Laidback

Hello all!
Today was a very chill day. I got up at about 9:30 and my roommate Jenny made everyone french toast. I had never had it before so it was a real treat for me. I liked it but I probably would have liked it more if we had syrup or jelly or something to put on it because by itself it was kind of bland. I tried a little bit of Nutella on it though and it was delicious! After breakfast we went on a little walk/run. It was a beautiful and very peaceful area. It was out in like the outskirts of town with a lot of farm land. We saw lots of cows and sheep and dogs. It was really calm and peaceful though. Perfect place for a morning jog! Yes I know it is hard to believe that I went on a jog this morning, but believe it!! It really happened. I have 3 witnesses! Yes, we did more walking rather than running/jogging but I still do it! After that we came back and did some abb exercises also. We all want to lose weight here so we are trying to push each other while we are still motivated! oh! I am also a flippin genius!! I finally figured out how to use our DVD player in our apartment! before we were just using our laptops for the DVDs but me, being the genius that I am, figured it out finally!! Yay me! :)
While we were running I had my clothes in the washer. They still werent done when we got back...and we were gone for a little over and hour. Its nuts how long everything takes here. Then I had to hang dry them outside. Of course the day I do laundry it is cloudy out so the sun couldnt dry my clothes so I had to put them on a drying rack in our living room when it got dark out later on tonight. At least it is done and hopefully they will be dry by the morning. I pretty much hung out at the house today. It was kind of nice to just chill out for a while. I watched some American MTV and did some of my homework. Then I went to meet up with people at around 5:30 so that we could watch our movie for our cinema class. The movie is called A Special Day. It is a movie from the 70's about the fascist era in Italy and is set in Rome on the day that Hitler came. It is an interesting movie but very slow moving and it is hard to pay attention to it for 2 hours, but at least I am done with it now! After watching the movie me and my three roommates went out to eat with the food vouchers that we get from the school. Basically our school made a deals with a few restaurants around town where we can get 4 free meals a week. An example from tonight is we went to a pizza place and got 2 slices of pizza and a drink for free. It is a really good deal! So it was nice not having to pay or to cook my own meal tonight for dinner.
It was nice to be a little lazy today but at the same time I kind of hated it. This whole time that I have been here I have been doing something nonstop. I have always been on the go and had something to distract me. After today though I am really starting to miss home. Then I feel stupid because I have barely been gone for a week and I am gonna be here til May! If I feel homesick already then this is not a good sign! I think that it just really hit me how long I am really going to be here though. If I was only here on vacation then I wouldn't be homesick at all, but since I know I am going to be gone for 4 months, it makes me sad that I can't see or talk to any of you. I just really miss seeing familiar faces and talking to familiar people. My roommate Caroline seems to always be skyping and facetiming with everyone all the time! I have skyped once since I have been here and only facebook chatted with one person. It is really hard. I know that the time difference sucks since I am ahead by 7 hours, but I just really wanna see someone I know and really wanna hear their voices. Since I didnt have anything really to do today all I could do was sit and think about all of my friends and family and how I will not get to see them until May and it is absolutely killing me right now. I scream at the computer because no one is ever on skype! I just wanna see your face!! It is not like how it is at home where I can just drive home when I feel like it. Usually I dont feel this way and if I ever do feel this strongly about missing people then I do something about it and just get in my car and leave. Now that I finally do feel this way I wanna get on a plane and just go home. Please don't feel like I am being ungrateful about being in such an amazing place and dont think that I regret my decision to come here because it truly is a magical place to be and it is a once in a lifetime opprotunity and I am loving my time here, but I miss you. I miss everyone. I just miss the familiarity. I wish it didn't cost so much to call or text people otherwise I would be doing it alot more. What is the point in having skype if ur never on?! Please please please get on more!! I know it is hard to match up the time, but any time that I am at my apartment I have my skype on hoping that someone will sign on and no one ever does! It is really frustrating and it makes me sad. I just want a little taste of home at this point. When I am busy and have things to do I am fine because I do not have time to think about missing home, but days like today do not help anything. Basically I miss everyone so so so much and I wanna talk to you all!

