Christmas is in the hoooooouse!

So as we are well aware, Christmas is almost upon us! I don't know how, but somehow we are already in the middle o December! Where has this year gone!? Anywho, so last Saturday was the 8th of December which in Italy is a national holiday. It is known as the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception. Many families choose to use this day to set up the Christmas tree and so forth. My host family set up the tree after Emma goes to bed and they have a little story they tell Emma, the 6 year old girl I'm au pairing as to how the tree makes it's way to the house. They tell Emma that Santa Claus only brings trees to households where the children has behaved. The day before 'Santa' was meant to be coming I found that Emma was especially good, she did her homework the minute she came home and told her mum 'oh I love homework, homework is so much fun!' Hahaha!

Genoa city centre, Chiavari, Xmas markets, food, food and more food

So last Sunday I meet up with a fellow au pair and spent the day wandering Genoa city centre, eating pizza and gelato before deciding to head to a village near where she was staying and saw a super cute market filled with arts and crafts stuff as well as some antiques. There were just streets after streets filled with stalls!

Into the Countryside

Yesterday I went with the family to go visit the grandparents which lived in the countryside. I thought the house was absolutely enchanting hence all the photos. They are such a perfect little family, I love it so much! On the way home we stopped at the Abbey of Santa Giustina in Sezzadio, Italy. It is just a little outside Genoa. It was founded in 722 and when we went it was so deserted and quiet, so different to anywhere I've been to this trip round. It felt so authentic and genuine.  

                                      

Getting settled in Genoa

So I've now spent 3 days in Genoa now, it's been such an amazing 3 days. Everyone is oh so lovely and it's so relaxing here! The last few days has been great, just getting settled in with the lovely family that I'm staying with and getting a sense of direction. I'm living a little just outside genoa in manesseno and it's adorable here! Getting settled is the easy bit, the bit that's a lot harder than expected is trying to communicate when you know close to no Italian! I expected it to be hard but not this hard! And it's a little hard to meet people when you can't communicate with them! It's like going back to high school all over again cept not know how to talk hahaha! Everyone is so incredibly welcoming though and it's a very close knit community here! Today, I went with Emma, the little girl I'm au pairing, to a gathering type thing at the local church so that I could be introduced to people my age. There were quite a lot of little kids there and they were split into different age group, led by older teenagers and were all learning dances for a Christmas show! There was even a group of kids doing gangnam style! Hahahha! A lovely Italian girl who knew a little English (her english was better than my italian) took me under her wing and allowed me into their group where I learnt a little kids dance. It was absolutely adorable and I felt so welcomed!

Emma and me

At the church