These are backwards so start from the last and work your way up

Where they invented this wonderful thing

Capri 
Capri
Pompei
Snowy castle ruins in Ireland
Our breakfast in the Barcelona Hostel
Me and Katie at Park Guell
Sagrada Familia

The adventure comes to a close...

Ooook 

So I know that I said that I would do this like a month ago, and I probably should have done it even before that. 

But since it has been a while I have forgotten a lot and a lot has happened so I will just round this all up into a few lines of what these past few months have been about...

Well lets see... this semester I have:

Learned to be more patient with everything including public transportation, have learned to put up with cranky old Italian men working behind glass, been to Barcelona and Madrid and have eaten tapas, met up with Coralie Bessette, been to the Prado and Reina Sofia, been to the top of Sagrada Familia, drank and made Sangria, went to Dublin, stole a Guinness pint, ate some fish and chips, explored castle ruins in the snow, even went to a local Irish hospital due to my friend's heavy nose bleed, I sadly broke down and had a McDonald's meal in the Rome train station and felt pretty guilty while doing it, I went to Brussels... and had a waffle... don't go to Brussels..., and in Italy I also went to Rome and Florence, saw David and Venus and other great things and ate wonderful Gelato... yes yes, I also explored the so called bad part of Naples (the spanish quarter) which is really cool and ate at the place where the Margherita  pizza was invented, I took a boat ride in Capri and walked up to the center stopping after getting lost with Katie for a short picnic, I had cannoli and fresh squeezed lemonade and a shot of Limoncello after bad service in a restaurant in Sorrento, I ate nutella and strawberries with Molly and Katie on the way home, I made some friends, used my Italian, learned how to figure out Italian's public transportation and now could use the metro anywhere, I went to mass in Italy... well parts of different masses, I played guitar on my porch, made crepes almost every time I was asked to, explained where Macerata is located more times than I can count and most people still didn't know where it was, I made gnocchi and lasagna, took Bailey's nightcaps from time to time with Carly, I had a picnic in Siena's piazza, ran through Siena to the station and still missed out bus, got stuck at the bottom of Assisi without a bus, visited the chocolate place almost everyday while my mom came to visit, spent more money than I probably should have but it was worth it.... and yeah, thats about it.

So I leave you with this quote:

"Wine is alive; as it ages, It changes" said by a jolly wine man we visited

This is my last post for a while, maybe forever and who knows, maybe I've changed too but that will be for all of you lovely people to decide the next time you see me.

For now, have a great, adventure filled next couple of months, I'll see you before you know it.

Alyson

Cross my heart

Blog tomorrow I swear, I am writing it tonight!

Well, I am now 20 years old! Big deal, big deal. It was a pretty good birthday from home, better than I had expected. I got to sleep in since I don’t have classes on Wednesdays so that was nice. Also, I have cross cultures on Wednesdays and sometimes after that class we get little treats and Angelica (Filiberto’s wife) had made me two birthday/ carnivale cakes and I was sung to in Italian, Chinese, English and Spanish. Then the group went out to eat at a pizzeria called the palace and then when to hang out at Katie, Grace and Hsuan Hsuan’s apartment where they presented me with a chocolate cake and some other chocolates, totally unexpected and it made me slightly homesick. I got to talk with my family which was nice. It was overall a success I would say. Then the next day we went grocery shopping and I made a couscous dinner with Molly and Grace. The instructions were 250 ml of water + 250 g of couscous = a picture of three people dancing and one more in parentheses. The diagram could have worked if we had measuring cups and what not but sooomehow it ended up edible. Then yesterday we went to Tolentino and Ascoli Piceno which were pretty cool. We had to be at the bus at 7:15… they were flat… we saw churches… the sun came out at one point. It was a pretty good day. We got back to Macerata and it was snowing, like real snow, like almost blizzard, crazy and for Film we have to write a paper about the Godfather so we are watching it again and we were supposed to watch it last night (at least Katie, Diana and I) so I told them to just come over but Diana said the roads were to slippery to walk and I didn’t call Katie in time. So poor little sicky arrived our door covered in snow. But we took care of her with some tea, songs on the guitar, soup and grill cheese and a movie. We watched Chicago, it’s been years, still wonderful. Then this morning we had a huge scramble with eggs, cheese, potatoes, onions, chicken, peppers, garlic and tomatoes. Now I have to go take a shower and head on over to Diana’s to watch that movie, so I must leave you. We have exams this week so we all have to study up but as a preview tonight we could possibly be doing Mexican night. Then, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day or as my dad calls it; Single’s Awareness Day. 

