Happy Little Vegemites

6/5 - 12/5
Unfortunately this week in Milan the weather was awful; rainy and freezing cold. So, naturally, I managed to get a bad cold and from Tuesday until Thursday I stayed home from school.

The Voice Australia, helping me feel better

On Thursday though Chiara decided we would go and have a Pizza in Noviglio for dinner and it turned out to be fun as I tried for the first time a "Bismark" pizza, which is a normal Margherita pizza with a fried egg on top!

On Friday my week really started when in the afternoon I left to go to the train station. I was to spend the weekend in the countryside helping out with a WEP Departure Orientation session; so, orientation for all of the Italian students who were about to leave on 3-month, 6-month or 12-month exchange programs all over the world. My job was to help to give them an insight into what it was like to be an exchange student, the language and cultural difficulties they might experience and as it turns out, give those going to Australia all the information they need about life in Australia!

We arrived around 4pm on Friday afternoon and we went to a quick session where everyone was given their T-Shirts, backpacks and name tags and I was introduced to the only other "inbound" (from another country doing an exchange in Italy) student, a girl name Cassandra from Quebec (French-speaking Canada). We then split everyone up to do some fun activities, even if the weather was dampening the mood a little, and Cassandra and I went to do some archery.

By the end of the archery session I had already met and chatted to about fifty "outboud" (about to leave Italy to go to another country for exchange) students about which country they were going to and answering their million questions about what the experience would be like. We were given free time for a few hours so we went to a room where there was music playing and two ping pong tables. Cassandra and I versed each other in Ping Pong for a while but the game ended when I accidentally tripped and stood on the ball. So I decided it was time for a better game that involved everyone (there were a LOT of people) so I thought it would be fun to use some of the games we use at my school in Australia to run "retreats" and managed to get about sixty people to come and play "Bang" with me. It was a real test because I was the only one who knew how the game worked and had to try and explain it to everyone in Italian, but I'm really happy that I pulled through and we spent the next hour and a half playing Bang!

After dinner we had a big meeting where the WEP representatives explained to everyone the plan for the weekend, the rules, introduced us inbound students with some of the returned students that were there too (as well as us two inbounds they had invited a few returned students, who were Italian but had finished their exchange to another country already). She also told everyone that the next night there would be a Talent Show that we should all participate in, before letting us go to do some Pizza making, as it is important when Italians go to other countries they know how to do that!

Here it is amazing to note just how many outbound students there are (in this group about 200), just in the group leaving in September, and this is only half of them as there were in fact two different orientation weekends! At my orientation in Brisbane there were only about thirty outbound students, eight of us going to Italy!

Luckily enough on Saturday morning we woke up to much better weather, as the plan for this day involved a lot of being outside. After breakfast everyone was divided into groups of which country they were going to and, naturally, I was put as the leader of the Australia group. In fact the Australia group was the biggest of all; so big that there were two groups so I was the leader of one of them, called "Vegemite" and Marianna, a girl who had done an exchange for one year to New Zealand, was the leader of the other one called "Meat Pie". The first activity us Vegemites did was a scavenger hunt, which was nice because we basically did a tour of the whole camp.

The cabins where we slept

The rest of the day continued with us going to different activities, including role plays of different situations that might happen when you're in another country, essential flight information (their faces when they were told they would leave Milan on September 9th and arrive in Australia on September 11th were definitely priceless), school rules in Australia and so on and so forth.

A super friendly farm cat I absolutely fell in love with over the time we were there!

As we were staying on a kind of holiday farm there were also optional activities and so I was with a few of the students after lunch, when we had free time for the rest of the day, who were talking about going to ride a horse and I asked to come along! I have only been on a horse two times on my life, when I was much younger and both times the horse was led by somebody else while I just sat there, so I was extremely excited to ride on my own for the first time! We got to stay on for about forty minutes and I had so much fun!

Volleyball during the free time in the afternoon

Me, Cassandra and Consuelo, an outbound student headed to England for six months 

The sunset view from the camp

That night there was the talent show and being inbound students and group leaders Cassandra and I were encouraged to get together and do something. The only thing we could think of that we both knew how to do was the "cup song" from the movie Pitch Perfect, but in the end we spent more time talking to the outbound students and had almost no time to get together and practice. That, plus the fact that neither of us can sing resulted in a hilarious but pathetic performance where we were out of time, out of tune and in the end forgot the words and had to leave the stage with our heads down. But hey, everyone was supportive and the other acts were actually from very talented students so the show wasn't a total failure. At least we gave it a go!

After the talent show we had a party in the main square of the farm where they projected photos from the weekend onto the wall and we put music on and danced and hung out until a storm arrived and we had to go and hide from the rain, but it was still a lot of fun!

Cassandra and I, still strong after our talent show embarrassment! 

On Sunday morning after breakfast we had a couple of information sessions before free time and catching the bus to the train station to go home. One of the sessions my group had to do was a kind of lesson on doing things you normally wouldn't do/getting out of your comfort zone/getting your hands dirty, so we had to learn about the farm animals and, in the end if we wanted, milk a cow! I have milked a cow one other time in my life at the Ekka in Brisbane, but I think I was about six so I don't remember very well, so this was another great experience too!

Then, it was time to take a group photo and head home. Cassandra and I and the returned students who lead the other groups had bonded a lot over the weekend so it was really quite sad to say goodbye.

The whole group of the weekend orientation spelling out "WEP" with the leaders in orange, you can find me in the middle of the W!

The girls I shared a cabin with!

Returned and inbound student leaders

My coordinator here Giulia, myself and Cassandra

Marianna and I

Later that afternoon Mago came to pick me up from the train station and took me home where there was a lunch to celebrate that firstly, it was mother's day (so I got a little card for Chiara) and secondly because they had organised for the group of people we will stay in the same place as in Sardinia (and who the Massettis have been going to the same place as for many many years), to get together to confirm dates and plan the holiday, so it was nice to meet some of the people we will be with for a part of the summer.

To get into the spirit of Mother's Day WEP suggested that we all put posts dedicated to our mums all over the world on the WEP Facebook page, and this was mine:)