LAST HALF OF LAST LAST WEEK:
This is embarrassing. I'm sorry people, I am not a very good blogger. I apologize for my lateness, but, as we all know, I'm a Wilkins, so I will use the excuse that it is my family curse. Onward!
Last last week I left off on Saturday, so I will begin with...you guessed it, Monday. Just kidding, Sunday. Okay, so last last Sunday we went to the 9:30 service at St. Andrews which was a tad different from the rigid 11 o'clock service and the student 6 o'clock service. It was different because there were children EVERYWHERE. So, naturally, I loved it. I am also signed up to help with the nursery on Sunday mornings now, so my life is almost complete :) After church I attempted to do homework, and then a couple of my friends and I watched The Painted Veil and stayed up late and chatted the night away.
Monday: I had school like usual, my friends and I ordered pizza which was not good at all, and then Lyndi, Laynie, Shelby, and I watched Pride and Prejudice with Mama Cracken again! Actually we finished it, and it was fantastic. Making comments and listening to MC's comments was just so much fun, as always. She's a hoot. I also got to talk to my parents for a little while which was awesome! They're pretty cool. I miss them a tad.
Tuesday: We went to the Ashmolen museum which was really fun and interesting. We went for Bible class, so even better, no homework. We got to look at a lot of Egyptian stuff and an actual mummy, and lots of artifacts that had interesting stories behind them. Later that day, Laynie and I had a lovely picnic...in a graveyard haha That sounds strange, I know, but it's right across from our Quaker church where we have class on Tuesday/Thursdays and there were other people chillin in it so we figured it was okay. It was really fun, especially when it randomly started raining. I'm seriously loving everything here. It's just an experience I will never forget.
BECOMING ITALIAN IN A WEEKEND:
Love conquers all. Ladies and gentlemen, the cliché is true. Upon our first travel break where many of my fellow students went off to discover things like “bikes” and “Scotland” and “torturous pain” and “hills” or “paddy wagons” and “awful singing” and “scary hostels,” Brady, Lyndi, and I made our way to Italy. Rimini, Italy to be exact. Our journey there was a little unorthodox to say the least.
WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY:
We got on the bus from Oxford to London and then got on a plane that took us to Milan Then we took a bus from the airport to the train station. We walked around the train station for an hour, ate at a local pizzeria that was delicious, and then walked around searching for Internet so we could get in touch with Alberto, Brady's friend's friend that we were going to stay with. After being denied by many snooty hotel owners, we finally were allowed to use a Best Western's Internet and then returned to the train station. We encountered a locked train station. Apparently it locks from 1-4 am. First of all, that's a really random, difficult time to close. Secondly, we were outside of it with no hostel and no hotel would let us chill in the lobby. So, we had six hours to kill with it being twelve o' clock in the morning and everything was closed. We ended up picking out a good corner in front of the train station and hobo-ed it up. I fell asleep for a little bit and then awoke to find Lyndi freaking out with her eyes and Brady responding to some guy who had sat next to us "no hablo ingles." When I sat up and fully assessed our situation I realized we were surrounded by hobos. There was a guy sleeping very close to us, an old couple across from us, and a couple younger guys exchanging shoes...we've no idea why, we're guessing a drug deal. Then we became increasingly uncomfortable when the black guy and one of the younger ones began talking in Italian and laughing and looking back at us. We made the simultaneous unanimous decision to leave. So we got up and walked around for a little bit and tried to find a safer place to chill, but ended up back at the station sitting across from a nice looking couple far away from the sketchy people. Then the sketchy people came and sat down next to us. That kind of freaked us out, but we just remained calm and kept talking like it wasn't a big deal. The nice couple constantly had random sketchy looking people come up to them and they just handed them a fag (look at me using British lingo) and they would walk away. Mental note, when traveling, carry cigarettes to bribe people to leave you alone. Then, thank the Lord, the station opened up and the nice couple came and told us it was open. We went inside, found our platform, sat around for a little bit, got some coffee, and then it was time to go. I don't really remember the train ride very much because I fell into a mini coma, but when we arrived in Rimini, we started walking around looking for Roberta, Alberto's aunt that was picking us up. Side note, we had never seen her and who had obviously never seen us. Finding Roberta was very interesting, as we would walk slowly by loner women, all three of us smiling very creepily American-style hoping that we would be recognized. FINALLY we found Roberta and she took us to her Mamma and Babbo’s home where we would be staying since her flat was too small. We get to the house, toured the beach with Roberta, and headed home to have lunch. We were then introduced to Babbo (father, but really grandpa. He doesn't like being called grandpa so we called him dad), Chi-chi (pino's wife, grandma, but we called her mamma), Alberto (Roberta's nephew, the one Brady had been in contact with, he's 27), Davidei (Alberto's brother, he is super funny and mischievous. He's 26), Lorenzo (Roberta's husband), Franche (9 year old son of Roberta and Lorenzo), and Alei (17 yr old son of Roberta and Lorenzo). We had fettochini:) YUM. Then we took a poco siesta (small nap). Then we went to city center and explored by ourselves for a little while. Davide picked us up and took us home. We had chena (supper) which was delicious as well, watched Bridesmaids with Brady and Lyndi, and hit the hay hard.
