My first week in Italy

Throughout the week I was able to meet a lot of people at school and get to know my host family better. My host family are so nice and their house is very nice also. It's kind of like a town house and you have to enter like you would in a gated community. The decor of the house is really modern and a lot of the appliances are new. I'm not sure if they rent or own, but they have a really nice set up. One thing I noticed about them is that they leave windows open 24/7. They all have screens but they leave them all open so that the breeze will come. It's very nice because the house always smells so nice. My host family tries really hard to communicate with me in English so that they can get to know me better, but they are also helping me learn Italian through objects and things like that.
On Monday school started for every student of Matera. Except I was quite sure if I was going yet or not because my host mom had to take me to go sent some paper work we finished the night before. I'm pretty sure it was for school, but I wasn't entirely sure because it was all in Italian. After that I had the okay to go to school.
Once we arrived, my host mother took me in a basically handed me off to one of the teachers that took me to my class. It is class 4C, which meant a lot of stairs for me everyday. Once we were at the class, I went in and the teacher got a briefing on who I was and such and gave me a seat. The seating arrangement isn't strict at all. Everyone just sits where they want, so a few people moved around so that I could sit next to my host sister.
The first class we had was literature and the teacher gave us a handout with an American song (I forget the name) written fully out with the Italian translation on the other side. Although she wouldn't speak much English, she did this so that I could understand a bit of the lesson. It was very sweet. While we were doing this lesson one of the kids was joking around with the teacher and took out his lighter and was pretending he was going to light the paper. And him and the teacher were laughing like it was no big deal, but in America you would get suspended for even bringing a lighter to school. Also another difference was that the windows of the classroom could fully open and students would open and close them depending on if they felt hot of not. In American, windows are completely sealed all around the school.
The public schools here really don't have much and I know I will be much more grateful when I go back to American school. The classroom had a smaller sized blackboard on the left side of the room, a desk for the teacher, desks for the students, and a strip of hooks for jackets in the back of the class. That's it and the desks have a lot of graffiti on them. It really is eye opening to how good we have it in America. Our education system isn't the best but we do get pretty good quality things compared to what some of these students get. For example, the bathrooms have nothing! They don't have toilet paper, soap, paper towels, and some doors don't even close all the way. You have to bring your own tissue to the bathroom with you. Girls will go in there and smoke and flick their ashes on the ground and leave their empty cigarette packs in there. It made me appreciate school bathrooms in Colorado.
Italian classes are definitely different than classes in the US. Although it does depend on the teacher , most class sessions are really loud because a lot of people in class talk while the teacher is talking.The teacher doesn't really stop either; they just hit the desk a few times and keep going. I think going to school here will really teacher me how to figure out problems myself because you have to listen and comprehend things differently than in the US because most teachers will not help you outside of class. Most of my classes, I have literally no idea what is going on, but I use this time to self study with my Italian books. Also, sometimes I'll take a break from that and listen to the teacher and write down words that they are saying so I can ask about them later to my host sister.
My math class is okay because we just do what she does on the board and I know how to do all of it already. In my English class the teacher has already put me to work as a sort of mother-tongue replacement because they weren't able to get a mother-tongue teacher this year. It's really nice because I can finally understand what is going on. My gym class has been pretty laid back. On gym days, you just wear comfortable cloths to school and you don't change out. Most kids don't even do that and just wear jeans. Even the teacher has been wearing wedges each time I've seen her. On the first day we didn't do anything at all. Then on the second day we had gym we did some volleyball warm up exercises and then we had the option to either play volleyball or go hang out outside. I ended up playing volleyball because they needed an extra person. Then that was it and class was over.
One thing about the fashion I've seen here in the south is that you can whatever you want and no one judges you. I've seen a lot of middle aged woman who dress really chic with lots of cool patterns that work really well with what they are wearing. I thing most Italian high school girls dress similar to US girls but with a little more sophistication and then some will just wear t-shirts and jeans. Most of the guys wear graphic t-shirts or button up shirts with cuffed skinny jeans. Also a lot of younger people choose not wear contacts and just wear their glasses. One thing that I have definitely noticed is Hard Rock Cafe merch. Everyone owns at least four shirts from different locations and maybe some key chains, but it is everywhere.
That's all I can think of right now for what my week consisted of, if anyone wants to get a hold of me, you can go through my social media. I also got an Italian number now, so there is also that. I'm sorry this post is literally all over the place but the week has been full of new experiences and I wanted to share as much as I could remember.

Imogen