Miss and love you all very much!

Ciao!

First day of classes

Yay!!! First day of classes are officially complete!! I had 3 classes today...puke! My first class was from 9AM-11:20AM and it was my Italian language class. Oh wow! The Teacher doesn't speak any english to us. She only knows a little bit. So if we ask her what a word means she looks around first to find something to point to, to try to explain what it is. It is pretty difficult but hopefully this will force me to learn it better. Our homework for Wednesday is to learn numbers 1-50, go over example questions from class (like Como si dice? which means 'how do you say?'....i think haha its my first class!), and do 2 activities in our handout. Not too bad though. For my lunch break I went to Vogolio Pizzaria and the lady speaks english and I was telling her how my first class went and she said she wants extra help with english so she would also help me with my Italian. Then she asks in English "how are you?" and I started to replay in english and she hushes me and says "no, no, no, italiano!" so I had to respond in Italian, "bene." It was funny, I will enjoy talking to her!
My second class was my sketchbook class from 11:30-1:30. My professor is German...not Italian...weird haha. He is a really good artist and our materials are really nice for the class. We got a giant sketchbook that is binded very nicely in this very thick black hardback covering and 10 different types of pencils and ink and a pen, and 2 erasers. The studio is beautiful and looks over a great view of Tuscania! Our first assignment was to sketch a still life. He started out with a really tough first sketch but he said he did so on purpose to make us jump right into it. He had all different types of tree branches and trunks and had to draw them from different angles. It felt good to draw again but this was pretty difficult for our first subject but he is also really good at explaining how to fix what we are doing wrong. I think I am really going to enjoy this class! When it gets warmer we will be going outside a lot and also do water colors.
Then I had a little bit of a break before my last class which was Italian Society through Cinema from 3-5:30. It was interesting. The professor is very nice and speaks very good English which is helpful. She first lectures for a while about history then she gives us a 10 minute break and then we watch the movie...well, sorta. She puts in the movie and stops it every few minutes to explain what is going on and then she fast forwards it and stops again. So we don't really get to watch the movie in class. We have to check the DVD out and watch it on our own time. My roommate Sara is in the class with me so we are going to check the movies out every Monday night and watch it together and do the homework early. We have to answer questions every class and do assigned reading before our next class. It only meets once a week so the work is pretty easy to handle. This class could be interesting, we will see!
Overall, school went well today. I think I will like it a lot. It is interesting because the classes only have 2 quizzes each and a midterm and a final, then a paper or two. I can't decide if this is good or not! I think as long as I stay focused I should be okay. I am very excited to start my cooking class and my wine class though! I do not have any classes tomorrow so I get the day off which is nice after having 3 classes today.
After school I went to the supermarket with Sara and we bought a few things. I made my own chicken and pasta for dinner. I am so proud of myself haha. The chicken wasn't very exciting because it is hard to find spices here so I just melted some butter to cook/fry/sear it then I put some salt on it. It was bland but I have missed having some chicken! I didn't realize how many things I take for granted in America. Like microwaves! Oh my gosh!! I miss my microwave, it makes everything so much easier! I miss fresh mex haha, and American cheese slices haha. It is so much harder to make popcorn on the stove too! And if the oven is on then you can't use any other appliance because the energy is so expensive here to use. If ur in the shower you cant use the oven or cant do laundry. The washer is so tiny and we dont have a dryer so we have to hang dry but you have to do it during the day so that the sun can dry the clothes too and the washer takes like an hour and a half and it sounds like a jet plane is trying to take off in our kitchen when it is on! It's a bit scary haha. We make it work though. Also when you are not in a room you need to have the light off since it is so expensive to have it on. It is hard to remember because at home I just leave the light on, no big deal. You can't have a lot of stuff plugged in at one time. If I am charging my computer I can't use my straightener. If im charging my phone, I can't charge my camera. Little things like that take a lot to get used to. Oh! and the thing to flush the toilet is so weird. We have this massive thing above our toilet that is like the size of like 4 notecards and two thirds of it is a big button and the other third is a smaller button. When you take a pee, you press the small one. When you take a poopy, use the bigger one. That way more water is conserved. It is so strange!
We finally found a TV channel that plays in English though! The MTV channel shows the shows in English...well all the "reality" ones, but MTV is mostly reality anyway. The other shows like 'Awkward' or 'Degrassi' are all translated into Italian though as well as all the commercials and MTV News. My roommate Jenny and I were watching MTV News this morning and were making commentary on what we thought they were saying. It was hilarious!! I appreciate hearing English so much though! I never though I would ever say that! They are also very behind in schedule. The show "Friendzone" is behind, like they are showing commercials for episodes that premiered in the US like a few months ago. It is kind of funny, but we can't really complain. We are just glad that we have an English channel. Oh, I miss chicken nuggets too...sorry, random...just saw an Italian commercial for them though! haha Okay, back on track Beener...anyway, tomorrow I am going on a run. Yup, you read that correctly. Beener is going on a run. Please pick ur jaw up from the floor. I was invited, well more like volunteered, by my roommate Sara to go with her tomorrow. It works out perfectly actually. I can still sleep in cause we are going at 10:15 and while we are gone, I will put my laundry in and when we come back it will be ready to hang up. Then later on that night we are going to the school to watch the DVD for the cinema class together with the rest of our class. Oh, thats another thing I forgot! (my mind is all over the place as you can tell!) My class sizes are really small. First class was 6 students, second class was 5 students, and third class was 7 students. All of those include me too! It is so weird, but I kind of like it that way. It is almost like one on one time with the professors. I do not do well in lecture sized classes at all, so I like it.