FRIDAY:
Now, Roberta and her nephew Alberto were the only ones that spoke decent English so they acted as our translators throughout our stay. And when they were absent, we suddenly became world-class champs at charades. One morning in particular, Lyndi and I came down for breakfast and coffee to find Alberto and Roberta gone at work for the day. We were greeted with giant smiles from Babbo and Mamma because they did not speak a word of English and had no idea how to communicate with us. Luckily, I had been asking Roberta all about Italian and we discovered the phrase, “Como se diche…” which is, “How do you say…” So the entire morning we would say, “Mamma, como se diche…” and we somehow were able to communicate with pictures, broken Italian, and superb charade skills about our families, where we lived, why we were in Oxford, and if we were excited to be having spaghetti for lunch. Babbo and Mamma would constantly smile and speed off in Italian and Lyndi, Brady, and I would just sit there and smile and nod. The rest of the afternoon, Lyndi, Brady, and I rested up and hung about the house. Franche brought in his homework and his little books full of Italian homework so I ate that right up. I sat at the table with Brady and Roberta for a good hour and a half asking questions about this fourth grader's homework and repeating words. It was really fun and I learned a lot! Roberta also took us to the mall later that day, bought us gelato, and Lyndi and I bought our own Mokas which are espresso makers. Super cute and the caffe is so much better!! Later that night, Davide took us out and gave us a tour of downtown, and then we were treated to a pizzeria with the WHOLE family. Like, the WHOLE family. Babbo, Mamma, Roberta, Lorenzo, Alberto, Davide, their kid brother, Franche and Alei, and Roberta's brother Paulo. It was so much fun. I don't think I have ever laughed that much in my entire life. The atmosphere was so loving and welcoming even though we were outsiders, and Americans at that! We really felt like a part the family. Even though we did not speak the language and we were from another country, they made us feel at home, loved, wanted, and special. After supper, we walked around some more with Lorenzo and Roberta and Davide and Lorenzo gave us a huge history lesson on Rimini and everything we saw in city center. Then we went home after a long, successful, fun day and went to bed!
SATURDAY:
Roberta and her husband Lorenzo took us to San Marino, an old castle city, on the last day we were there and it was beautiful. They would not let us pay for a thing, treated us to gelato (WHICH IS HEAVENLY AND BEATS BLUE BELL), and gave us our own private Italian tour of the place. Lorenzo dubbed himself as photographer of the day and took pictures of us and all the cool castles. It was so cool to walk around and within this amazing structure and to think that people actually lived here at one time. So cool.
After San Marino, Davide and Alberto took us out for supper with a lot of their friends. It was really fun even though we didn't know what was being said 3/4 of the time. After supper (BTW, these people eat SO MUCH. Breakfast is like caffe and biscotti, lunch is HUGE, and supper is the same if not bigger), Alberto's friends wanted to show us something really cool so they took us to city center (this was our third walk through city center by this time. We were pros now haha) and showed us everything Lorenzo had shown us the night before (which we pretended to be amazed at), and they showed us where the center of Rimini is, which was really cool. We saw where an old piece of Roman road had been uncovered which was REALLY cool. I love that stuff. Soon after, we went home and went to bed.
