More Words Finally!!

So I've been here nearly three months and its both flown by and felt like forever at the same time. If that makes sense. I'm not really sure what to write here since I've put it off for so long, so I guess I'll just try to sum up what I've done.

On October 13th I went to Cesenatico for an AFS camp thing. If you don't know what Cesenatico is, its a city on the east coast of Italy with a bunch of beaches and discos. It was pretty cold when we were there so we didn't get a chance to swim at all, but that doesn't mean we didn't go into the sea! Overall it was a really enjoyable experience and I made a bunch of friends too. It was cool really meeting everyone from all these crazy far off places, and being able to use Italian (or at least try) to communicate with everyone. I realized there that I wasn't speaking nearly enough Italian, so it was kind of my turning point with learning italian. Immediately after I got home, I talked with my family and decided that everything would be 100% Italian. Which has been working out great. The only downside here is that my region only gets together once every few months, as opposed to in the States when the exchange students see each other much more. I'm pretty sure we're not doing anything together again until February.

Anyway, on Halloween weekend (and All Saints I guess) I went to Milan with my host family. It's an awesome city, but everything is much more centralized around one area than Chicago is. We left Saturday and came back Monday, so it was nice having a long weekend to see the things Milan has to offer. Saturday we went downtown in the Duomo area but we were only there for maybe 20 minutes, because we had to get to my host grandparents' house for dinner. That was when I had my "Whoa. Milan. Right here." moment. After dinner, which was very Italian and awesome, we went to spend the night with some other relatives who also live in Milan. We started Sunday off by going to church at the Duomo (Cathedral. It's big.) of Milan. It was an insanely cool experience, with the huge echoey dome and the virtually the whole mass being said in Latin and what not. Then later on Sunday we had lunch with everyone before my host parents went home, and then Andrea and I went to see more of Milan and just chill. On Monday we met up with some friends from school and hung out with them all day. We took the train home got back real late, but it was definitely an amazing weekend in what is now my second favorite city! (London remains first)

I had a really cool birthday weekend, including Ferraris, a disco, and a couple of crazy Chileans. I had a party at a disco (club) called Mamma Orsa for my birthday. I had all my classmates there, and also some other people. It was a craazy night - Italians know how to party! So, concerning the Chileans, there's one from Mantova that came to my party, and his friend from Poggia, which really far south. We picked them up and made our way to Maranello and the Ferrari museum before the party, which was incredible. It had a whole lot of rare Ferraris, including the first Enzo ever made. It was an amazing museum, and the cool thing as that this where it all started! After the museum tour, Marcello took us to where he works (right next door actually) and he let us all take pictures in a California and a 458. Being inside a Ferrari is a pretty cool feeling. I wouldn't mind having one myself. Take note mom and dad!!

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That was all written about a week ago, so since I kept putting off blogging I felt like I should add this extra bit of notable things done here in Italy. Thanksgiving passed and here it wasn't really a big deal because we didn't do anything. I did however get to watch the Packers beat the Lions on Thanksgiving! I Facetimed my whole family and Roberto, which was nice seeing everyone again. Looked like a real chill party with lots of turkey. when we went to the supermarket a couple weeks ago we got some chips and salsa which aren't really common here. It's quite the football watching snack. I started going to the gym with Marcello and Andrea, so that's good because I have something to occupy my time with now. I successfully got a sax, from my AFS counselor, so now a lot of the time I'm chillin' at home playing Careless Whisper or Christmas music on it, which is most enjoyable. I've also started to play the sax in band, which I'm enjoying a lot more than playing trumpet in it. Next Saturday (I think the 10th) I'm going to the Bologna Motor Show with a bunch of Italians and friends from AFS. Super pumped for that! I read an article that there's gonna be a new limited edition Maserati there, which makes it even better!

So as a final note here, which ultimately is probably the most important thing in this post, I'm gonna start using Twitter to update little things on here. Not huge posts like this one, but random thoughts I have that'll happen real time. Like if I see a goat eating pasta or something, I'll probably mention that. I figure I'll post on twitter about little things a good number of times in a day, so hopefully that'll liven up the blog. I've literally got no idea how to configure things on here, so if you see a problem with the twitter box thing on here, let me know!

That's pretty much it.
Bye, Ciao, and happy almost holidays!

Le Mie Prime Tre Settimane in Italia! Correctness credit to Giacomo!

Alright, I know I've neglected  my blog but here's my first real post!

