S.G.Cambium

Messages from our students visiting Italy (March 2011)
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Partner school:

Istituto Statale Oscar Romero
Albino [BG], Italy

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Saturday

When I wake up at 4:30 and I eat breakfast, after I have checked all my stuff. My father drove me to school. At 6 O’clock we drive to Eindhoven Airport.

After the boarding we went in the plane. In the plane we had a ‘ very nice view’.

When we arrived at Orio al Serio( Airport Milan-Bergamo), we have eventually met the Italians. After we met his father drove to Nembro(near Albino) where he lives. In the building live the hole family. On the second floor we live.

First we have PS3’ed and after that we went to a park in Albino by bicycle, it was around 5km. In the park we have played football with the other Italians and Dutch people. After a football match It vs. NL, the Dutch won.

After we arrived at home we went immediately to a pizza hut where we can eat unlimited pizza for only ten Euro, after that we went to Albino to a gaming hall where we played billiard. After this we went to a pub where they drank beer, and I a coke.

Jordy Pfeiffer.

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Hello! It is so nice to be Italy! When we arrived at the airport we thought that we went by bus to the school and that we see the italian people at school but there was a surprise and the italian people were at the airport. The most of us were shocked but when we meet the people everyone was so happy! The people are very friendly here and we have fun with eachother. When we arrived the dad and brother from debora picked me up and we were going to the shopping centre oreo. Debora and I walked trough the centre and we have looked at shops. There are many shops and you can buy there nice clothes! After that we were going home and we eat pasta. After lunch we walked along the river and we had know more about each other. At 15.45 we went to a parc with the other students. It was very nice, and the weather was beautifull. We have played football and had fun with each other. It was very funny and now I am at home and soon we are going to eat at a pizzeria with all the students of the project! They said that you pay 10 euro and then you can eat the hole evening pizza, french fries that is weird because why do you eat more then one pizza? Before the project I had stress because the sweetcase could only weight 15 kilo and it was difficult to stick with it, but it is become good and I was happy. The parents of Debora are very friendly, they like the presents that i had bring with me. The brother of Debora is very cute! He is nine years old and he is so friendly! The only thing is that the parents and the little brother can't speak english, my english is not very well but they can't talk in english. I like it to be here and I think we will have a good time with each other. Bye bye, Floor

Bye Bye, Floor Uijtendaal.

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27-03-2011 Sunday (12:30)

Today I slept out till eleven because we were back home late. Yesterday night we went to a restaurant with pizza and pasta, a pub and a bowling. Yesterday it was storming and raining and today it will rain too. The Italian exchange partners planned for us to go in the mountains but because of the rain we are going to Selvino. The Italian people are really nice. The family of Chiara and Chiara herself are really nice. A lot of her family lives in one building so I already met them. In Italie they eat warm twice a day. Yesterday by lunch a lot of her family came and it was really nice. The other Italien exchange students are really nice and they organize really fun things. Some of the exchange student can talk Englisch really good but some of them are not that good at English. So they do not always understand us. I like the weather here very much but the Italien people say that they do not like this weather right know because it is cold. Now I have to eat luch. The meals are really big and with a lot of different things, I like it but somethings are to salty.

Greetz Iris van Gessel.

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Today was the first day in Italy. When we arrived at the airplane, that definitely was bigger than the one in Eindhoven, our exchange partners and their parents were already waiting for us and we went by car to their home. While sitting in the car, I noticed that the houses in Italy are a lot different than the ones in Holland: they are not build from bricks but they all have a smooth green, yellow or orange wall. Those houses look really beautiful with their walls, they are really different then I was used to see in the Netherlands.
Before we got to their home, we stopped at shopping centre "Iper" to get some stuff. In my opinion that shopping centre was huge, compared to the ones in the Netherlands, since you could not find these in Zaltbommel. But my exchange partner said that this shopping centre is quite normal in Italy, since there is even a bigger one, which we will be going on Wednesday, the biggest shopping centre in Italy: the "Orio center".
The house where I will be staying for a week is much bigger than I had expected for a flat. I will be staying on the first floor of the flat, which has only two floors. From the balcony you have a great view from the mountains and houses in Italy. They have three bedrooms, so I sleep in the same room as my exchange partner, two bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen.
After I had rest a while, my exchange partner showed me the village, Nembro. The streets in Italy are smaller than in the Netherlands and while walking on the streets there is a lot of difference of level.
When we went back to the house, we had lunch, which was around half past twelve. We had eaten a lot of difference things: first we had "casoncelli", after that some salad with a piece of meat and as dessert some strawberry with banana. That is a lot better than always eating bread during lunch in the Netherlands!
Till now I really like the Italy habits and culture, but since I am just a few hours in Italy I can not tell anymore about it. This afternoon we will go to a big park with some other students and after that we will go to eat pizza in Bergamo with all the other exchange students. I am curious if the pizza really would be that delicious as everyone says it is.

