Lilia Montella

2009-10 Inbound from Italy

Hometown: Sassari, Sardegna, Italy

Sponsor: Sassari Nord Rotary Club, District 2080, Italy

Host: St. Augustine Sunrise Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: St. Augustine High School, St. Augustine, Florida

Bio

Lilia's Bio

Ciao a tutti!

I am Lilia Montella. I have just turned 17 years old in July and I'm an exchange student from Italy hosted in St. Augustine. I live in Sardegna which is an island situated in the Mediterranean Sea, exactly in the middle under Corsica. I was born in Sassari, a city of about 135.000 habitants situated in the north west part. Here is where I spent my last 17 years growing up with my older brother (21 years old) my mom and my dad in a flat downtown.

I go to a classical liceum, that in Italy means that I study subjects like Greek, Latin, Italian literature, history, philosophy, and others. People used to say that I'm a sporty type, I play tennis since I was 7, and during summertime I often do water-skiing and sailing, also with my dad. I also did classical dance and hip hop since I was 5, but I had to stop them 2 years ago.

As an Italian I'm an outgoing person full of energy, happy, helpful, dreamer and a bit moody too. Rotary isn't kidding when it says that this is gonna be one of my best years ever, and an experience of lifetime that will completely change my personality and will let me grow up better and stronger.

It's just amazing that only 2 weeks ago I was absolutely scared about my flight and how could I get the right connections overseas without my father's help holding all the documents and doing everything for me. Well, the day of the departure finally arrived, and then I noticed that I was mature enough for doing all of these things by myself, and it could seem stupid but when I arrived in Jacksonville after 4 flights, I was really proud of myself.

This is gonna be the year that I will never forget, the people that I'm meeting will become my best friends … or not, who will make me feel happy or sad, who will help me or not, who will love me or hate me. That's the world, that's why people used to say that the world is small, everything is so different, but people are the same; and I have to take care of my life, alone, and I'll have to choose these persons... and I'm so excited and proud to be here that I can't wait to do as much possible I can. And I will make this year unforgettable.

Thank you to Rotary Youth Exchange Florida for letting me have this wonderful opportunity.

September 6 Journal

Here I am. I have been here for almost 4 weeks and I already fell in love with my host family. My host parents are always making me feel at home, and I really feel comfortable with them, we talk a lot about everything, we share opinions, experiences and advice, and I think that’s a really important thing.

I felt nervous during the last 2 weeks before my arrival in Florida, but when I finally got off the plane in Jacksonville I was ready for my experience, I was ready to be born again, to a new life and to be positive. That is what I’m doing, and I believe that’s why everything is fine and so amazing. They were awaiting me at the airport and they were smiling, it would seem stupid but I was really happy that they were smiling, and they were smiling watching me. I believe that those are natural feelings: to feel happy, extremely happy only because someone is smiling at me and is happy that I’m there with him, that’s what I felt and it was an awesome feeling.

I love my bedroom, because it’s a real teenager bedroom, it’s not a guest room is my host sister’s bedroom (she left 2 weeks ago to Croatia), it’s full of personality and it makes me feel comfortable, that’s another reason why I feel home. I am having a great time, and learning a lot from everything and everyone here.

Life in the USA is completely different. People here use to ask me which one is better, if I like being here more than in Italy. Well I don’t know, I really don’t have idea because everything is so new and so different, It’s another world! .. and I’m lovin' it. Routine started, I wake up at 8, sometimes 8:15 , I take some coffee with milk, and toasted bread with jelly and butter, I pack my stuff, prepare my sandwich for lunch and get ready to go to school with my host dad.