Now that I have written an entry that is completely all over the place, I think I will stop myself. Super exhausted so I am gonna try to go to bed a little early tonight. (sorry, no pics from today!)

Until next time.........Ciao!

 I was way too tired last night to do this entry, so here I am now! Okay, so let me think real quick…yesterday was a lot of fun! I finally got to sleep in…thank goodness!!! It felt absolutely fabulous! After getting ready Caroline and I met up with Meesh at her place, then we met up with our friends Carly and Abby. Our goal was to try to make it to the hills because Meesh wanted to do like a little photo shoot type thing. She is really into photography and wanted to take pics of all us doing things like layin in the fields and sitting by rocks and flowers and what not. It was a lot of fun and she got a lot of good pictures too. I don’t have copies yet, but she is going to put them on facebook as soon as she can so I will have them eventually. Then before we went off on our little adventure, we stopped to get some gelato!! Oh. My. Gosh. It is so  delicious! I got the lemon flavor and it was like eating lemon with sugar sprinkled on top! It was fabulous! I also tried the chocolate flavor and it tastes just like a brownie when it comes fresh out of the oven…except it was cold. If that makes any sense? But that is what it tasted like! So good!!

             Then we just kind of wondered off on our own really. We found random pathways with beautiful scenery with all these different lengths of green and brown and yellow grass with beautiful flowers and even pretty weeds! Lots of dogs around also. It was so pretty.  There were also a lot of pretty views of olden looking castle walls and towers along the road. We passes by this beautiful old stone church that over looked the grassy hills with the castle type buildings in the background. It was absolutely stunning! I am so glad that Meesh wanted to do a photo shoot day because it was the perfect day for it! The weather was beautiful and the sun was out. It was perfect.

            Later on we realized we hadn’t had pizza yet! Crazy, I know! So we got a small group of people together (Me, Caroline, Meesh, Julianne, Flowers, Morgan, and Cameron) and got pizza at a small pizzaria. The waitresses there were so nice and kind and understood a small amount of English. I got the margarita pizza. It was delicious!! So good, and the slices were like bricks (but flat)! Perfect dinner! Afterwards we went to go pick up Abby and Carly and Filamena. We went to the same bar that we went to the other night for a little while then we decided to go to a different bar for something new. This is where it gets interesting.

