Patrick Rebakis - VIC to Italy

Mon 31 Dec 2007

Patrick Rebakis from Whitefriars College in VIC is currently on our year program to Italy. Here is his latest news.

I've been here for 3 months now, and I must say the times are rolling by. I really don't know where to start as so many events happened in these first 3 months. I brought my bike over on the plane, and I don't regret it. The mountains in Italy are so beautiful and wonderful to explore solo with not a car in sight. Exploring the area by bike really got me used to my town and familiar sights around me. No helmets in Italy rule also makes it a lot more fun with a higher risk(boy thing to say).

Zoncolan is the toughest stage in the Giro d' Italia. At the top is a ski field. The car even struggled to get up the hill. Yeah, so I cheated and put the bike in the car, but Igot to ride down it. 78.4 km/ph and people say bike ridings boring, pffft.

I've had the opportunity to visit a number of places in Italy also Austria, Trieste, Venezia, and Tarvisio. In Austria we visited a number of lakes and sights. In Trieste we saw a boat show, a huge castle on the water called 'Miramare' and a concentration camp. I didn't know any concentration camps were actually in Italy, another example of learning. In Tarvisio we visited the snow fields and some of the mountains not hills, there's no such thing as a hill in Italy.

I have studied Italian at school basically for the whole of my schooling life, but nothing compares to being here. Communicating was hard in the first month but you get by and sing the song ' things can only get better'. Everything does get better and the only thing that solves these slight dilemmas is time. Communication is the key to being happy and comfortable. Once you can express what you fell it's all okay.

School here is extremly different but now after 3 months I realise that both schooling systems can learn from each other. In Australia in my class everyone has a laptop and here the teacher basically lectures you for the whole lesson. My class here is very well behaved and I don't even know if lunchtime detentions exsist. Leaving school at 1pm is sweet, more time to play soccer in the afternoon. Another very strange thing at school is smoking, you can smoke at school, people offer me cigarettes and I'm like nah - I'm a bike rider. The funniest thing was seeing my PE teacher and the students smoking during a lesson, that would never happen in Australia.

Community here is everything. Me and my host brother who is 17 play soccer almost every day at a synthetic turf mini soccer pitch. Every day we get about 20 people down there. My soccer skills are improving out of sight and it's really great to be playing soccer with the rest of the boys from my town. Soccer is like a god in Italy and they worship it. Try explaining AFL and cricket to Italians and you're lost. I took my AFL footy to the park one day and they thought it was a rugby ball, due to the recent rugby world cup which Italy competed in. I later explained that you can't throw it.

All in all more good times here than bad. I'm very comfy here at the moment and I look forward to the rest of my months. I also look foreward to a white Christmas and a bunch of other things. Food in Italy is great and there will be greater quantities at Christmas they tell me, if thats possible.

Over and out from, Paddy Rebakis.

Pic: My friends from REMANZACCO, I have the flouro hat on. We were all appealing to the referee for giving us red cards.