SUNDAY:
When Sunday morning finally rolled around, everyone was very sad about our leaving. They kept telling us that if we stayed another week our Italian would be perfect and that we probably should not leave yet. We exchanged phone numbers, mailing addresses, and Facebook names, took a few family photos and after many tearful goodbyes, too soon, we were on our way home.
Although we did not speak fluent Italian and none of us had met these people before, they invited us into their homes with welcoming arms, loving hearts, and with a servant’s attitude. This just goes to show that even though most people are scared about the language barrier when visiting a new place, love conquers all and it is a language that all understand and speak. This was an experience I will never forget and I have promised that I will return and visit my Babbo and Mamma and Roberta again, but next time I will be able to speak Italian a little better :)
MONDAY:
I had class as usual, but the exciting thing was that we discovered Oxford's best fish and chips! We went to this pub (pubs are way cooler than bars, America should have pubs, just sayin) called The White Horse. It was delicious. While eating, we talked to this group of four elderly people about university, the presidential elections, and the differences between America and England. They were so funny and quirky. I think the thing I will remember the most about study abroad are all these people that I am meeting. The world would not be the same without interesting people.
TUESDAY:
This was a particularly great day, even though I thought it was going to be awful. In English class we have to give presentations on authors that we signed up for before we start studying them. Well, this day was my day with my friend Ashley. I looked all of my information on Charles Dickens (one of my favorite authors) up the morning of because I completely forgot about it. Well, we get to class and we are both a little nervous, but we just plow into it. It turned out so great. People laughed at our jokes, were interested in what we had to say, and most of all, Dr. Winn loved our presentation. We had some fun facts at the end and ended with "What the Dickens?!" as an end title. He loved all of it. We felt pretty good about it because we had not practiced at all. AND because we were studying Charles Dickens, we got to leave class early and go to the Dickens exhibition at the library. It was so interesting. I was like a little kid at a candy shop, drinking it all. After that Laynie and I went on a short walk with Dr. Winn as he was showing us where he thought the best fish and chips place was at. We had tried to find it the night before and failed (but we did find The White Horse!) and Laynie had been telling us she knew where it was...but we did not listen. Coincidentally, where Winn took us was exactly where Laynie said it was...whoops haha We ended up going to a cafe and chatting for a good while which was really fun. Laynie is pretty cool, I'm gonna keep her around when we go back to the states. Anyways, later that night I got to talk to Cash, Clara, Lindy, and Wes!! I have been missing them a lot lately so it was really nice to get to talk to them. Lucky I did because Cash thought I had left forever. Wes said that the morning I left Cash was like, "Dad, she's gone. She flew away, like, she's gone." And Wes had to assure him that I was coming home eventually. Cash kept asking me when I was coming home and that he still had the pictures of us that I had given him the morning I left. Lindy told me he gets them out and looks at them every morning as she drives him to school. Aaaahhh. Shoot me through the heart! I assured him that I was coming home, that I was just away for a little while, but that I would be back and that I'd never leave him for good. He responded with, "I KNEW IT!" Gah. Melt my heart why dontcha. I talked to Clara and she wanted to come see me at my house. I don't think she really realizes that I am in a different country haha They are building their own place right now (with my own room in it haha I think it's more of a guest room, but we're all calling it my room and I'm not fighting it haha) so that'll be cool to see when they are finished with it. Along with getting to talk to them, I also go to skype my friend Abby! Which was great. I hadn't talked to her in a while and we talked while she was in the library which added an element of danger and humor to our conversation haha
For more pictures of Italy, go on Facebook!
Well, that is about all!! I have had a very busy, fun filled three weeks and I'm sorry I haven't been more consistent with my blogs! I shall try to be better, no promises though :) Hope you are all doing well!! I miss and love you all!! Ta for now!