So that is that, alla prossima…if that is spelled right.

Alyson

Masks, masks, masks

Right. So… ready, set, go!

What have I been up to? Not really sure where to start. A lot has been happening and if I didn’t know I had my viewers I might not be doing this, so thanks for forcing me to record my doings, this is a good thing.

So, we didn’t have an excursion with school this week so we made our own and ventured to the fantasy world of Venezia for a taste of delicious carnivale. If some of you aren’t sure what that is I’ll try my best to explain. It’s like an experimental artist took a bunch of little people, put them in a bucket, painted their faces and put crazy costumes on them, dropped some alcohol in there and then dumped them in the center of San Marco square, adding a little bit of miracle growth.

That probably made no sense, basically, the place was packed and colorful and wonderful. The first days not so much though, we traveled all day Friday after missing the train from Macerata by literally, not joking, 30 seconds, we ran up to the train as it was rolling away. Anyway, we got to the Venice train station around 6 and then took a “bus” which is really just a type of ferry to Lido, an island that is about 40 minutes from the station. It’s pretty touristy in the summer I guess because it has a nice beach, it also has a decent hotel that costs 30 dollars a night… dollars, that’s not bad for Venice, at least it was cheaper and easier than a hostel. We went out with the others who had been there for about 4 hours already but there wasn’t much to do, we basically made it to San Marco, walked around the empty square until we met a few Americans I guess from California, and then out of nowhere they came swarming, there must have been around 200, we got out of there with a huge culture shock, everyone was like “I don’t like Americans very much”, so we will see what happens when everyone gets back home. It started raining so we all jumped back on the ferry soaking, my shoes were sooo wet but I figured they would be dry by morning… nope. So I walked around Venice the next day until about 2 with wet feet when I stared feeling really sick and cold and just nooot good. So after getting a hot meal and sitting down my friends Grace and Molly walked around with me to find shoes, by the end I bought these Venetian shoes from a French lady which were basically slippers… but hey, my mood improved by about 94% when I put them on. Then after two days of rain we were graced with the Sun’s presence just in time for the official beginning of Carnivale. Perfetto!

This is where it gets funny, we decided to take the train at 9 because the only one before that was at 3 and that’s when everything was happening. So… we get to our train and find out that it has compartments and not regular seats but there aren’t any slips where it should tell you if the seats are reserved, so I ask one guy what we are supposed to do, he tells us just to find some empty seats so we go in and take up two compartments of 6 for the 8 of us. Then people come and tell us that we are in their seats. So, we go back to talk to the same guy and he tells us to talk to the conductor who says that the train is full and according to our tickets we bought standing tickets, probably the reason that the woman at the ticket booth was showing as more concern than any Italian in her line of work should. He tells us then to get on the train and stand until the next stop where they will add more cars. So we all cram into a small area and get off, praying that the train isn’t going to take off without us. Luckily we got some seats in the next car and weren’t bothered until Ancona. Actually, that’s not true, at one point this guy came in and asked us a few questions something like, "Hey, my friend is very shy, he wants to get to know you, one or two girls come with me?" Yep, sent that one on his way. So then we got to Ancona at around 2am and had to wait 2 hours for our next train. At one point a guy came up to us and asked us if we were farther than Bologna and we were like... yeah, that's about 3 hours from here, I guess they fell asleep. Then we took another train to Civitanova and then to Macerata, the last train kept stopping in random places, everyone passed out and I forced myself to stay awake just so we got off at the right stop. We made it to Macerata at about 6am, then walked home, I got a 30 minute nap in, didn't change, got a caffe and got to class 5 minutes early.

I didn't sleep again until about 8 at night... so that's cool, got about 10 hours in, somehow lasted again today and am awake enough to write this, so not bad.

So that is a short update on the sitch. I would post pictures but I ended up filming more than taking pictures and I'm using my friend's laptop, so maybe tomorrow if I can. It's also my birthday! I think that we are going to go out to dinner or something, who knows, at least Wednesday is my sleep in day.

So, until next time, signing off...

I'm still kickin', don't worry

January 28, 2010

Hello!

So I know it’s been like a week, I’m still alive, don’t worry.

