#26 Vegas baby

I am currently on the flight from the layover in San Francisco to Portland. I'll probably post this tomorrow when I can check everything with my laptop.

I'm going in chronological order otherwise I know I'll make a mess.

This long weekend in Las Vegas for the volleyball tournament was one of the best vacation of my life. No kidding.

Friday morning I left Salem at 2:30am, me and my mum got my poor four sleepy siblings in the van and she drove me to the airport up in Portland (an hour away). When we got there she said "Remember that what happens in Vegas does not stays in Vegas" and "Do not get married over there because it is an actual marriage as everywhere else!" Hahahahaha, she was joking of course....I think.

Anyway, I took off around 4:30, after having had the best Capuccino I've had since I'm here, and around 7 I landed in San Francisco. I was so disappointed because the weather was really foggy and rainy, so I didn't get to see anything out of my window.

After half an hour layover, that I spend running from one gate to another one (San Francisco airport is huge) I got on the second flight for Laaaaaas Veeeegas baby.

As soon as I got there I saw slot machines everywhere hahaha, literally everywhere  (I noticed a small one in the restroom too). Heading out I met with two of my team mates and we walked out in order to wait for parents to pick us up. 

The house that we rented was exactly American/Las Vegas style: big, beautiful and.....with a POOL AND A HOT TUB! Omg I didn't know that until I got there. The vacation just started and I was already unable to contain my excitement.

We took a nap in the afternoon and waited for everyone to arrive. In the evening we went shopping to a big mall. I almost cried when I found Kiko makeup store, it was 7 months since I've seen one and it's so cheap compared to other brands popular here.

Some girls looked for prom dresses and then we came back to the house.

Saturday was first day of the tournament. We played in one of the three big pavilions of the Global Market Center. It sounds really cool but it wasn't actually, it was raining so much that it started leaking on the courts and every minute we had to grab a towel and soak up the water in order not to kill ourselves slipping on it. Also at a certain point, who knows why, the fire alarm started and didn't stop for at least twenty minutes. I'm glad we weren't playing but reefing (still got headache though). We played three teams and none of the matches went well. Sunday though was awesome! We won all three matches and had so much fun. We went to In 'n Out for dinner, a famous fast food really popular in California and other states. It was pretty good and cheap but I'm still not a fan of burgers and fries. I also got my dad a shirt of this year of the place, he said he loves In 'n Out so I hope he likes it.

On Monday we had a single, which means that if you lose you're out, well we lost. At around 2pm we were done so we went to the nearest outlet to shop and have lunch.

Since we had a little bit of time we had fun in the pool until it was too cold outside. 

Finally we started getting ready for the night. We went to the strip, meaning downtown of Las Vegas (center). One of the best day ever. Really walking through all those high skyscrapers and shiny billboards was great. We went to the New York  City part and we did the roller coaster, we went into the Bellagio Hotel, we walked through the gambling areas in the casinos, we saw the mini Eiffel tower. It was so cool. For dinner we went to Hard Rock Cafe and the owner/manager(/I don't know who he was) told us that we could go upstairs in the private concerts area.

We were all soo happy and we couldn't believe that we were there. It was like a dream. We went on the backstage and sat on the same couch where famous people like Imagine Dragons, Justin Bieber, Nirvana and so many others hang out before performing.

 After that (felt like a dream I promise you) we started our tour in the Strip and we walked in a lot of fancy hotel and Casinos. We watched the fountain show in front of the Bellagio Hotel and then we saw the world largest chocolate fountain. Everything was so big and shiny!

We were home around 2 and we were so much tired but so so happy. And that's not even all!

Next day since my flight was at 4, in the morning I went to the famous Las Vegas sign to take pictures and we visited the Pyramid Hotel and the Mandala Bay Center (me and one of my team mate with her mom).

Now that I' on the flight back I can't believe it's over, these girls are so sweet and I had one the best time ever in the fabulous Las Vegas.

I really hope this summer we'll stop them again with my parents during our road trip.

P.S. I just found out that my external camera is broken. I hate myself and my life. What in the world happened.

P.P.S. By the way at the tournament there were 200 teams from almost all the US. We played both in the pavilions and in some big high schools. We placed around half through so pretty good.

BEST THING WE DID: I think the best thing was having the chance to see (and touch the toilet) of the private stage and backstage of the Hard Rock Cafe, and see the city from its big balcony!!

#25 Letter to myself

I opened it.

I opened the drawer of my desk, I pull out the wep folder and I grabbed it.

I thought i would cry, but I didn't, I had a smile on my face that was always bigger as I kept reading. I smiled because I wrote about the fact that I didn't have a host family yet, and I wished for one where I would be supported, understood, respected and involved in their life. 

Well, I now can say that that wish came true. When one morning my dad said: "Emma, sometimes I can't just be just that awesome guy that lives in your house, sometimes I have to be your dad" and I had to hold my tears back, cause I was happy.Or the moment when they asked me to help them choose the next exchange student for next year and I really had to keep myself from start crying right there, suddenly a sense of jealousy started to make its way through my heart, and I realized that it's already half of the way, half of this.

These six months have been fun, have been painful, have been surprising, have been hard, have been a lot of things, they've been full of tears, of love, of homesickness, of joy.

These six little kids are taking small pieces of my heart every day, and I can't stop them, I don't want to. I knew that at some point I would've been divided in two, as if my heart was made into two different part. And here I am, there's one half that doesn't want to surrender and every day it reminds me of all my friends, my family, my sister (gosh if I miss my sisi) and then there's the other half, which is expanding its roots here and will never want to leave. Because when you are an exchange student 90% of the time there's no balance with emotions, the minute before you are happy nad smiling and laughing and then booom, you see something, you remember something and you are lost for a range of time that can vary from second to hours.

Then I'm on the court, a volleyball court. Silence. Everybody is facing the flag. The anthem is playing. I look around and every time I think: "This can't be real, I'm playing volleyball on the other side of the world, I'm surrounded by Americans/Ketchup-eaters (no offense I love you all and I like ketchup too)". So I hold back tears, without even knowing if they are for joy or whatever.

Yes, sometime I feel really crazy, but I can take it. Also because there's always someone who brings me back to reality with questions like: "EEmmaaaaaa, if you are in the space and pee...does the pee go up or down?".

P.S. Si piange e si scherza e intanto la mia sorellina qua mette il parmigiano sulla pasta e poi infila il piatto nel microonde...calma emma, mantieni la calma.