Cheers from across the pond,
Mallory Jean
This is embarrassing. I'm sorry people, I am not a very good blogger. I apologize for my lateness, but, as we all know, I'm a Wilkins, so I will use the excuse that it is my family curse. Onward!
Last last week I left off on Saturday, so I will begin with...you guessed it, Monday. Just kidding, Sunday. Okay, so last last Sunday we went to the 9:30 service at St. Andrews which was a tad different from the rigid 11 o'clock service and the student 6 o'clock service. It was different because there were children EVERYWHERE. So, naturally, I loved it. I am also signed up to help with the nursery on Sunday mornings now, so my life is almost complete :) After church I attempted to do homework, and then a couple of my friends and I watched The Painted Veil and stayed up late and chatted the night away.
Monday: I had school like usual, my friends and I ordered pizza which was not good at all, and then Lyndi, Laynie, Shelby, and I watched Pride and Prejudice with Mama Cracken again! Actually we finished it, and it was fantastic. Making comments and listening to MC's comments was just so much fun, as always. She's a hoot. I also got to talk to my parents for a little while which was awesome! They're pretty cool. I miss them a tad.
Tuesday: We went to the Ashmolen museum which was really fun and interesting. We went for Bible class, so even better, no homework. We got to look at a lot of Egyptian stuff and an actual mummy, and lots of artifacts that had interesting stories behind them. Later that day, Laynie and I had a lovely picnic...in a graveyard haha That sounds strange, I know, but it's right across from our Quaker church where we have class on Tuesday/Thursdays and there were other people chillin in it so we figured it was okay. It was really fun, especially when it randomly started raining. I'm seriously loving everything here. It's just an experience I will never forget.
BECOMING ITALIAN IN A WEEKEND:
Love conquers all. Ladies and gentlemen, the cliché is true. Upon our first travel break where many of my fellow students went off to discover things like “bikes” and “Scotland” and “torturous pain” and “hills” or “paddy wagons” and “awful singing” and “scary hostels,” Brady, Lyndi, and I made our way to Italy. Rimini, Italy to be exact. Our journey there was a little unorthodox to say the least.
WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY:
We got on the bus from Oxford to London and then got on a plane that took us to Milan Then we took a bus from the airport to the train station. We walked around the train station for an hour, ate at a local pizzeria that was delicious, and then walked around searching for Internet so we could get in touch with Alberto, Brady's friend's friend that we were going to stay with. After being denied by many snooty hotel owners, we finally were allowed to use a Best Western's Internet and then returned to the train station. We encountered a locked train station. Apparently it locks from 1-4 am. First of all, that's a really random, difficult time to close. Secondly, we were outside of it with no hostel and no hotel would let us chill in the lobby. So, we had six hours to kill with it being twelve o' clock in the morning and everything was closed. We ended up picking out a good corner in front of the train station and hobo-ed it up. I fell asleep for a little bit and then awoke to find Lyndi freaking out with her eyes and Brady responding to some guy who had sat next to us "no hablo ingles." When I sat up and fully assessed our situation I realized we were surrounded by hobos. There was a guy sleeping very close to us, an old couple across from us, and a couple younger guys exchanging shoes...we've no idea why, we're guessing a drug deal. Then we became increasingly uncomfortable when the black guy and one of the younger ones began talking in Italian and laughing and looking back at us. We made the simultaneous unanimous decision to leave. So we got up and walked around for a little bit and tried to find a safer place to chill, but ended up back at the station sitting across from a nice looking couple far away from the sketchy people. Then the sketchy people came and sat down next to us. That kind of freaked us out, but we just remained calm and kept talking like it wasn't a big deal. The nice couple constantly had random sketchy looking people come up to them and they just handed them a fag (look at me using British lingo) and they would walk away. Mental note, when traveling, carry cigarettes to bribe people to leave you alone. Then, thank the Lord, the station opened up and the nice couple came and told us it was open. We went inside, found our platform, sat around for a little bit, got some coffee, and then it was time to go. I don't really remember the train ride very much because I fell into a mini coma, but when we arrived in Rimini, we started walking around looking for Roberta, Alberto's aunt that was picking us up. Side note, we had never seen her and who had obviously never seen us. Finding Roberta was very interesting, as we would walk slowly by loner women, all three of us smiling very creepily American-style hoping that we would be recognized. FINALLY we found Roberta and she took us to her Mamma and Babbo’s home where we would be staying since her flat was too small. We get to the house, toured the beach with Roberta, and headed home to have lunch. We were then introduced to Babbo (father, but really grandpa. He doesn't like being called grandpa so we called him dad), Chi-chi (pino's wife, grandma, but we called her mamma), Alberto (Roberta's nephew, the one Brady had been in contact with, he's 27), Davidei (Alberto's brother, he is super funny and mischievous. He's 26), Lorenzo (Roberta's husband), Franche (9 year old son of Roberta and Lorenzo), and Alei (17 yr old son of Roberta and Lorenzo). We had fettochini:) YUM. Then we took a poco siesta (small nap). Then we went to city center and explored by ourselves for a little while. Davide picked us up and took us home. We had chena (supper) which was delicious as well, watched Bridesmaids with Brady and Lyndi, and hit the hay hard.