This past week has been alright, people are getting more and more sick and I hope that I’m not coming down with something too bad. Yesterday I was burning up and I felt a little light headed so I just stayed after class because some of the girls from the Renaissance class watched Troy. I forgot how bad an actor Orlando Bloom is, it’s painful to watch. But anyway, I am feeling better and I’ve been pounding myself with meds and vitamins and whatnot so hopefully I will feel better soon. Just before I got sick one girl, Molly, had been feeling sick too, like fever and vomiting, sooooo fingers crossed because I’ve been hanging out with her a lot lately.

On Wednesdays we have our cross-culture class and we had a cheese tasting, so now I have some idea of the varieties here, one of them they had us put fig jam on it, can you say wonderful? Well, maybe not, but I sure can. And we had white wine with it, kind of strange for me but I asked Filiberto about it and he said that it was just because he wanted us to taste a wine from the area. He then told us to hurry up and finish it before our next class started… again, only in Italy.

 

Tomorrow we are going to an abbey and maybe a castle? I’m not sure, and they said something about a wine tasting.

 

Also… big news! I’m going to Carnivale in Venice next weekend! We booked a hotel today and I’m going to buy my tickets soon, so we will be there from Friday to Sunday, I’m so excited! I will for sure videotape that with the 33 minutes remaining of my battery until I get that package from good old G-Rap… it should be here any day now, hopefully.

 

What else? I’m learning Buttercup on the guitar. “You know, build me up, buttercup baby just to let me down” (that will now be in all of your heads for a few hours I hope).

I also just changed my background on my laptop to a cute little rabbit picture from stumbleupon I’m sure some of you have seen it. Tiled of course.

Also, I just listened to this song and wrote down the lyrics… yes I know I could have gotten them offline and maybe some of the words will be wrong, Mallory will know.

 

But I think you should all read and listen to it, you can think of me if you want to, that way it will sort of have something to do with the blog, here’s the link as well

 

Come and open up your folding chair next to me

My feet are buried in the sand, and there’s a breeze

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyes

And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

Let’s get a silver bullet trailer and have a baby boy

I’ll safety pin his clothes all cool and you’ll graffiti up his toys

I’ve got a perfect booooody, but sometimes I forge-e-e-e-e-et

I’ve got a perfect booooody cause my eyelashes catch my sweat, yes they do, the dooooo

 

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Now, I’ve been sitting on this abandoned beach for years

Waiting for the salty water to cover up my ears

But every time the tide come in to take me home

I get scared, now I’m sitting here alone, dreaming of the dolphin song

 

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Maybe one day you will understand that I want nothing from you just to really hold your hand

Til that day comes, please to feel so down, don’t make frowns you silly clown

 

Juuuuust come and open up your folding chair next to me

My feet are buried in the sand, and there’s a breeze

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyes

And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

 

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyes

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCvgXmg0m1g

January 30, 2010

Ok, so yesterday was pretty cram packed… we went to San Ginesio which was snow covered… not like Michigan but it was super unexpected and I was wearing converses, not good. But it was super pretty and I actually took pictures, so I’m pretty proud of myself, even though it was mostly so that I can just sketch Romanesque buildings for my Art History journal from my own pictures instead of other people’s on facebook.

So we went to a few churches and then to an abbey called S. Maria di Chiaravalle di Fiastra which was cool. Then we ate lunch, I had gnocchi and soup, and then we went to a castle and walked to the top of the tower, or keep? I’m not sure what it’s called, let me tell you, people were camera happy, by the end I didn’t want to take anymore, I am already not such a fan of posing. Then we went to a Winery called Il Pollenza and we even got to taste some wine! One white and then the same red but from different years. The white was actually really nice, I’m usually not huge on whites, the red on the other hand was very woody… like very, very woody, it kind of tasted like wood, but I mean it was still good just not my type of red. Then we got back and bought our tickets for Venice and went grocery shopping. After that I went to my friend Katie’s apartment and we figured out spring break… so, the deal is we will take a train to Rome then take a plan to Barcelona, then either a train or bus to Madrid, meet up with Coralie there and take a plane to Dublin, stay a few days, maybe do mini bus trips to other places, it’s a small country, then the cheapest way back was through Brussels and then to Rome… so, we are going to hang out in Belgium for a day or so. Yep, so planes booked now we have to start looking at other transportation and hostels. Hey, if any of you have connections in any of those places or have friends that could house us or something please let me know, there will be 4 girls all together. Or if any of you have stayed in hostels there or have any good tips of where to go or anything anything at all let me know please! I think it will be a fun and possibly crazy adventure, I might have to live on only pasta when I return to Macerata but that is a risk I am willing to take.

