You say goodbye, I say hello

Well I've made it here in one piece. It was a ridonkulously long trip but i made it. Palermo is a beautiful city and my family is amazing I'm loving it here! But i'll get to all that later. Me and 10 girls traveled over 30 hours together from Auckland to Rome. And i was very fortunate that they all happened to be very kind. I got on with them all really well and i think it's cause they're all manly and butch like me :). Rome was fun for the most part except for the whole having not slept for 48 hours thing. I was trying to avoid jetlag so i just had red bull and powered through. There were over 400 people from all around the world all coming to Italia with AFS. It was real mean meeting all these people from around the world who were in the exact same scenario as me having left all of their friends and family back home. It's because of this that you form bonds and friendships really quickly because you're all in the same state. We basically lazed around, ate food and did getting to know eachother activities for 2 days which was all well and good but i was too excited to meet my host family to enjoy it all. On Saturday we all said our goodbyes sang a few maori songs and went our separate ways. I flew from Rome to Palermo where I was greeted by my host family who were all very excited to see me especially Simo who made me a big sign. We drove home from the airport and we tested out our communication skills. For that day i mostly spoke english and Simo translated for me but lately i've been trying to only speak Italiano. We got home and they showed me around the apartment. It's a very nice place in a really cool neighbourhood Sferracavallo. I share a bedroom with my host brother Salvo which is good because we get along really well. That night we went out for dinner (Pizza) for a family friends birthday. By the way if anyone wants to see photos i've uploaded heaps on facebook http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110229&id=517808909. The food here is really good but i get full really quickly and i think people are offended and think i don't really like the food but really it's just that here they eat about twice as much as we do in New Zealand. I'll update in another post about Palermo the city i'm living in cause i'm a bit too tired now. People were right when they told me being an exchange student is exhausting. i think it's because you have to really use your brain all the time here to even begin to understand a new language. I'm pretty much constantly exhausted. But other than that I'm loving everything my family has been really nice to me and have treated me as one of there own. I'm not quite used to the whole no bare feet thing. Even around the house you have to wear jandals i've been caught out a few times. Also absolutely no wet hair! Which is strange for me because in New Zealand i've used a hair dryer maybe once or twice in my life.
Oh well thats about all i've got time for I start school on Saturday so i'll update on that soon (To those of you who I told i don't need to go to school on saturday, AFS changed my schools so now i do :( Oh well apparently the new school will be better for me so i don't mind too much)

Ok bye :)
Ciao a tutti