FRIDAY:
Now, Roberta and her nephew Alberto were the only ones that spoke decent English so they acted as our translators throughout our stay. And when they were absent, we suddenly became world-class champs at charades. One morning in particular, Lyndi and I came down for breakfast and coffee to find Alberto and Roberta gone at work for the day. We were greeted with giant smiles from Babbo and Mamma because they did not speak a word of English and had no idea how to communicate with us. Luckily, I had been asking Roberta all about Italian and we discovered the phrase, “Como se diche…” which is, “How do you say…” So the entire morning we would say, “Mamma, como se diche…” and we somehow were able to communicate with pictures, broken Italian, and superb charade skills about our families, where we lived, why we were in Oxford, and if we were excited to be having spaghetti for lunch. Babbo and Mamma would constantly smile and speed off in Italian and Lyndi, Brady, and I would just sit there and smile and nod. The rest of the afternoon, Lyndi, Brady, and I rested up and hung about the house. Franche brought in his homework and his little books full of Italian homework so I ate that right up. I sat at the table with Brady and Roberta for a good hour and a half asking questions about this fourth grader's homework and repeating words. It was really fun and I learned a lot! Roberta also took us to the mall later that day, bought us gelato, and Lyndi and I bought our own Mokas which are espresso makers. Super cute and the caffe is so much better!! Later that night, Davide took us out and gave us a tour of downtown, and then we were treated to a pizzeria with the WHOLE family. Like, the WHOLE family. Babbo, Mamma, Roberta, Lorenzo, Alberto, Davide, their kid brother, Franche and Alei, and Roberta's brother Paulo. It was so much fun. I don't think I have ever laughed that much in my entire life. The atmosphere was so loving and welcoming even though we were outsiders, and Americans at that! We really felt like a part the family. Even though we did not speak the language and we were from another country, they made us feel at home, loved, wanted, and special. After supper, we walked around some more with Lorenzo and Roberta and Davide and Lorenzo gave us a huge history lesson on Rimini and everything we saw in city center. Then we went home after a long, successful, fun day and went to bed!
SATURDAY:
Roberta and her husband Lorenzo took us to San Marino, an old castle city, on the last day we were there and it was beautiful. They would not let us pay for a thing, treated us to gelato (WHICH IS HEAVENLY AND BEATS BLUE BELL), and gave us our own private Italian tour of the place. Lorenzo dubbed himself as photographer of the day and took pictures of us and all the cool castles. It was so cool to walk around and within this amazing structure and to think that people actually lived here at one time. So cool.
After San Marino, Davide and Alberto took us out for supper with a lot of their friends. It was really fun even though we didn't know what was being said 3/4 of the time. After supper (BTW, these people eat SO MUCH. Breakfast is like caffe and biscotti, lunch is HUGE, and supper is the same if not bigger), Alberto's friends wanted to show us something really cool so they took us to city center (this was our third walk through city center by this time. We were pros now haha) and showed us everything Lorenzo had shown us the night before (which we pretended to be amazed at), and they showed us where the center of Rimini is, which was really cool. We saw where an old piece of Roman road had been uncovered which was REALLY cool. I love that stuff. Soon after, we went home and went to bed.