 

It took us like 4 or 5 hours to figure this all out last night so by the time we finished it was around 2- 2:30 so they told me to spend the night on their couch… so yeah, it’s starting to feel like home haha.

 

Anyway, that is all for now, I am going to go buy some veggies with Carly and post this all in a few hours, take a look at these pics!

Winery

Abbey... I think that's how it's spelled
Snow
Bad idea...

 

I have no time.... sorry for the long wait between blogs

January 24, 2010

 

Hello folks!

I touched the Adriatic sea yesterday! Never thought I’d do that. We went to Civitanova, this city that is about 30 minutes by train from Macerata. It was pretty cool, pretty cold too. We went to the big market and went to eat at this seafood restaurant and walked along the beach. Some kids ran in barefoot up to their calves, those crazy Oregoneans… Oregonas… I don’t know, Carly would probably be upset with me if she read this right now.

 

There isn’t too much to tell. Classes are going well, but I have to get back into the habit of doing homework again. We have to write a review about Moonstruck for my film class which is what I am avoiding doing at the moment.

 

Let’s see… my legs are killing me, I might have to amputate. Filiberto had us on yet another walking tour of Macerata on Friday from I think 9am to 5ish with a break for lunch, so that was a blast and a half. After that, we went to Pathos (a café) to get caffeine or sugar recharges before going to meet our tandem partners. It’s a program where you are paired with another person who is interested in speaking your language or learning about your culture. I was partnered with Chiara who seems pretty cool. She’s 28 but I think we will still have enough in common to be good partners, plus she lived in Paris for a bit and speaks some French, so we can practice 3 languages. We have to meet at least once a week for 2 hours to speak in Italian and English so we are meeting tomorrow night for aperitif.

 

Oooops, I was supposed to post this last night, fail.

 

It was kind of an intense night last night, a bad day for the Graces we said.

My roommate Grace’s friend died and the other Grace’s grandpa died. So we did a girls night at one of the apartments. They seem to be doing better today, but it must be really tough… so depressing note there.

 

But I am doing fine, it sort of made me homesick for a bit but I will def be fine.

 

Not sure what else to say… hopefully video soon? Or more pictures?

 

Peace out for now.

You know you're in Italy when...

So I know that Grace will probably say the same things but since the great majority of you won't be reading her blog:

You know you're in Italy when it takes more than 5 days for your clothes to dry... I'm running out of clean things!

You also know you are in Italy when it is cheaper to get wine at a restaurant than water, no joke.

So I feel like lately I don't have too many stories, nothing to share really. I have had all of my classes at least once and I am pretty happy with them, I think that I will learn a lot this semester, and as for the history classes there are some history buffs who I might have to cling too.

Lets see... I am trying to take pictures, It's my goal now there just hasn't been much sun lately... buuuut this morning it was very foggy outside so I took pictures of that so you will have a strange idea of what Macerata looks like.

So here you go...

Also, I don't know how to comment on my own posts so Audrey: I don't know how much it costs for postage stamps but I do know that the term "snail mail" definitely applies to Italy so send those out asap so I get them before my program is finished.

Ciao!

So after posting this last blog I went out with Grace to look at other guitar prices just in the window of the store and we decided to make some friends…. So we went to this bar/ café called Maracula or something, maybe Maraguia, a weird name. So we go in and Grace just says ciao and we introduce ourselves and just start talking to them in our broken Italian, we told them that we wanted to learn some Italian so they taught us somethings and I realized that I actually do know quite a bit of Italian already, I was even able to explain what H1N1 is, so you should be proud Gisella. We both had had some coffee and one guy (Roberto) told us that that was just not the Italian way and that it was time for aperitif, so he bought us both a glass of wine to welcome us to Macerata, we ended up getting the coffees on the house too, so basically, if I am ever really broke I will go try to make friends with people so they buy me things… lesson learned. The problem was that since we both had a coffee around 8, neither of us could fall asleep, another lesson learned. Also, the old lady who lives above us kept moving things, maybe she redecorates in her sleep.

