Getting impatient

Time is going far too slow for my liking. Just heard we have to pay for the whole thing like a month before i thought we did. Which means we're going to need to hurry up with the whole money thing. Not much has been going on lately no news or anything. I'm going to try and upload some pictures of my host family and stuff so here goes. To the left is a picture of my host sister Simona and her boyfriend Claudio. I have photos of the parents on the other computer and i'll upload them another time.
Language is going ok slowly i recognize things when i listen to italiano which is a start.

That's all for now. 78 days left.

Ciao a tutti.

Update

Ciao a tutti.

So quite a few developments have been made in the last few months not least of which being me getting a family! I will be living with the Puccio family in Palermo, Sicily. I will be the 5th member of the family (6th including the dog) there is the Madre (Mother) Rosalba, Padre (Father) Antonino, Sorella (Sister) Simona who is 19, and Fratello (Brother) Salvo who is 16 :) I've been talking to Salvo and Simona over MSN for the last few weeks and they've been helping me a little with my Italiano. I also got a really nice postcard from them in the mail. They seem really nice and i can't wait to meet them. They seem excited about having me come there and they've never hosted a student before.
Also i've just got my first bulletin pack from AFS outlining a bunch of stuff about getting my insurance, visa and passport sorted out (really dull) and also lots of information about Italy which is a nice read. The best thing about getting the pack though was finding out when i'm leaving. I'll be leaving Auckland on September 9th (09/09/09) and flying to Singapore followed by Frankfurt and then Rome! I'll have some orientation stuff there and then I'll fly from Rome to Palermo! It's kind of just starting to seem real getting dates and flight numbers and that kind of thing. Exciting. Also i've been trying to learn Italian (very slowly), i take my Italian text book to school and use it whenever i have free time. Also im going to start skyping with Simona so i can practice Italian conversation.

Raising money has been slow lately because all of my time has been spent on the Senior production at school instead of working but that finishes this week so i'll be able to get back into it.

Alright that's all i've got to say i'll update next time i get more information.

Ciao.

Hi.

My name is Josh Thomas i'm from New Zealand and i'll be spending a year going to school in Italy if all goes to plan. I've just recieved a letter from AFS confirming my placement in Italy though there are still a few problems with my age which will hopefully be overlooked by AFS Italy. I'm supposed to be no older than 17.9 years old on departure (Don't ask why it's 17.9 i have no idea) and i'll be a little bit older since i'd be leaving in September and my 18th birthday is in october. I'll update this blog with developments like getting a host family etc. and then when i leave for Italy i'll use this blog to update family and friends on what's going on in Italy. I've still got like 9 months until i leave so time to either father a child or raise the 11 grand i need to make the trip. I think i'll go with the latter. So yea. That's all for now. I doubt anyone will actually read this till i leave but still i'm going to write about the lead up in case anyones interested in doing an AFS exchange themselves.

PS. Before you ask no i don't speak Italian. That's gonna be something i'll need to work on.
Chur