick a country to go to (pretty important step) get a travel visa, learn a new language, notify my school, and try not to poop my pants or curl up into fetal position at the thought of all of this. A few days and a small anxiety attack later, I had decided on Italy, because my first choice of Spain was filled and Italy is gorgeous and has an incredible history, and okay yea I also happen to love The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Once that was all squared away, slowly but surely all of the rest of the paperwork came trickling in. I had to write acceptance letters, thank you letters, basically any form of letter ever created, I've written. In addition, back in May I also had an orientation with the rest of the AFSers from the Central PA area. I met four other girls who are going to Italy with me, and so far one has already become one of my closest friends! Love ya Kara :) It's incredible how quickly you can form bonds with people! I have been doing Rosetta Stone for the past month, because we are required to complete Level 1 before we leave. Trust me, it is NOT as fun or easy as those cheery commercials make it out to be. Well this has gone from a single blog post to a small novel and in everyone's best interests I am going to end it here. Arrivederci!