Vacanze

During the past few days, I guess nothing overly exciting or new has happened – but here I am blogging to keep you all updated anyway!

First to the weather: the temperature currently sits at about 2˚C in the daytime, however it definitely sinks to negative territories at night. To be quite honest, it’s freezing! Since my arrival though, I seem to be cherishing that extra minute of sleep every morning. Fortunately school is only a two-minute walk away and the teachers always arrive late!

On the way to school though, it’s slightly uphill and there are parts where it gets really, really slippery because there’s ice all over the ground. Alright, I haven’t stacked it as of yet, but definitely expect that in a post sometime soon!

In other news, tomorrow is the start of ‘le vacanze di Natale’ which also equates to the fact that I’m now officially on holidays! As per usual, we had a massive party at school to celebrate the end of the year – and I must say although it has certain downsides, one of the great things about staying in the same classroom throughout the day is that in this case, the party just stretched out as one, long, continuous event!

So while I’m really enjoying everything about school, I’m also really glad about the forthcoming break as I really need it. Having been immersed in such an environment where listening, understanding and speaking Italian is something I constantly have to do requires at least double (if not more) the amount of concentration. And hence, it’s fair to say that I’m exhausted!

Having said this, it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve really enjoyed every experience so far! Even though Italian is still really difficult I think I’m improving ever so slightly each day…well, hopefully at least!

xxxxxxx

Serena

Flight SQ 378 – departure 2330, expected arrival 0545

[Written on the plane by the way]

I write this as we are currently passing over Afghanistan having already covered 5526km since take-off at Singapore. Having just woken up from 6 hours of sleep (yay!), right now I’m not too sure what I should do with myself…should I watch a movie? Try and get some more sleep?

From what I can make of the night sky and the contours of flight path though, directly below me is endless expanses of mountainous region, it actually  looks incredible from my window seat! And…it’s Afghanistan, how amazing is that?!

So it’s 9:10am Sydney time. 11:10pm (yesterday) in Rome. With 4949km to go hopefully within 6:10 hours, there’s really not much happening on this plane, maybe 1 or 2 other passengers are awake. Although to pass time I do have anecdote to share. Honestly it’s not that interesting but I might as well…

It’s the story of the person you so happen to be sitting next to on the plane. On every flight, there’s always an overbearing, demanding passenger. So guess who I’m sitting next to this time?

Fortunately there’s an empty seat between us from the window/aisle arrangement, but as I semi-dozed off just after takeoff, I was very surprised, in the least, to find that this co-passenger had decided to sprawl out everywhere over the two seats. On my jumper. With the head literally about 5cm away from my armrest. Ah it was actually pretty scary when I first woke up cause I wasn’t expecting it at all!

And about 5 minutes ago, after I’d waited for the said to vacate the bathroom only after approximately 10 minutes, I came back to find that my blanket’s now gone too. Oh brilliant.

But it’s fine, I’ll be okay. This is all part of the journey one must experience in traveling alone. I guess for me, the hardest thing was saying goodbye in Sydney and letting myself go emotionally. Physically though, it’s all pretty easy: you check-in, you clear customs, you clear security (although in saying that every time I still get a bit freaked out!), you make your way to the boarding gate, you check out all the shops on the way (or you sit there and wait for ages), you board, you chill/eat/sleep, you get off, you find your connecting flight, the cycle repeats itself…

Alright I should probably go, sorry for the extremely loquacious post! Hope everyone’s well, I’m definitely thinking of you all back in Sydney, or wherever you may be!

xxxxxxx

Serena

Ps Kim it was so lovely to speak to you yesterday before boarding, thanks for calling!

3 hours later…again, I have nothing to do so I might as well.

Okay I couldn’t help but notice the fact that right now I’m passing over Georgia, another place in which the only real connection I have with it was hearing about it on the news a few years ago. Amidst the seemingly interminable night sky, there are patches of brightly lit areas at evenly spaced intervals. Don’t exactly know what they are, but it would be interesting to find out… Ciao for now!

Sent from my iPhone

[Sunset from my window seat]