Cassandra's impressions - Part one

The Italian students were coming to Estonia on the 26th of March and leave on the 31th of March. 

At first I didn't know if I could have an exchange student staying in my house because we are doing some remodelling. But one day my teacher told me that I can take part of the exchange because there was a student in the Italian school who wanted to take part of it too. But who had a problem which was that she is deaf. My teacher asked me if It was okay if I could do interesting activities with her in the weekend but she would stay in a little farm. I talked with my grandparents and they were okay with it. My teacher gave me the Italian student's information a couple of weeks after and we started talking. Her name is Giuseppina Covino, she is 17 years old and she lives in Moretta. Giusy has a brother and a sister who both are younger than her. Her whole family is deaf and so are her fiancé and his family. 

We talked and she seemed really kind and nice. But now I had to figure out how am I going to communicate with her because I knew that she would not have an interpreter with her. We decided that we would communicate by writing. I knew that it was not going to be easy, but at least I was ready to try it. 

And finally it was the day that the Italian students were coming to Estonia. It was about 23:30 when me, my grandfather and grandmother went to meet her. I felt different emotions but when they actually arrived I was really happy. I found out that Giusy’s personal interpreter came with her. Her name is Monica Lanari. She only speaks Italian. We introduced each other and took Giuseppina and her interpreter to Savi farm. They settled in and me and my family went back home.
 

Glass painting workshop

 The next day we went Räpina and there we visited different workshops in Räpina Creative Centre and other places too.

Both of the Italian school’s teacher’s introduced themselves to me. They were both very lovely but one of them did not speak English. About 5pm we arrived back in Kanepi and I took Giusy and Monica to my home. I showed them my house and they met the rest of my family. We had a lovely dinner, our family friend did us a beautiful and delicious cake which everybody really enjoyed. Afterwards we went for a little walk. They liked my family and my home. 

The next day it was Saturday. My teacher had booked the Maantemuuseum for us. The owner of the Savi farm Eela gave us a little tour around the farm. We saw many interesting things and places. We got an opportunity to see a horse in another farm not far away from Savi farm. By 11am we were in Maantemuuseum. The guide showed us a lot of interesting things. At first I had a plan to go to Tartu but my grandfather suggested that we could go to Otepää and show Giusy and Monica a part of South-Estonia. Firstly we went to Suur Munamägi. My grandpa, Giusy and Monica climbed the top of the viewing platform but I didn't because I'm afraid of the heights. The others had a great time up there, unfortunately it was a foggy day and you didn't see far away from the platform.

We thought that we could go to Tehvandi and see the Tehvandi Sports Centre viewing platform, but I found an animal park which was closer than Tehvandi. At the animal park the guide gave us a tour and showed us different animals. We had a great time there. We decided to go by Tehvandi. But unfortunately it was closed. We looked around there a little bit. We drove back to my home and had dinner. Because it was Saturday Eela and her husband heated up the sauna, Giusy and Monica got to try it out too.