 

Yesterday I started classes. I took my Italian placement exam in the morning and then went out to lunch with the other Grace and Molly. Then I ran home to get my guitar and brought it to the store to exchange it, luckily the man was very nice and was totally ok with it. So I now own a classical Yamaha, pretty nifty, and it sounds sooo much better. I’m happy with it. Then I went to painting class with most of our group to try it out and I really like it, so I’m debating dropping my Modern Italy class for it. I have to look up the equivalency tomorrow and maybe I will call Padnos International Center at GV to find out if that is even an option. There is an extra 70 euro fee but I kind of think it would be worth it to have a less stressful semester. The teacher seems to be full of knowledge but I think he likes to hear himself talk, either that or he is super spacey and just gets off track easily. After that class finally ended I went to shop with some of the girls for groceries and then ate a semi-well rounded dinner, I have to get better at that. Then I went over to Katie, Hsuan Hsuan, and the other Grace’s, they live sort of in the center of the city. We had planned on going to an Internet café but they were all closed, Mondays and Sundays are weird here with that kind of stuff. So instead we just hung out and I played some guitar for them, I tried teaching Katie that moldy peaches song from Juno, she’ll get there. Luckily Hsuan Hsuan plays guitar because she helped me tune it, I’m still not too sure how to use that stupid thing. In any case, they said they would baby-sit it for me anytime. I’m going to have to name it, any suggestions?

 

Last night I dreamt that I had a dryer… it was wonderful.

 

Seriously, I washed my stuff probably about 3 days ago and it’s still not dry, at least the heavy stuff, so that is for sure one think I’m missing.

 

This morning my alarm went off at 7:00 and Grace said oops! She said that she was going to take a nap last night at 8 and she just didn’t wake back up, the jerk, I’m so tired today! Anyway first thing she says, after oops, “I wish we had a microwave so I could reheat my spaghetti”, for breakfast? Then I find her eating it and pouring herself a cup of white wine, she said that today she was just going to be Italian, meaning that she wasn’t going to wash her hair…

 

Ok I’m going to try to post pics again of my apartment, let’s see what happens.

Send me things!

My address is... for regular mail:

Alyson Caillaud-Jones

c/o AHA Macerata Program

P.O. Box 221

62100 MACERATA

Italy

 

then for packages it's...

Alyson Caillaud-Jones

c/o AHA Macerata Program

Via Crescimbeni, 5

62100 MACERATA, Italy

 

A Casa Mia

Since I am a bit behind on my blogging I have been keeping track of things in a word document... hence the dates.

January 15, 2010

 

So, I am moved into my new home. This place is biiiig, a lot bigger than I thought it would be and I guess it gets a lot of sun, we have a few balconies off the bedrooms and a wonderful view but it is pretty white and cold. We aren’t allowed to tape things on the wall so our colorful personalities will have to do. I’m so happy I can actually unpack now and no longer have to live out of my suitcase. I was actually surprised that I was able to repack everything, It was like I was leaving the hostel with more clothes than I came with, don’t ask.

 

Yesterday we had another tour of the city and then again today, it seems big but I’m starting to recognize some places and know where others are. Last night we went to this little tretorria (I’m not sure how to spell that) run by an old couple. It was wonderful; fresh made pasta, unlimited vino, homemade tiramisu. Also I tried some anise liquor in my espresso… no comment. It was super fun though. After that we all went out to a bar that was hosting a small concert, that’s when we found out that going out is pretty expensive. The big style here right now is these strange, shinny, puffy coats with a fur trimmed hood. They look pretty ridiculous but I’m sure you will all be wearing them when I get back. And we all thought that we would stick right in with our peacoats, what were we thinking. Next on the agenda was to go to a discotheque but I don’t think it opened until probably around 1 or 2 and we had to wake up early this morning, so we walked to the tail end of the walled in city, whatever it’s called, the old part, I don’t know, and two of the girls and I had to go to the bathroom, but you can’t really use a bathroom if you don’t pay for something. So we bought a bottle of wine and shared it in secret on a bench next to this bar called Bar King (say it out loud real quick). I know lots of people are reading this, don’t judge me, we recycled the bottle.

 

So yes, it has been fun. But school starts soon, we got our schedules today so I will need to start getting serious.

 

January 16, 2010

 

Today we met again with our group for a walking tour, Filiberto seems to like those, and then hopped on a bus to the “mall”. Grace (one of my roommates) and I brought backpacks so we could steal stuff… just kidding, there is a supermarket in the mall so we brought them as our “bags” so we wouldn’t have to pay for plastic ones. I bought a few essentials but I need to go out again today to get some fresh fruit, bread and eggs.

 

Everything shuts down here from about 2 to 4 I think? Well I know things reopen at 4 so in about 10 minutes I’m going to go out and hopefully buy a guitar… I’ll let you know how that journey goes.

