Buona esperienza for Grace
IF it’s possible to smile in Italian, Grace Gower’s doing it.
The 17-year-old Year 11 student from Dubbo returned to Australian on January 14 after spending a year in Italy on youth exchange through South Dubbo Rotary.
She can’t recommend the experience highly enough and looks forward to returning to Italy in the future. Starting her adventure on Sardinia Island in a town called Iglesias, Grace got to explore a land in the heart of the Tyrrhenian Sea, spend time in Italy and see the rest of Europe.
“I travelled around Europe with Rotary and other students who were also on youth exchange in Europe. I went to Rome with my host family as well,” she told Dubbo Photo News. School life was probably her biggest surprise. “The students stay in the same classroom and it’s the teachers who move around. Then I went to a language school where they studied French, English and Spanish. They did physics and all that. All in Italian. Twelve subjects.” A typical school day started at 8.20am for Grace and ended at 1.30.
“We’d go home and have a big lunch – my Nonna would cook us a big lunch every day after school, then we’d just go out in the afternoon. The food was very good.” Grace stayed with three different families in the year. The first was for one-and-a-half months, and her host parents had their own restaurant and she had an older ‘brother’ but he was at uni.
“I was with my second family for seven months. I have a little brother there who is 13 and my host parents. I became very close to them, they were like my family. We all lived in the one apartment. I had my grandma – Nonna – and grandpa living downstairs and my uncle and little cousins as well. It was like a real typical Italian family, all living together, and we’d all have lunch together.
“I was with my third family for the rest of my year. I had a twin brother and sister – they’re 18 – and my host parents.”
Staying in touch with family back home was easy.
“It is easier these days being away, because you have Facetime or Messenger. I probably spoke to family back home in Australia once a month. I find it harder now to contact Italy because I’m always at school, at work or dancing, but over there I was doing whatever I wanted to do.
“I didn’t get as homesick as I thought I would. Probably Christmas and birthdays is when it really hits you, but other than that you’re just living life.
“I just photoshopped myself into family photos! And I do it now when I see photos of my family or class in Italy. My class is in Spain at the moment, so I just photoshopped myself into one of the group photos in Madrid.”
Rotary Youth Exchange Info Night
ROTARY is currently finalising details for an information night in March for students interested in going on youth exchange. Even if it’s in a few year’s time, all are welcome to find out what’s involved.
“It takes quite a long time to get prepared, so the younger you are when finding out about it, the better,” Grace suggested.
For more information contact Steve Gower on 0438 842 366.