            Okay so,  to back track a little bit, Abby and Carly went to a bar while we were all getting pizza. They said that they put a lot of alcohol in their mixed drinks and they were definitely feeling the affects of it by the time we met up with them. They were not drunk by any means, but you can tell they had a few drinks. Then they had some more drinks at the first bar we were at with them also. Then when we got to this new bar there was this really gorgeous Italian man that found Abby attractive and started buying her drink after drink after drink. Now, Abby doesn’t drink at home ever so she doesn’t know what her limit is and she got completely hammered. We were all watching out for her though and by this time a lot of other people in our program were with us too. Then we see her arm wrapped around this guy and he is taking her outside like wanting to leave with her so we all went over to grab her so that she didn’t go home with this random guy from the bar and regret something later. Well she got mad at us cause this guy really was super gorgeous and then she fell on the ground and the guy and all his friend pointed and laughed at her and left her there and she tried to run after them. Clearly this guy wasn’t interested in her and was just laughing at the stupid Americans. Anyway, since it is a small town it is a shame because we think people already know about the incident. Not a good way to start off our next few months.

            Anyway, after she was taken back to her apartment and was okay, we went back to the other bar. The volleyball guys showed up again for a little while and it was also karaoke night at the bar so it was a lot of fun. No one else got wasted, which is good! We just had a good time and hung out with the bar tenders for a while. We were the last ones there and got back home at around 2:30ish AM. It was a lot of fun minus the drama at the other bar…which we will not be going back to any time soon.

            Then today Caroline and I met up with Carly, Filamena, and Elmira for breakfast. We were supposed to go horseback riding today but it never worked out unfortunately. It was okay though because everyone was pretty tired since we have been doing so much the past few days. When I look back at everything I have done, I realize how much walking and activities we have already crammed in. We are all acting like we leave in a few days to come back home but we have 3 more months here! It is crazy how we have been here only a few days and it feels like a month already. So instead of horseback riding we just kind of chilled out and had a few people over for dinner and a movie. We all helped to cook pasta and even made our own popcorn on the stove and had to melt our own butter for it. It was pretty good, nothing like movie theater popcorn though! Yum!

            Tomorrow is the first day of classes and I am a little nervous. I am not sure how hard the classes will be yet and it will probably be a little intimidating at first. Hopefully I get used to it after a little while. I am excited though to start taking the Italian language class so that I can finally learn to speak it a little better. It should be interesting!

Sorry for the long post! Had a lot to tell you!

Until next time…Ciao!

oh, and the volleyball men attacked me during a picture...no big deal! :) <3

Second Day, so Many Adventures!

Wow. That is all I can say! I can't even believe that I get to live here for 4 months. The views everywhere you look take your breath away. Pictures don't even do it justice, but I will try to capture the moments for you the best I can. I really am just totally awed by the fact that every morning I get to wake up here and see all of this beauty! I never thought I could see something so gorgeous and breath taking! You really need to but 'Visit Tuscania, Italy' on your bucket list! Anyway.....
Last night for dinner we made...well Sara made...pasta made out of potato (forget the name) and some sauce/soup over it...it was alright flavor but the texture was so weird and mushy, I couldn't handle it! I told them I was full after a few bites, but let's be real, I was still starving! haha, oh well! I had bought some Ritz crackers from the supermarket earlier so I snacked on that!
This morning we had to wake up early again cause we had to get to the school to do the Permit of Stay stuff which was taking FOREVER! So while we waited for our turns we went to the market! Oh Em Gee! The market was so pretty and cute! They had everything from nuts, cheese, meat, fruit, veggies, toys, clothes, shoes, and scarves. Everything was very cheap too and you were able to barter to get the prices even lower. It was fan-friggin-tastic!! I bought some oranges and apples for now to start off with and everything is so fresh and delicious at the market, it is unbelievable!

