AUGURI A TUTTI!

Aprillia INA AFS to ITA (YP 17–18)

Ciao! Can’t believe it’s been five months and we’re already halfway! Time does fly so fast. Even too fast at some point. So now, I’m going to share my story on how I spent my holiday, my christmas and new year hear in italy.

Obviously, celebrating christmas in Italy was a whole new thing for me. Both the culture and the food. Few days before christmas, people started decorating their house even the streets. I like it when christmas trees could be seen from their house with all these sparking luminations. People here tend to spend their christmas with their family members, and so did i. I went to my aunt’s house to have some pizza and we played some games up until midnight. Yups, here playing games is a thing that you have to do in Christmas. There were il tombola (it’s like Bingo) and some games with Sicilian cards. After having an italian dinner, the next day I had an indonesian-and-sicilian lunch with my family. I cooked Opor Ayam and Kue Nastar and they loved it! We had like pasta, french fries, chicken, meat, eggplants, and arancini (typical food in Sicilia). And for the dessert, we had il pandoro which is one of the most typical christmas sweets in Italy. Such a feast, wasn’t it?

On 30th of December, my family and I went to see il presepe in Castania,Messina. Il presepe or the Nativity is something that you can’t miss in italian christmas. It is the representation of Jesus’s birth. It is a scene where things are being set up during the Christmas period ; there are statues made of various materials and arranged in a realistically reconstructed environment. All the characters and places of the tradition appear: the cave or the hut , the manger where baby Jesus is placed , the two parents, Joseph and Mary , the Magi , the shepherds, the sheep, the ox and the donkeyo and the angels.

It was so cool! I’ve never felt such a christmas vibe as strong as it was. Unfortunately, the weather was horrible! It was dewing and windy so hard. But still, I had a lot of fun there.

During this holiday, I got a chance to see snow in Mount Etna. I went up to the mountain and the snow started falling heavily. I was so happy that I could actually see the snow falling. Before reaching the peak of the mountain, my hostdad was told that there was a snow-storm up in the mountain and it would be dangerous to continue. And so we decided to go back.

After having my wish to see snow got granted. I felt excited to welcome 2018. This time, I decided to celebrate my new year with the girls from Intercultura. We all knew how it felt to be away from home on such an important day and how it felt to celebrate it with new people in an exciting way. Kana,the Japanese girl,and I went to Matilda’s house, the one from Finland. We decided to have a sleepover since we would stay up until midnight. We had a dinner with her family, we sang and danced while waiting until the clock stroke 00:00. When it happened, we all screamed and congratulated each other wishing everyone to have a better year. We continued our night with singing,dancing and at the end we were told to eat “le lentiche”, they said it would bring some money and fortunes. For Matilda,Kana and I, the night didn’t stop there. We decided to watch some movies and went to sleep at 4 a.m.

My 2017 was amazingly wrapped up and I’m sure my 2018 will be more challenging yet wonderful.

I know it’s too late,but let me say :

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

May your 2018 filled with more happiness and blessing!