Here I go to my locker, bring my anatomy book and my school day starts. First 2 days of school it looked like it was my first elementary day of school - I was scared, lost and anxious. None knew that I’m an exchange student so people just started talking to me very fast and I couldn’t understand anything at all, but now everything is getting better and I am making new friends everyday! During the afternoon when I’m back home if I don’t have any homework to do I take my bike and go for a ride somewhere, maybe to the beach to run a bit or spend some time with Adam (exchange student from Sweden) that lives not far from me. I come home for dinner, watch some TV and go to bed. In school I’m part of the chorus and I sing as a soprano, I love singing and this class is my favorite one, full of kind girls helpful and nice. I’m also going to start some piano lessons 5 minutes from my house, and I’ll probably play some tennis. I have just spent a wonderful week-end full of funny things to do; I had a birthday party on Friday, and a sleepover with other 3 inbounds on Saturday, we went to the beach, we tried to surf and we had Chinese food for dinner. It was awesome! All of the host families here are nice and they really try to make us at home and let us have as much fun is possible, and I’m glad to be so lucky!

This year started in the right way, and I’m sure it is going to get even better.

Me with Patrick from Switzerland, Adam from Sweden, and Marina from Spain

Me and Marina from Spain

At the airport

Rotary welcome party

October 28 Journal

HERE I AM AGAIN!

Don't know how to start but I will just say that Rotary it's really amazing! And 6970 it's the best one ever! I just spent an awesome week-end here in Saint Augustine with all the inbounds of my district, we hang out all together, we watched movies, had a party, went to the beach, played football, soccer, and frisbee, we have been on a boat and had a wonderful time! I really appreciate how Louise made up this weekend for us, and in the right moment because before I wasn't feeling really good, I have been sick a lot and a bit sad too but now I feel great and ready to be positive and strong again! I feel really happy right now and like my exchange year is going perfectly.

Let's see what happened in the past month to Lilia. My host parents took me to North Carolina! Exactly I'm really lucky! It was great...and cold! For the first time ever I felt happy to be cold again! The view over there in the mountains it's amazing and the colors of the trees in this period are wonderful I took a lot of pictures and spent a really good time with my host parents, aunt, and uncle for almost 5 days.

My life is going well, I'm in the tennis team of the school and I'm super excited about that, can't wait to play! I'm also improving with my grades and making friends in school too. Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to a private tennis club and play tennis with a coach with a bunch of other kids, I love it! every week I just can't wait till tennis practice, and all the kids are so nice!

I started feeling homesick a couple of weeks ago, it happens and I know it's absolutely normal. I'm glad that I have a wonderful host family that always supports me in everything and helps me when I need someone to talk with. Now I'm over it and ready to spend my first Halloween ever! I'm super excited about that, and all the things around it, it's unbelievable how America believes in this holiday, my host sister put skeletons and ghosts everywhere in the house! I'm going to dress up as a native American and I believe with my skin and hair color it's not going to be so hard :)

Can't wait for it!

Hope to see all the other exchange students too, you guys are amazing! And thank you Rotary again for this past weekend!

November 25 Journal

Just a few minutes ago I found one of the most beautiful things of Florida, or at least that’s from my point of view. It’s late at night, there’s no school tomorrow, and I’m wondering why everyone gets so excited about this holiday called Thanksgiving, I mean, I asked a lot of kids in school what do people do during this day, and what I got is that everyone eats a lot. Please don’t misunderstand me, that’s just great! I love eating, but what’s special with that? Don’t know and I’m so excited to find it out!

When there’s no school for me, it means that I can stay up late at night, and in 3 months I have learned that staying up at night for exchange students can be dangerous sometimes, or not. Here is when the silence comes, nobody cares about what I have to eat, do, or need, and everything is quiet… then my mind starts working really fast, thinking about everything and asking to myself: do I miss home? Yes I do. Do I miss it a lot? Yes I do. If I would have the opportunity to go home right now, would I go? .. NO WAY! .. yes that’s my answer.

Why? Because I love it. I love the way the ocean smells, I love going outside at night, sitting on a chair and listening to it. It seems like it never stops talking.

What I learned in Florida is the big difference between the Mediterranean sea and the ocean: if the sea is quiet you’ll never hear anything, it can be completely quiet, close and safe. The ocean can never be quiet, it’s huge, wild, noisy and open!

The first day I walked on the beach it scared me a little bit, so much water, not a sailing boat ... an island or some rocks. I kept watching and watching forward looking for some land but I didn’t find anything and it made me feel lost. In Sardinia, I often spend my holidays in a little tiny island in the northeastern part, this island “La Maddalena” which is surrounded by other little tiny islands, and when you’re at the beach over there watching forward you can see other lands and islands everywhere… but it’s a closed view… that’s what you see and keep seeing all the time, it doesn’t change.