While we were at the market we notices this hill that was right up again this giant wall that looks like it is part of an old castle so we wandered up there and took some amazing pictures of the scenery! It was like looking at a postcard or scene of a movie. It was beautiful. All sorts of shades of green and browns and yellows with different levels of hills and landscape. Then when you turned the other way with your back to the wall, you saw all of the gorgeous houses built on hills that were stacked on top of each other in shades of yellows, peaches, and pinks. They were amazing!

After walking around for a bit and bartering for food, we went back to the school to finish up paperwork for the Permit of Stay. After that we were split into groups for a walking tour of the town with our advisors. He took us all over town and showed us shortcuts and good places to eat and places to get discounts and banks and supermarkets. He showed us all of the stuff that the locals do. The town was so cute and I realized it is idiot proof. Even I can't get lost here. Everything is basically a circle, so if I ever think I am lost I just have to keep going and eventually I will end up somewhere that I recognize, thank goodness! We all know how terribly challenged I am when it comes to directions/getting around! We also then had a small historical tour where we went to the inside of the wall I was talking about earlier that looked like a castle wall and the view from the top of that was spectacular! Again with the different shades of green and levels of landscape but also other buildings that looked like castles in the distance! It was beautiful! There were some great views there!

Then after the tours we had a few hours of free time. We went to visit other peoples apartments. Let me tell you, after going to some of their places we realized that we have the best apartment out of all of them! Theirs are so tiny and smell funny! Our is the perfect size, cozy, and sometimes warm! Then we got ready to go to dinner. Since we missed the big welcome dinner when we were stuck in Madrid, we had another one tonight. Me, Caroline, and Meesh didn't have to pay since it was for us and we went to this fancy restaurant that served a 3 course meal. The first dish was pasta with wild boar with like butter sauce (not good at all lol), second course was a basket of bread and veal with olives, some green stuff, and some weird green sauce (i only ate the part without the sauce and stuff on it!), third was dessert which was this fluffy cream colored stuff that tasted like eggnog with some chocolate and raspberry sauce on the side (it was pretty good). We were also served red wine with dinner (it was alright). The restaurant was beautiful and there was this really cute young Italian couple that was on a date there. They were so cute! they would hold hands across the table and laugh and smile at each other and even scoot their chairs close together on the same side of the table sometimes. It was adorable to watch!

After dinner we wanted to explore a little more before the night was over. So we went to the local bars of course! At the first bar we met this man that spoke english a little bit and turns out he is the coach of the Professional Men's Volleyball team of Tuscania and he just happened to have some of the teammates with them!!! They were so friendly and nice and such a good time!! We spent a few hours talking with them and they were trying to teach us some Italian and we were trying to teach them some English. They invited a few of us to meet with them again tomorrow night at the bar and also to their volleyball match next Saturday!! How friggin perfect is that?! These guys were so amazing!! I'm so glad that we ran into them!! They were hilarious to talk with and kept making jokes and the language barrier just made it that much more fun!! I loved it! Then we went to a smaller bar and they were closing as we were walking there and they went back in and opened it again just for us! Gosh, the people here are just so nice, I can't even get over it! Then at about 1 or 1:30AM we decided to call it a night cause we were exhausted once again...still gettin used to the time difference here!

Oh! and (sorry, random and forgot to mention it earlier) we met this Italian/Brazilian woman that we ran into on the way to our friends apartments that showed us some local places and talked to us about the town. It was like a gameshow trying to figure out what she was saying but it was so fun to talk to her! And we ran into this older man with a dog and he spoke a little english and we talked to him for like 20 minutes and found out he lives in Rome during the week and Tuscania on the weekends. His dog was adorable and he took a pic of all of us petting his dog on his cell phone, it was so cute! He was so nice...just like everyone else here!
Like I said, I can't believe that I get to wake up to all of this everyday and can't wait to see what is in store in the next few months. We are also starting to make some plans for traveling but nothing is set in stone quite yet. All of this makes me so excited to think about! It is about 3AM now, so it is bed time for this chick...definitely sleeping in tomorrow!!

