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!!