If you look forward at the horizon in the ocean instead, the view is completely opened and I can see whatever I want to see. If you think about it, that’s how it works, for life I mean. I’m here doing my exchange year because I decided to open my view, to have a bigger one where I can see more and make more choices then. And so I learned that if you keep staying in the little tiny island looking at your closed safe horizon, that’s how your mind is going to be: closed and tiny, and you will never discover how to be able to see whatever you wanna see at the big ocean, if you first don’t change your horizon view.

I don’t know if that makes sense for you. I hope so, but anyway it does make a lot of sense for me. I feel changed and I know I’m not Lilia of 3 months ago, and that can just be positive.

January 17 Journal

Here I am again! Sorry if it took me so long, but let's see things from an optimistic point of view: if I don't have the time to write my journal that means that I'm getting busy, and that's one of the best things for your exchange year.

I really don't know where to start, so many things happened and they're all good and amazing.

Disneyworld and the fireworks made me cry a lot! I was crying because I was happy, I will always remember that day, that's for sure. We were there all together with our red Rotary t-shirts facing the sky on a beautiful night, hearing peace messages in all the languages in the world, I felt like a big family, 73 brothers and sisters from all over the world were there with me. I definitely know that next year when the new inbounds are going to go in Disneyworld I will be extremely jealous! Thanks everyone so much for these days, I surely appreciated every single moment.

Christmas time was pretty fun too, I cooked the meal, an Italian meal! we had pasta al sugo and pasta al pesto, hope my host family liked it. I tried to do my best and I'm sure my mom over in Italy is hardly gonna believe that! I also had to change family, I was actually sad at first, because my first family was awesome :) and I'm glad we are still keeping in touch, the Steins (Sierra's family: outbound in Croatia) are really friendly people and I will never forget my host sister Riley too!

I want to say again, that month by month I figured out that RYE Florida knows exactly how things work for an exchange student; at first I though it wasn't a good idea to switch family, now... I love it! I changed 2 weeks ago and I already feel at home, I love it because I love experiencing new things and my first and second families are OPPOSITES! And that is just really cool. Now I have a host sister Ariana who's gonna be an outbound in Hungary for next year, I'm excited for her and I like to give her some advice, I also have one host brother Ian who's maybe thinking of being an exchange student too next year, isn't that awesome? I like the way my host mom Phia cares about me as much as she does with her own kids, she makes sure that everything is working well in school, activities and other things, it's all about her if I have the chance to play tennis, which it makes me always happy and I love the kids that play with me!

Talking about new years eve...what should I say? IT WAS AMAZING. Thanks to Leandro's host family a lot! We all were so happy we were dancing, singing, playing swimming .. everything! We had a wonderful time full of laughs and hilarious moment, like when Ana from Brasil fell in the river right at midnight!! Thanks Ana you just made my 2010 making me laugh as I've never done before!

1 week ago I looked again at the notebook that Rotary gave me during the inbounds orientation at the beginning of my exchange, to be honest I didn't really look at it, which it was a big mistake I think. I was just too self-confident to read it, now that I did, I saw myself during these 5 months from outside, every single thing that the book mentions happened to me, and as it says now is January: the language comes itself, I'm able to read a whole book understanding everything and enjoying my reading, that's why I love it and I read thousands of them! Everything gets better and my mood is great! Homesickness is a far away boat, and I'm starting feeling like my exchange year is doing a good job on my Persona.

Looking at the new outbounds on this website I feel so old, unbelievable new 60 kids, new Lilia, Adam, Patrick, Ana, new little men and women are about to start an amazing time and come back as completely different adults. I love talking to the new outbounds and I really feel like helping them, I'm excited that some kids near here as Patrick and Robert are going to Italy next year. I'm sure you're gonna have a wonderful time! Enjoy it guys!!

I can say that exchange students are kind of special kids, and when we meet each other it's always a lot of fun!