Groetjes,
Eunice Cheung.

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Today was the first day at our Italianstudents' school. We spoke all the students at school. We have met the headmaster and we have listen to a couple of songs from other Italian students. After that we went to Albino, we had a searching trough Albino so we have seen the most important places of Albino. In the afternoon we went with the bus, with all students and teachers, to Bergamo. I think Bergamo is very beautiful because in Bergamo are a lot of old buildings from the Dark ages. We have taken a lunch in Bergamo and after that we walked through Upper Bergamo. We had to give answers at some questions and we had also half an our freetime.
My host family is very hospitable and I get all the thinks that I want. Because I live in Villa di Serio (that is a quarter from Albino) the parents of my exchange student bring us everywhere we want. The weather forecast for today was very bad but the weather today was very good, in the morning it was a bit cloudy, in Bergamo it was very sunny and now in the evening it is a bit raining, so we were lucky. The host family try their best to speak English, Emiliano speak English very well, his father a bit, his brother a little bit and his mother doesn't speak English but we can understand each other, so it is not a problem.
It is very nice to be in Italy, tomorrow we visit Milan and I think that would be very nice!

Made by Jordi Struijk.

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Today we have been in Bergamo. It is an old city with nice old buildings like an old church with nice decoratings. We also met the Italian teachers today. Tomorrow we will go to Milan. I think it is nice to go to a big city like Milan. We also go to Venice and I very like it. The parents of my exchange partner are very friendly, actually everybody is friendly and nice. I also know a few Italian words, like grazie and come ti chiami. It means thank you and whats your name. We also visit Albino and we have seen the important buildings. In this area are many mountains, sometimes the view is very nice. The weather was nice at the first day, yesterday it rained a lot but today it was good. The first day of the exchange project were very good , I hope the other days will be nice too

Floris van Montfoort

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Monday 28th March.

Today it's the third day of the exchange, but really, for me it feels like I've been here for a year, because I feel so happy about the family I'm in and I really love the project! When I first met my partner on the airport, it felt very strange, because I spoke to her on facebook and we wrote e-mails and now I was going to meet her for real, so I was very exciting. I thought that my English would be really bad and that I would forget a lot of words, but luckily that didn't happen! Yesterday I even realized that I was starting to think in English! This morning, we saw the school of our Italian friends for the first time and it's really different from our school back in Holland. For example, the students stay in one classroom the whole time, they don't change classrooms. And the canteen is really cheap! At our school, the canteen is way too expensive, so I was happy when I found out that my bottle of water was just 0,35 euro's! After seeing the school, we went to Albino, the place where the school is, and we where divided into groups to make a sort of test with questions about Albino. I loved to see Albino, but I didn't really like to make those questions. We also went to Bergamo, this afternoon, to get to know this city and, unfortunately, there was another test to make. But it wasn't very long, and after we finished it, we bought some amazing Italian ice cream, it was very very nice! Right now, I'm sitting in the living room of my partner's family, they are really nice people. Both of her parents don't speak English, but they really try to talk to me, by asking my partner to translate what they're saying. Her little sister, who's 8 years old, learned an English sentence to say to me: "Hi! My favourite colour is yellow and what's your favourite colour?" "Purple," I said, with a huge smile on my face. Yes, I really love it here and I'm glad that the project is not over yet!

Dirkje van den Bogert, Italy.