Until next time...Ciao!!

First day

So I survived my first day in Italy. Well, it isn't totally over yet, but close enough. It is about 5:40PM here which means back at home it is 10:40AM.
Last night I finally got some sleep...but woke up at 8:45AM super tired! My bed is hard as a rock! I am so glad I snuck my pillow into my suitcase but let me tell you, I am missing my stuffed dog I sleep with like crazy!!

 My day started with a weird shower haha. It is so small and the shower head isn't at the top, it is one of the movable ones and I am not used to that, but at least the water was warm! Then for breakfast our landlord bought us chocolate croissants and orange juice, milk, water, yogurt, and eggs to get us started. They are so nice and such a cute little couple!! The wife even offered to drive us to school on rainy days if she is at home!! They showed us how to use the washer and the dishwasher and how to open windows and all that jazz. We do not have a dryer, you have to hang all of your clothes on a clothes line off of the balcony! How freakin cute is that?!

I met my other two roommates. Their names are Jenny (from Pittsburgh) and Sara (pronounced sar-uh from New York). They seem really nice and down to earth and are both wanting to go travel places which is awesome! That way I don't have to go by myself!! yay! When we got up Sara was already at the school cause she had to take a placement test for which Italian language class to be in since she knows some already. Jenny walked us to school which was only like a 7 or 8 minute walk. Not bad.
The school is only one building. It is absolutely gorgeous! the building is old looking from the outside then you go inside and it has beautiful frosted glass walls and stainless steel lights and fixtures and it also has some of the old time brick walls mixed in.

We sat through a 2 hour orientation. Mei (one of our advisors) talked to us for a while about things around town and all the deals that she can hook us up with like restaurants and travel plans. Massimo (another advisor) talked to us about the academic portions of our stay and then we had a tour of the building.
Then it was exploring time! Caroline and I were starving since we hadn't eaten much since we left the states and we needed food for our apartment. Mei took us out to eat at this small restaurant 1 block from school and we got pasta. It was so delicious!! The best pasta I have ever had! The chef also came out and gave us free cake afterwards! The chef was so nice and also gave us a discount on the food so it was only 5 euros instead of 9. The restaurant was like a scene from a movie or a story book. It was amazing!
Mei then took us around town to show us things like where to get fresh pastries and the best and cheapest cappuccinos and little shops around town. The town is just beautiful! Everything is shades of peach and orange and yellow and tons of flowers everywhere. It really is like it is in the movies! I couldn't believe it. Before I left to come here I would sit and dream about what the town would look like and where I would live but my dreams never live up to reality, but this is waaaaaaay beyond my dreams! Everything about this place is amazing. All of the people are so nice and friendly. Everywhere you look it looks like a postcard or a scene out of a movie. My pictures don't even do it justice! Absolutely gorgeous! I am loving it here already!!

After a small tour we went to the market. Just us roomies. We each bought our own food and then split some money to buy stuff to make our own dinner tonight. Not sure what it's called that we are making but Sara recommended it, so we are just going with it. After dinner I am just going to relax, maybe watch a movie or something, then it is bright and early tomorrow morning for a walking tour of the rest of town through the school.

Absolutely loving this so far! I wish you all could be here with me to experience this!

Caio!

Finally Here!