SUNDAY:
When Sunday morning finally rolled around, everyone was very sad about our leaving. They kept telling us that if we stayed another week our Italian would be perfect and that we probably should not leave yet. We exchanged phone numbers, mailing addresses, and Facebook names, took a few family photos and after many tearful goodbyes, too soon, we were on our way home.
Although we did not speak fluent Italian and none of us had met these people before, they invited us into their homes with welcoming arms, loving hearts, and with a servant’s attitude. This just goes to show that even though most people are scared about the language barrier when visiting a new place, love conquers all and it is a language that all understand and speak. This was an experience I will never forget and I have promised that I will return and visit my Babbo and Mamma and Roberta again, but next time I will be able to speak Italian a little better :)
MONDAY:
I had class as usual, but the exciting thing was that we discovered Oxford's best fish and chips! We went to this pub (pubs are way cooler than bars, America should have pubs, just sayin) called The White Horse. It was delicious. While eating, we talked to this group of four elderly people about university, the presidential elections, and the differences between America and England. They were so funny and quirky. I think the thing I will remember the most about study abroad are all these people that I am meeting. The world would not be the same without interesting people.
TUESDAY:
This was a particularly great day, even though I thought it was going to be awful. In English class we have to give presentations on authors that we signed up for before we start studying them. Well, this day was my day with my friend Ashley. I looked all of my information on Charles Dickens (one of my favorite authors) up the morning of because I completely forgot about it. Well, we get to class and we are both a little nervous, but we just plow into it. It turned out so great. People laughed at our jokes, were interested in what we had to say, and most of all, Dr. Winn loved our presentation. We had some fun facts at the end and ended with "What the Dickens?!" as an end title. He loved all of it. We felt pretty good about it because we had not practiced at all. AND because we were studying Charles Dickens, we got to leave class early and go to the Dickens exhibition at the library. It was so interesting. I was like a little kid at a candy shop, drinking it all. After that Laynie and I went on a short walk with Dr. Winn as he was showing us where he thought the best fish and chips place was at. We had tried to find it the night before and failed (but we did find The White Horse!) and Laynie had been telling us she knew where it was...but we did not listen. Coincidentally, where Winn took us was exactly where Laynie said it was...whoops haha We ended up going to a cafe and chatting for a good while which was really fun. Laynie is pretty cool, I'm gonna keep her around when we go back to the states. Anyways, later that night I got to talk to Cash, Clara, Lindy, and Wes!! I have been missing them a lot lately so it was really nice to get to talk to them. Lucky I did because Cash thought I had left forever. Wes said that the morning I left Cash was like, "Dad, she's gone. She flew away, like, she's gone." And Wes had to assure him that I was coming home eventually. Cash kept asking me when I was coming home and that he still had the pictures of us that I had given him the morning I left. Lindy told me he gets them out and looks at them every morning as she drives him to school. Aaaahhh. Shoot me through the heart! I assured him that I was coming home, that I was just away for a little while, but that I would be back and that I'd never leave him for good. He responded with, "I KNEW IT!" Gah. Melt my heart why dontcha. I talked to Clara and she wanted to come see me at my house. I don't think she really realizes that I am in a different country haha They are building their own place right now (with my own room in it haha I think it's more of a guest room, but we're all calling it my room and I'm not fighting it haha) so that'll be cool to see when they are finished with it. Along with getting to talk to them, I also go to skype my friend Abby! Which was great. I hadn't talked to her in a while and we talked while she was in the library which added an element of danger and humor to our conversation haha
For more pictures of Italy, go on Facebook!
Well, that is about all!! I have had a very busy, fun filled three weeks and I'm sorry I haven't been more consistent with my blogs! I shall try to be better, no promises though :) Hope you are all doing well!! I miss and love you all!! Ta for now!
Cheers from across the pond,
Mallory Jean
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