New York Orientation & Flying to Zurich -
I've been away for three full weeks now. This has definitely been the most interesting 21 days of my life. I'm not even really sure where to start. New York was pretty cool cause of all the people I met, but it was just an overnight orientation in Queens. We did watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off before we left though, so that was fun! So we left the hotel at like 5pm or something on Thursday and headed to JFK. It was a pretty exciting bus ride because of all the anticipation for Italy. But then when we got there it was just a bunch of waiting around. I do remember getting pizza for $10 though. It was good, but I dropped it on the ground. Meh. So then we boarded the big ol' plane to get ready to go to Switzerland. It was a pretty chill flight, like eight hours. I watched The Hangover completely in Italian - that was intense. Then I sorta kinda learned how to play solitaire, lost a lot of virtual money playing blackjack, and then slept a bunch. The layover in Zurich was pretty cool. Everything was awesome and European and I found out that the Packers beat the Saints the night before! And also there were lots of posters of Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a watch incorrectly.

Rome Orientation -
So after flying over the extremely photogenic Swiss Alps, we landed in Rome. And partied. Actually there were a bunch of organized orientation activities. The first morning neither of my roommates or I set an alarm so we woke up two hours late, which was kinda lame. But the good thing is that we all partied both nights. The first night there were a  bunch of us Americans having a dance party on a balcony, and the second night was all the exchange students and then a party with some crazy Egyptians that got broken up by the AFS volunteers! We did have an intense game of ultimate frisbee with some Polish (I think) and Turkish people at one point. My frisbee ended up in like four trees, but we saved it! Then on Sunday morning everyone left the AFS compound, as we called it, with their departure groups and headed on over to the train station. (A sad little side note is that I left music playing on my phone the night before so when we left in the morning, I had 11% battery. Which in turn meant no music all day D: ) Our train got delayed like half an hour but it wasn't too bad cause people watching in Rome is pretty funny. It was something like a five hour train ride and it was hot and crowded, so needless to say, it wasn't the most exciting five hours of my life.

Arriving in Modena -
When I got to the Modena train station it was everything I expected and more. The Belleis all met me there, along with Luca, Giacomo, and Gloria. It was absolutely amazing meeting them in person for the first time. The first place Marcello took me was Maranello, so I could see all the Ferraris. It was sooo cool! There were literally Ferraris everywhere; we saw like 20 in 10 minutes!

Starting my Year in Sassuolo -
 After the awesome Ferrari detour, we went to the house and I can't really remember what happened exactly but I got a tour of the house and we had really good lasagna for dinner. After dinner at like 9, Marcello, Andrea and I went to Temple Bar which was sweet! It's mostly all outside and all the people my age go there, so I met a whole lot of new people! My first week here pretty much consisted of getting acclimated to living here and going around to see everything. My host family's house is really close to downtown Sassuolo, which has a lot of little cafes and shops. The streets are brick and cobblestone, and the buildings are all really old and cool looking. There's nearly 50,000 people living here, but every time we go downtown we see someone we know, so it really has a smalltown feel! Another great thing is that we went out literally every night, went to bed at like two, and got up no earlier than eleven. It was an awesome week!

Camping in Tuscany -
The weekend before school started (September 19th) we drove down to Tuscany and camped by the beach. It was super chill and really cool seeing how Italian camping works. Swimming in the sea was really nice too, and the water was crystal clear. There were tons of sweet rocks on the beach, and I took a bunch of them and put 'em in a vase, which looks pretty awesome on my shelf. The Bellei's relatives were there with us too, it was cool getting to know them.

School **Don't read this part if you don't wanna be real bored** -
I'm not really sure, but it seems like school here is a lot harder here than in the States. I really can't follow anything the teachers talk about all day, but I do know that they assign a lot of work. The good thing is that they're still skipping over me when they check everyone's homework, so woo!

Here's a normal Italian school day for me: Wake up at 7ish, walk/bike to school, walk up to our 3rd floor room (that we stay for every class), say hey to everyone that loves to greet the exchange student in English, wait for the teacher to actually start the lesson, sit there and draw/write in my journal all day, have some delicious Italian bread and pesce Esta The (tea) during the 15 minute break at 10.45, space out and think for another few hours, then finally walk/bike home at 1 or 2.

My classes are crazy...