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Hi, Today was my second day in Italy. I'm still getting used to everything here, the culture, the landscape, the language and even the very keyboard on wich I'm typing right now is different. I thought I knew Italy very good because I have been there countless times with my parents, but the Italy I know and the real Italy are very different. The with tourist filled Garda Lake doesn't look anything like the valley in wich Gazzaniga is located. Me and Enrico had to get up really early this morning because he had to play a football game, we had to travel trough the mountains wich was rather entertaining. I have met all of the players in Enrico's team, they are all really nice guys. When I was watching the game I met a father from a player who couldn't speak any English but he did speak German. With some sign language here and there we could communicate rather well, but I did found out that my German could be improved. We lost the match with 4 - 1, wich the teammates of Enrico called "unlucky". After the game we went to Selvino by cable car. This was a lot of fun and we had a great view over the valley. I got to know some of the other students better and they all seemed really nice. Tomorrow we will visit Bergamo, I'm pretty excited to go because Enrico promised me I is going to be a blast. We went to bed at 11 o'clock because we were really tired. We went to a pub on saturday evening and all of the other students got to sleep a long time but we had the football match. Also I am learning some Italian wich is really funny and useful.

Ruben.

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Tuesday 29 march

Today we went to Milan. We first visited a castle and after that we visited the cathedral in Milan. We went to Milan by bus. Sadly, it left 20 minutes to late, because an Italian teacher arrived late. After two hours, we arrived in Milan, in front of the Castello Sforzesco. It was quite large and had very high walls. There, we went into a museum about some historical things from this region. There was also a gallery about Michelangelo, but sadly enough I missed it. From the gate of the castle, you could see something like l'arc de triomphe in Paris, but we didn't go there. After the visit of the castle, we went to the large cathedral in the center of Milan. There, we had 3 hours of spare time, in which you could visit the cathedral, as I did, or you could go shopping in some very expansive shops. I think the inside of the cathedral wasn't very nice, because it was dark

and there weren't a lot of decorations. The outside was however very nice. I also went to the top of the cathedral. On the top, I could see all decorations very well, and I had a nice view over the city. At last, we made a walk to see the expensive shops and buy some souvenirs. Then we walked back to the bus and went back home. This evening I am going to play poker, like yesterday, and I hope I will do better now.

Ragnar

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Hello everybody! I, Joy, am going to tell you something about today. Today we went to Milano! It was awesome! We went by bus at 8 o'clock. At first we went to a castle from Michelangelo. It was very impressive and we spent there 2 hours. My hosts are very nice and they do everything for you. I really recommend this when you are in the 4th of vwo. Thursday we go to Venetzia! Justin and Erwin will tell you more about that day later. We also went to the local pub and to the bowling. The first evening we ate pizza! It was really good. You have a whole menu for 10 euro. You could eat pizza as much as you could. We spent a lot of time togheter. I can already speak Italiano and they like it. The food here is very nice, but much. They eat a lot at lunch, like pasta and salade. In the morning they eat milk and cookies with pie! It is unbelievable. I like it a lot.

Ciao, Ciao! (Joy)

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Today we went to Milan, it was my first time in Milan so I was very excited to go there. After we traveled one and a half hour by bus we were in Milan. We walked to the castello sforzesco where we had to wait for a while, after that we could enter. Castello sforzesco is a very big museum, there lots of galleries with different types of antiques like furniture, old imstruments and dishware displayed. After that we walked to the piaza del duomo, and when we arrived we had free time. Some went in to the Dome but i didnt because the people whomi was with wanted to go to shop immediatley, But i Dont regret it, first we were looking for the abercrombie and fitch and we had to ask the direction to like five persons, but we were very glad when we arrived and of course the girls wanted to take a picture with the model at the entrance. After we went to the ambercrombie and fitch we went further down the shopping street. Unfortenutely 2 hours are less then thay seem so we hadnt enough time, and had to go to meat the groupe. When we were walking to the bus we saw a Gelateria and we all wanted ice-cream so we went to buy it very quickly, but nevertheless when we got out we lost the groupe so we had to run in their direction. It was a great day and i had a lot of fun.

Ciao Frans

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Thursday 31/03/2011
Today we went to Venice by the bus, it was a real long drive from 3 hours. It was to bad my exchange partner was feeling ill and he staid home. He's ding better but he's still feeling ill. The trip to Venice was very nice, I really loved the narrow streets and the water there was in those streets. It was a perfect day to go to Venice because it was very hot outside en the sun was shining very bright. We did a lot of things with the other exchange students. We went in a very big church with a lot of gold. Also we went in shops like the Hard Rock Cafe. We went back with the bus also a very long drive of again 3 hours. But it was a lot of fun because we where all talking with each other and listening to music. After the drive I went to my exchange partner to eat something. We had a lot of fun and we talked a lot about Venice because he wasn't able to come with me.
Justin Smit

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Extra.Cambium.org/International - Site for the 2011 student exchange - S.G. Cambium, Zaltbommel, The Netherlands