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 Henry Ford
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2008-09 Outbound to Italy
Hometown:
St. Augustine, Florida
School: Pedro
Menendez High School, St. Augustine, Florida
Sponsor:
Coastal St. Johns Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida
Host: Cremona
Po Rotary Club, District
2050, Italy
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Bio
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October 5 Journal - "I was so tired that every now and then my head would tilt back but then
jerk forward as I forced myself awake. I had just arrived in Italy and I didn’t
want to miss seeing a single thing." |
| November 7 Journal - "We
were talking and sitting on the steps of the duomo when I looked at the huge
TV screen in the piazza and noticed we were on MTV's European TRL. That was
really cool." |
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Henry's Bio
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 Hi,
my name is Henry Ford, and I’m 16 years old. When I was 5 years old I moved
from East Lansing, Michigan to St. Augustine, Florida. I really don’t
remember a whole lot about Michigan, but I can remember I was more excited
about moving than I was sad. Now I live in St. Augustine Beach, and
currently I’m a 10th grader at Pedro Menendez High School. I love playing
soccer, learning new things, and going to new places.
My favorite thing to do is play soccer. I have been
playing since I was 5 years old, and I have been playing on a select team
since I was 10. What I like about soccer is that it takes a lot of
endurance, ball skills and good ball control, awareness, strength, and
speed. The combination of these makes for a game that is, in my opinion,
addicting. In my free time, I also enjoy going to the beach. At the beach my
friends and I go surfing a lot during the summer. I also like doing things
with my family. We do a lot together, and I enjoy doing things with them
like playing golf or riding bikes.
I have many goals in life and right now, aside from having
a great time as an exchange student, the biggest goal I have is to go to
college at the University of Florida. I really want to achieve this because
I feel it will open up opportunities for me for the rest of my life.
Although it is a really hard school to get into, I feel if I do my best in
high school I can achieve this goal.
I’m very excited about being an exchange student in a
different country. Not only will it be great while I’m there, but I’m
positive that this will shape me into a different person than I would’ve
become without this exchange. I’m interested to see who that person will be.
This will be an adventure that will last a lifetime, and I just can’t wait
for it to start. |
October 5 Journal
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As I drove to the Jacksonville Airport with my
family and bags, I thought to myself, why aren’t I crying or at least feeling
anything. The truth was I knew exactly what I was doing in leaving my life in
Florida behind and venturing to a foreign country thousands of miles away, but I
really wasn’t very emotional about it. I was going from a country and town I
knew so well to a country that was very different.
As I walked off the plane in
the Malpensa (Milan) airport I was relieved. 18 hours of flying and sitting in
airports had exhausted me and all I wanted to do was to meet my host family and
then go to my new house and sleep. After I grabbed my bags at the baggage claim
the other exchange students I had flown with and I walked through the doors that
would bring us face to face with our host families. Even though I knew a lot
about my first host family due to the fact that my host sister was an exchange
student close to where I live, I was pretty nervous about seeing them for the
first time. Right when we walked through those doors we walked into an area
where there was about 60 people waiting for various people who had also arrived.
Right away I recognized my host sister, Laura, and for the first time I saw my
host dad, Beppe, and host mom, Luciana. After shaking hands with a few Rotary
people we walked to their car and we were on our way to Cremona. As we drove
home I was so tired that every now and then my head would tilt back but then
jerk forward as I forced myself awake. I had just arrived in Italy and I didn’t
want to miss seeing a single thing. We drove into town around 6 o’clock and the
sun was starting to set.. My host family gave me a quick tour of the house. That
night I went out with my host sister who showed me the centro, which is so close
to my house. I met a lot of her friends. I was overwhelmed by everything.
Finally around 12 I returned to the house. And fell asleep as soon as my head hit
the pillow. The next morning I woke up around 1.
I have now been in Italy for almost a month and I’m very
happy here. I love my host family as they're incredibly nice and care about
me. I also love where I live. I live about 3 minutes by foot from the centro,
downtown. My host brother, Michele, has been so helpful because he always
invites me to do things with him with his friends. Because of this most of
my friends are his friends also. We also are playing on the same soccer
team.