• Math 
• Gym
• Italian 
• History
• Design
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics
• English
• Philosophy 
• Religion 

I am however trying to change some classes around, so that this year will hopefully be a little more bearable. At least I've got a bunch of cool people in my class to talk to and get to know this year! I think I'm eligible to get credits back home so this year won't be completely academically useless, but I'm not sure I want to, cause I still can't understand anything that's being taught. Oh well, even if I fail all my classes here it'll still be a great year! 

Italian Food - 

So the food here has definitely lived up to what everyone says about it. We've had pasta pretty much every day, and it's always real good. I have no idea what all the kinds of pastas are called, but it seems like the variety is endless. We usually all eat together for lunch and dunner, and its really late compared to America. Lunch is at 1.30 or 2.30 after school, and dinner's usually around 8.30. The pizza here is good too! Just like at home it depends on where you get it from, but most pizza places are awesome! It's really common here to put hot dogs on pizza, which is weird but good! 

My Host Family - 

My host family is really nice, and I get along with them incredibly well. I have two host brothers; Marcello who's 19, and Andrea who's 15. They're both real cool and we all do a bunch of stuff together, so I'm glad its such a good fit. Both my host parents are also really nice. They're veterinarians with their own clinic, so they also like animals. They live in an awesome two family apartment with their relatives on the other floor. (Apartments here are like the size of houses in the States) Something really non-Italian about them is that they don't like soccer! Also one of their cars is a Land Rover Defender, which is a huge British military-looking car. Its pretty sweet. Me and Marcello made some delicious southern sweet tea this week... It was soo good! That's definitely a perk of having a host brother who spent a year in Charlotte!

Well that's a bit of my life here in Italy. It's pretty great! But it's also stressful at times too. I'll try to update this a little more often as things get rolling for me around here. If I left anything out of this that you're really dying to know, let me know and I can add more stuff next time!

Ciao dall'italia,

Jake 

Longest Two Weeks of my Life

If you don't know, I'm leaving a week from Wednesday, and it still feels like it's an eternity away. I have a feeling it won't really sink in that I'm leaving until I'm walking through O'Hare on Wednesday morning. 


Anyway, the actual reason of this post is to tell all of you that while I'm in Italy I'll be blogging on this probably the first of every month. If something really cool happens I'll probably post about it before the first. I'm most likely gonna end up posting the link to this blog on Facebook when I update it, but who knows. 


Also I'm thinking about making a twitter to post random things I do in Italy if any of you really wanna stalk me that much... But I'm not sure how many people I know actually use twitter. 


So thats it, pretty much.
Ciaooooo

Sassuolo

I got placed!!
I've finally gotten a placement, and I'll be staying in a city called Sassuolo. It's in northern Italy, about an hour and a half southeast of Milan. I'm really excited that I'm going to be in northern Italy, and the family I'm staying with seems incredibly nice and friendly. I'm definitely going to do some more research on the city, but as for now I know that it has about 40,000 people. Another cool bit is that it's about 15 minutes outside of Maranello, home of the Ferrari! 


Click this sweet hyperlink to see Sassuolo in Google Maps!


Ciao,
-Jake

To Italy and Beyond

Hey, I'm Jake Jandacek, finishing my sophomore year at Batavia High School. I've always been interested in the unknown, and recently I've taken a strong liking to traveling. I jump at virtually any opportunity to travel, and being able to study abroad and live in Italy for an entire year is something incredibly astronomical to me. I gave the idea a lot of thought, and finally applied to study abroad with AFS next year. My departure from O'Hare September 8th, and I'll be in Italy until July of 2012. 


I've always had a fascination with Europe and its expansive culture. There's so much of the world that people will never personally see, and I want to have the opportunity to see as much of it as I can. A big reason why I want to study abroad is for the experience. People's high school years are the years that form who they are and what they make of their lives. Being an exchange student is definitely going to be a life changing experience for me.


I had a seemingly endless amount of possible countries to choose from, and deciding on a final choice was not an easy task. When I decided on Italy, it was because of everything it has to offer. Having taken Latin courses, I'm really interested in ancient Rome as well as much more of Italy's past. I'm heavily involved in music and interested by art, so that was definitely a major factor in my decision as Italy has a plethora of artistic and musical culture. I know that regardless of where I go in Italy, I'll have an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime inter-cultural experience. I feel that being an "ambassador" of the US will really be a good thing for me, sharing the American culture with my host family and community, as well as learning about the Italian culture.


Grazie e arrivederci,
Jake