Wow. What a day. So I left my house around 8AM on tuesday morning for O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. My plane left at 4:45. Arrived in Madrid, Spain at about 8AM on Wednesday. Took a flight to Rome, Italy at 7:45PM. Got picked up at the airport at 10:45PM and finally arrived in my apartment here in Tuscania, Italy at 1AM. So, basically I have been traveling nonstop for more than 30 hours straight. I am so exhausted right now!! It was a blast though! I met up with my roommate Caroline and another girl doing a 3-city tour from ISU named Michelle (aka Meash) and we rode the plane together to Madrid. The plane ride was 7 hours and 55 minutes (according to the pilot). We got 2 free (and disgusting) meals on the plane...dinner and breakfast and they played the movie Real Steel which was an okay movie. Other than that I slept, pretty comfortably actually since I had the whole row to myself, and read books/magazines. Our original connecting flight was supposed to leave at 11 or 11:30AM so that we would get to Rome by 1PM. Well, of course that didn't happen. The pilots are on strike (over who knows what!) and so our flight was canceled and they told us that we would not be able to leave for Rome until 7:45PM. So we had about 12 hours to kill. We also met 2 others on our plane that were in the same boat as we were. Their real names are Kate and Thomas, but we call them Rosa and Jim. He looks just like Jim from the office and we accidentally thought Kate's name was Rosa so we changed it for her! The airport hooked us up with a hotel room for the day so we could relax and get away from the airport for a little bit, but of course we did not stay there! Let's be real, we were in Madrid (oh darn!) and we were gonna go explore. We really wanted to go get margaritas from a local bar so we started to wonder the streets. It is pretty intimidating when you can't understand what they are saying! We eventually found this restaurant/bar and they didn't understand us when we said margaritas so they gave us 2 pitchers of Sangria instead......so good!! Along with the sangria, they gave us 2 free plates of food. They were gross, but at least I tried them! The first was some potato nasty thing and the second was some type of meat thing with hard bread things. haha I have no idea, clearly! The bill was 18 euros for the sangria! Perfect! After that the hotel paid for a lunch for us, but that food also sucked so we didn't eat much. Finally it was time to go back to the airport in Madrid for our flight to Rome. We sat there for about 2-3 hours...we basically took naps in the terminals though, lets be real! On the plane to Rome I sat next to Meash and some good lookin Italian man...but he totally smelled like moldy butt! Then after pickin up our luggage after the flight we were picked up by some Italian man named Massimo! He was super creepy lookin and didn't speak one word of English!! He also drove like a friggin maniac! But he got us safe and sound to our apartment. Caroline and I share a room...a giant room! and we have 2 other roommates who we will meet in the morning because they were asleep when we got here. Our apartment is the cutest thing in the world! Caroline and I share a bathroom, we have the cutest kitchen even with an orange fridge, we have a terrace, and huge family room. It is great!! I will eventually upload pictures so that there are some visuals, but that will have to wait for another day. Basically, that has been my day and now have to wake up pretty early for orientation at the university tomorrow! Can't wait!

Caio!

Bout That Time

Today is the day. It is officially the day that I leave to go to Italy. I haven't gone to bed yet...my last night in my amazingly wonderful bed. I am really going to miss this bed...Anyways... It was a really good last day here in the states. I saw more friends. More than I expected. My brother surprised me last night with coming over to hang out then took me out to lunch the next day and that really meant a lot to me. I am so glad I got to see him and so many others before I left. I started to get emotional towards the end of the night because it finally hit me that I am going to be gone for 4 months (and it hit me hard!) and won't get to see or even talk to some of them while I am gone. It makes me sad, but it will make coming home that much more exciting. I am really going to miss everyone and I want to say thank you for being so kind to me and making time to see me before I left. I love you all. This has been the best weekend I have had in a really long time and I am glad it happened before I left. I am sad to leave you, but happy to start in a new place as well.
This is a short post cause it is almost 1:30AM and I have to be up at 7, but I just wanted to say thank you for everything to all of you and I will keep you updated! I couldn't have asked for a better way to leave.

See you all in May!! :)

Getting Closer...

