Student Bloggers

While being here our group has made some friends. Among them is the sweetest couple, Ana and Alberto. Ana is Romanian and Alberto is Spanish. This weekend they took us to Avola, a town in Sicily that has a lot of Spanish influence, which is evident in the architecture. The buildings have a very baroque style. Era molto bellisimo.

I agreed to go an hour before we left and I was under the impression we would be spending the day at the beach so when the bus dropped us off we walked through some fields of wildflowers and had to maneuver across some slippery rocks to get to reach the sand, but it was beautiful! Then Alberto asked us if we would mind playing basketball with some friends and of course that sounded fun, even though I am absolutely terrible at basketball. So their friend picked us up and in the car Ana was explaining to me that it was not exactly basketball but a game similar to it called basking. She told me it was a European game that is beginning to get more and more popular. It is when handicapped people are incorporated into the game of basketball and they change some rules to accommodate them. Now I was wondering what I was getting myself into. When we got to the gym I was told I could not play because of my shoes, which I was a little thankful for. I sat and listened as the coach explained the rules to them. Each person had a number on his or her jersey and there were four different kinds of numbers. Fives were normal and could play basketball fairly well, fours were normal but were not very good at basketball, threes were a little handicapped but could still run around the court and shoot, then twos were in wheelchairs or could not run. The court was divided into parts. There was the normal length of the basketball court where everyone would play but then in the middle on either side of the court was a section that if dribbled into everyone had to stop. Then a two would be positioned and sometimes given a different ball to try and make a shot in ten seconds. Once they were done the game would resume until dribbled into one of the sections again. Nobody could block any number less than his or her own and guys could not block girls with their same number. One of the guys was getting frustrated at how little he could play and Ana was very bored. The game went on for two hours and afterwards we all played basketball with some local kids. Then we went off to find the bus back to Siracusa.

Later that night everyone wanted to go out and I decided to stay in because I was tired and planned on talking to my boyfriend. A friend Mara had met one night left his three-month-old puppy with me… it was a terrible idea. The puppy was okay for the first 20 minutes as it discovered and sniffed out everything new and exciting, but after that it began to cry and poo everywhere from separation anxiety. This puppy was crying for two hours straight. I tried everything; giving it food, playing with it, holding it. It was useless but finally it tired itself out and passed out on my bed. Never again. I was worried our neighbors were going to complain because it was at 1 in the morning.

Finally, everyone came back around 4 am so I was able to sleep. That night I had a language dream. It is funny how people say once they learn a language they begin to dream in that language. Well for me it is a little different. Since being here I feel like I have not learned much. I still have no idea what anyone is saying, all I can do is pick up a few words here and there and try and read their body language. So these dreams I have been having are exactly that. I hear one or two words and then blah blah blah. I find it a little amusing because it seems so realistic. I guess no one tells you it is possible to have dreams like this. I hope my language does improve to better understand my surroundings and now my dreams.