 

So… I bought a guitar but I have been wanting one so bad that I really didn’t take the time I needed to to buy it. I should have actually sat down and played it before committing. The thing is, I can’t really afford to buy a better guitar than this because the price jumped from 44 to about 80 or 90 I think, but now I’m wondering if that would have been worth it. It’s a classical guitar so It’s a little different, and I’m not used to Nylon strings so I’m wondering if I should just buy new strings, but can you put steel strings on a Classic guitar? Help please; I know some of you are music people. I don’t really know what the return policy is here, so I’m thinking I’ll talk to Filiberto and see what he thinks, maybe I’ll just have to pay an extra 20 or more euros because I feel like I’m playing a toy guitar. Lots to think about. The guy who sold it to me was a very cute old man and he was very nice, he said that his son was in Seattle and then said (in Italian) it’s a small world.

 

That was a bit of a rant, sorry, anywho, after I came back to the apartment Carly (my other roommate) and I went out to get some fresh fruit and veggies and whatnot. We made polenta with a tomato sauce with no help from recipes and it turned out pretty good, I was proud. Then two girls (Molly and the other Grace) came over and we went to the other Grace’s apartment (I know a little confusing) there, we met up with some other girls and went to the Cinema Italia to see this Beatles cover band play. They were pretty good, I mean, who doesn’t like the Beatles, but one guy sounded like he was Japanese or something and we were surrounded by old people. After that we tried to find a bar or something where we could maybe meet people but we didn’t have much luck, I guess the big days to got here are Wednesday and Thursday, strange.

 

So, you are all semi-updated

 

In Italy you are only supposed to have your heat on for 12 hours in the winter and we accidentally left ours on this morning when we left for the Mall so when we got back we had to turn it off and we can’t use it until tomorrow. Also, I need to wash clothes… and take pictures… sorry guys, I’ve been a bad picture blogger but it’s been pretty gray here so once the sun comes out I will do Macerata justice, and once I have a better internet connection I will upload pictures of my apartment.

Don't worry folks, I made it.

Hey,

There is a lot to tell… bare with me.

 

So after two planes, two trains, a few cabs and lots of walking; I made it!

Where to start… I took the plane from Grand Rapids to Newark no problem along with a man who looked like the Grandpa in Gilmore Girls, if that means anything to anyone. After a 4-hour layover I got onto my plane for Rome. I had to switch with an older man so he could sit next to his wife so I ended up in a middle seat next to… a very round man lets say, but I managed to sleep a little bit with the help of a Tylenol Cold. I went to Roma Termini and took the train to Fabriano. So I get off (this is the only epic part of my traveling) go over to the time table to find out when my next train is, then I look up to see that the train I need to get on is right next to me and it was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago. So I book it to the first open door and jump into the train, trying to heave my 49.5 pound luggage up the steps of the door, an old man had to help me get it up. That was before I realized that that it was an old school train that needed a man to close the doors manually with a key, so I must have looked pretty ridiculous, but it was quite the adrenaline rush. 

 

So I made it to Macerata around 4:30 and was brought to my “single room” which really was only a single room because I was going to be sleeping there alone, along with 7 empty beds… kind of creepy, like something out of a scary movie. But luckily, after going out to dinner with Carly (a student that was also here last semester) I came back to two new roommates and then at around 6 am were joined by another 3 and I have to say, boy did I have it easy getting here, these girls had been traveling for 2 full days!

 

We all slept until pretty late, and I would have slept later if it hadn’t been for one of the girl’s alarms at 12:30. After an unusual shower, I went out with a few others to get a bite to eat, pizza of course (but zucchini mind you). We met at 3:30 at the hostel (Ostello) with Filiberto ( I hope I’m spelling that right) and went on a quick tour ending at the school. We had a little orientation discussion and then went out for hot chocolate and then back to the Ostello for a big dinner.

 

I have to say, I wasn’t so sure about this at first, when you’re traveling alone for over 24 hours you a lot of time to think. But, I’m pretty positive now that this is where I want to be, and I am totally ready to take on whatever comes my way… hopefully.

 

Well I will try to write again soon and at some point will post pictures because this place, is something else.

 

 

Goodbye all

Hey there!

So, as most of you know, I am leaving Monday (January 11th) for Italia!

This is my first time using a blog so I will try my best to keep an interesting and updated one so that you all know what is going on in my life while I am abroad. 

Feel free to comment on these posts and send me your "snail mail" once I actually have an address.