Okay, so I officially have 4 days left in the USA. It is slowly starting to hit me more and more each day that I am actually gonna be leaving. It is making me nervous. I still have the same thoughts as I did in my last post but they are more intense now that it is getting closer. I just keep thinking that I am gonna want to come home. I would like to think that I will do fine. I would like to think that I will have no problem. I would like to think that I will love it so much that I will want to move there forever! I just can't help but think the complete opposite though. I don't know, maybe I am just being paranoid.....Yup, I think that is it. I am just paranoid. I tend to be like that from time to time.
I have started packing finally. Oh boy, am I a terrible packer. My bed is completely taken over by piles and piles of clothes and stuff that I want to take with me. Which makes sense since I am going to be there for 3 or 4 months, but I only have one big suitcase to put it all in! Yeah, major issue for this chick! I'm sure I will figure it out but this doesn't help any of my nerves that I already have. I think I am most nervous about the airports though. Just having to bring 6 months worth of prescriptions on my carry-on bags. Hopefully it will not be a hassle. I have them all in their original packages and have a letter from my doctor saying that I need them, but I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Not only am I stressed/worried about packing and just being over there in general, but I am trying to cram tons of last minute friend visits in this weekend. I've had to make a few hard decisions and plan changing in order to fit everyone in, but I will get to see the ones that mean the most to me. There are a few people that I would like to see more of, but they don't seem to care as much as I do which makes me a little upset and hurt, but what can you do? Nothing. Like I said though, I am seeing all the ones that mean the most to me. I get to see all of my best friends before I go and get to spend time with my parents and thats all that really matters. Everyone else doesn't matter in the long run. It would just be an added bonus to see a few others. It's sad when people don't keep in touch like they used to. It is hard when I am the only one that puts effort into seeing them or talking with them, but people change and people grow apart. I am learning this the hard way, but I think it's a good thing too. I may not see the benefits of it right this moment but later in life I will appreciate what is happening right now. Being around the ones that really matter though makes me so grateful to have them in my life and makes me feel very loved and that is always a good feeling. It is nice to know that there are people out there that will miss you as much as you are going to miss them.
All of that being said, I am very excited (and nervous!) to meet new people and experience new things! This is a chance of a lifetime and I am so glad that I am given this opportunity! Mom, Dad, if I haven't said it enough, Thank You! This means everything to me and I can't wait to update this silly blog with all of my crazy adventures!

-Ciao!

Getting ready and getting started

I leave for Italy in 2 weeks. I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog to hopefully get at least semi-used to using it before I leave. I do not know how to describe how I feel right now about leaving because it hasn't really hit me yet that I am going to be in a different country, on a different continent, for almost 4 months. I get very excited when I start to think about everything that I want to do while I am there such as traveling, learning new things, and meeting new people. I am most excited for all of the traveling I plan to do while I am there. I want to go everywhere from England, to Greece, to Ireland and soak up as much as I can while I have the opportunity to do so. The classes that I am signed up for include: Italian Language, History through Cinema, Tuscania Sketchbook, Italian Cooking, and Wine and Culture. I am more than excited for each class, and it doesn't hurt that I have 3 day weekends and my classes only meet once a week! The town of Tuscania is located between Rome and Florence and only has a population of about 8,000 people and the university (Lorenzo de Medici) is an American university of about 15-25 students total. I think that the smaller class size will be comforting and will make the classes easier to focus on and will be able to make better relationships with the other students and professors in my classes. As much as I am excited to go, I also get very nervous and anxious when I think about it. What if I fail? What if I can't handle it? What if something horrible happens? What if I end up like Amanda Knox, or worse, her roommate?! I know some of this sounds a bit dramatic and ridiculous, but that is what goes through my head. I like to think that I will do great and I will absolutely love the time I spend in Italy, but those thoughts are always in my head. Regardless of how excited I am or how nervous I am, I am looking forward to seeing how I will react and how I will absorb what will be my new surroundings. I look forward to what lies ahead and coming home to tell all of my stories of my time in Italy. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to travel like this at my age and I plan to make the best of everything that will come my way.

Bring it on Italy.

...but first, I have to pack...that's a whole different adventure within itself.