"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!"
Bob Marley - Redemption song

lunedì 29 ottobre 2012


Hi everybody guys, I’m so sorry I’ve been a “bit” absent in the last few months, but my life has been incredibly full of events..I’m gonna share some of them with you, hoping you can forgive me :)
on the plane!
What I’m talking about it’s in particular my experience in Canada, where I’ve spent a month (actually, the most beautiful month of my entire life!) in Sault Ste. Marie, an amazingly nice and friendly city of 75,000 inhabitants just on the border with USA. To be precise, this city is made of two parts, the American and the Canadian one, linked together by a two-states bridge.
You can immagine that, when I applied to partecipate in an intercultural exchange, I was very scared and a bit anxious.. I was aware it could have been hard to live with other people I had never seen before (I had to be host by an unknown family), using a language that wasn’t mine, trying to create contact with different people, with little or big cultural differences.. So, after 10 endless hours of plane and after a night in Toronto with the other guys of the same programme as mine, here we are.. Finally I arrived at the airport where my host sister and my host parents were waiting for me with a sweet sweet poster :)
It was incredible, the place was incredible, being surrounded by so many lakes and trees was incredible, talking with my family and the Japanese girl who was being hosted with me was incredible..EVERYTHING WAS INCREDIBLE!
Rainbow cupcake :)
bonfire in the backyard!
And since then, time went by so fast I didn’t even notice it.. I did so many exciting things, I met the nicest people of my life, I saw the most gorgeous places ever, I felt happy like never before. My parents were just perfect, they treated me like a daughter and we shared so many amazing moments together:
we made rainbow cupcakes
I caught my first fish!
we had a lot of bonfires
with candies, hot marshmallows, peanut butter toast...
we went fishing
and ice skating
and camping under the stars!
I prepared some delicious Italian food specialities, which had been incredibly appreciated!
Me cooking peppers (with an Italian recipe)
With my friends we went to USA too, to Mackinaw Island in Michigan
Me at the Treetop Adventure
or to other weird places like the ‘Treetop Adventure’, a theme park in which you were able to test a scary but exciting zip line trough the trees of a lovely bush!
We also had a Japanese night (‘cause of my Japanese roommate) with good Japanese food!
Japanese sushi!
Mackinaw Island - Michigan
It was just like living in a film, doing so many things you had never done before, like in a surreal dimension where you were not the person who left from your country just a couple of weeks before but you really became part of a new world, with its weird characteristics, with its difficult language (which you got used to, but which still remains amazingly hard and incredibly tiring to understand), with a different and beautiful landascape.. My normal life back home felt like a dream (maybe a nightmare!) and I just wanted to remain in that fascinating world forever! I couldn’t even think ‘bout leaving without crying…
You can imagine how sad was the day of the departure waiting for our flight at the airport.. Everybody was crying, the make up flaking ‘cause of the tears.. That was, actually, the only bad moment of my experience abroad..
I’ve learned a lot, and I’m so thankful to my host parents and my Japanese sister. Leaving them was really, really hard.. but we’re still in touch, of course, and I’m sure we’ll always be! They called me just a week ago, and they say there’s already snow in Canada, with -5°C! I miss them so much, I miss Canada so much, with ice hokey, bonfires, maple syrup, salmon, cinnamon rolls, pancakes, deers and bears!
boat trip on the lake
Canadian breakfast
What am I going to do? I’m gonna return there, of course, ‘cause I just fell in love with that adorable and perfect for me place!