Monday: today was the day. We where going to Orte. My host was Andrea. And I had never flew before so it was a very nerve racking day. We left at 10.05 am and was nervous as hell. I said goodbye to my family and we where off. We had a lot of time before our flight. So we could just relax a bit. When we where on the plane it was a really cool experience. We landed around 16.45 pm and it just a short walk to the train station. We had to travel around 3 hours until we were in Orte. When we got there I met Andrea. He was a very nice guy. When we arrived at his house I was warmly greeted by his mother. I think that if have never seen a nicer and sweeter lady than his mother. She was really caring. I greeted Rosalia with a hug and went to my room. Then we ate and I went to bed.

 

Tuesday: Andrea’s mother woke me up around 7 am. I got changed and then we ate. Well ate, yeah we ate but not the normal breakfast I know. We had cookies with Nutella inside. That wasn’t enough for me so I asked for some bread. We went to school and I saw Andreas again. He was very happy to see and so was I. We had a presentation about what we where going to do this week being presented by students of the Orte. It looked like a fun week to me. We all got put in different groups and with that group we followed a part of a lesson. I went to English. It was fun because we did a kahoot, but it was about history and that’s not my specialty. After the English lesson we had a break of 15 min. after this we went hiking. It was really cool and really beautiful. After walking everybody was really tired, me included. That night there was a party at someone else his house, we ate pizza and danced on songs. It was fun. When we got home I had something which I have never had before. I was constantly thinking about home. This was very weird and I didn’t know what to do about it.

 

Wednesday: Again Andrea’s mother woke me up at 7 am. We had breakfast and then we went to school. We had to work on our project. After that we had a break of half an hour and at 10.30 we went on working. After this we had another break and then we played volleyball for an hour. We went to Orte undergrounds. I think these where the sewers. It was pretty interesting and pretty large after this we had great view and we went back to the main square of Orte. We got to see a show which is only being shown around September, but because we where here they did it for us. It was really impressive. Than we had to walk back to the school where Andrea his mother was already waiting for us. We went home and again I didn’t feel so good, I was constantly thinking about home. That night I couldn’t hold it together. And I cried. His mother took care of me and I got to sleep eventually.

 

Thursday: the day had come that we had to wake up really early. We where going to Florence. My dad was very jealous because we were going there. We got to do a tour through Florence. It was very beautiful. After the tour we had some free time. I bought a sweater and a couple of souvenirs for my family. Than we had a tour through a museum. I think that we were 10 or 15 min in and we already found it a bit boring. At one point I just put my headphone ,in these headphones we could hear what the lady was telling about the what we were seeing, away and I just looked at the paintings. After this we headed back and the whole group ate at the McDonald’s. there I got the feeling of home sickness again and called my dad. He told me that I just had to think about what was fun today and what is going to be fun tomorrow. It worked because that night it went better.

 

Friday: Today we could stay in bed a little longer, because we had to be at school at 9.30 am. Because of that I woke up at 8. And we went to school. We worked on our project until 10.30. than we had a break. And these breaks where really fun, because you get to chat with everyone and that’s really nice. And then we worked on the project again until 11.45. than we had lunch and after that we went to Marmore Falls. This is a place with beautiful waterfalls. We took a picture with all the Dutch students. It was a very beautiful walk, until it started to rain. We had to quit the tour because of it. That night we ate somewhere else. We ate at a restaurant. We got pizza. But my stomach couldn’t handle that so late. So I didn’t eat that much. We also took a nice group picture of the Dutch students there.

 

Saturday: Today we went to ‘park of monsters’ in Bomarzo. This is a park where you could see various statues of so called monsters. We as the Dutch students were very quick, while the other students where a little bit slower. They weren’t that happy about that. But I laughed about it. That afternoon we went home and ate lunch at Andrea’s home for the first time. We also played some cod (call of duty) on his PlayStation. He was pretty good at it, while I was horrible. In the evening we had a party at school, just like we had in holland. We danced ,we ate ,we laughed and we had a good time. Then we got our certification that we took part of the project. When my name was announced everyone started yelling, and it literally scarred me a bit. At that moment I saw what reputation I had built, and that was something new for me. Then  there was the saying goodbye, always a hard moment. I went home and slept more time in my bed in Orte.

 

Sunday: The last day. For me a day of finally getting home again. This wasn’t the case for other students they where really going to miss it in Orte. Our train went at 8.20. So we had to get there early. We said our last goodbye’s and then we got on the train. Our plane was leaving at 10 so we had to hurry a bit. After 2 hours and 15 minutes of flying high above in the sky we landed on Schiphol, we were back in holland. Now it was only a matter of time until I got to see my parents again. We got on the train. And we got home where everybody was waiting for us. I gave my family a big hug and we went home. Again it was an amazing week. Except for the parts where I missed my family.