Because there is school 6 days a week including Saturday
=(, all of the kids go out on Saturday night. In downtown Cremona there are
4 piazzas, and these piazzas are where I hang out along with a bunch of
other kids. I feel that already I’ve made a lot of friends here, and just
about everywhere I go there is someone I know. Another thing I really like
about Cremona is that unlike cities in the United States you can ride a bike
everywhere. My host parents have given me a bike to use and I used it just
about every day. I ride to school, a sports club called Baldeiseo, and the
centro. The only place I go regularly that I’m not able to ride a bike to is
soccer training which is probably 5 miles from where I live.
As for school, currently it's pretty boring, but I even
now I can see there is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s close to
impossible to understand my teachers right now except for a few sentences
because they speak so quickly. So right now I participate as much as is
possible and then in the times where it isn’t possible for me to participate
I memorize new verbs and their conjugations and vocabulary.
My Italian has improved a huge amount since I arrived.
Everyday I learn more and more. I am constantly asking what words I don’t
know mean, and how to say new words. When I first arrived I could hardly
understand a thing people were saying to me, but now I understand a pretty
good amount. I am able to share my thoughts and if I don’t know a word in
Italian usually I’m able to say that one word in English and the kids will
understand me and tell me it in Italian. If I’m not able to do this I have
become good at using various gestures to describe the word.
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My biggest challenge is to use Italian when I’m around
people who speak good English. For about week I got into a bad habit of
talking in English with my host brother because he is close to fluent in
English. I think it hindered my progress a little and I had to make a
big effort to stop it. Now I speak about 90-95% in Italian during the
day. In conclusion, so far I’m having a great time and I’m loving Italy.
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November 7 Journal
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Ciao! Time for another update on my exchange in Italy. So much
has happened this month that it's hard to believe that it has only been a little
over a month since I last wrote.
Earlier this month, I went with the other 3
exchange students living in Cremona to a town near Cremona called Pavia. Pavia
is bigger than Cremona but is by no means a big city. It has a very old and
famous university. Both of my host parents both attended this university along
with lots of other people in Cremona. Allesandro Volta, the physicist who
developed the first electric cell, taught at the University of Pavia for 25
years. The host mom who took us to Pavia is a physics teacher at the university
there and gave us a tour of the university. It was beautiful. The rest of the
day we walked around Pavia and explored the town.
About two and a half weeks ago I changed host families
temporarily. My host parents went on vacation to Argentina, and I moved for
two and a half weeks to a small town called Castelverde outside of Cremona.
It was much more different than living with my first host family. Every
morning I had to wake up at 6:15 to take the bus to school. Also, living
outside of Cremona definitely made it harder to do things with my friends in
Cremona. Tonight I'm returning to my family in Cremona's home, and I'm
really excited. I feel I'd become pretty close with the family and I was sad
to have to leave them even for just 2 1/2 weeks.
Yesterday, I went to Milano with 2 of the other Cremona
exchange students. All of us exchange students here in Cremona have become
good friends with each other. We took a train to Milano and then met up with
some of the exchange students there. In the morning we went sight-seeing.
The duomo (cathedral) was incredible. You can see tons of pictures of
it, but when you actually see it in real life it is surreal. It's enormous.
Inside was equally amazing; its ceilings are SO tall and the columns inside
are huge. Also, on the top of the church there is a really cool golden
Madonna statue. We also saw a cool church where there was a chamber with all
these skulls and bones in the walls.
After seeing the duomo and the bone church we walked
around lost for a long time while trying to find a store the girls wanted to
go to. Even though we were with the exchange students who lived in Milano we
still got lost a few times. That day we took the subway almost everywhere,
and it's hard to understand. After going to their store we returned to
Piazza duomo. We were talking and sitting on the steps of the duomo when I
looked at the huge TV screen in the piazza and noticed we were on MTV's
European TRL. That was really cool. Then after this, we went shopping even
more. We went to Prada, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Armani, Louis Vuitton,
Ralph Lauren, Pucci, and a bunch of other really expensive designer stores.
I didn't buy anything because it was all super expensive, but I went in them
all. It probably wasn't a good idea to go shopping with 6 girls in the
fashion capital of the world. I was dead tired that night, from all the
walking, waiting, and telling girls, "Yeah, it looks OK." It was really fun
though. It was my first time in Milano even though it's only an hour away
from Cremona, but it was definitely one to remember. Also, I'm going back
next Thursday again!
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