Back from Travels...

Who knows when I will actually write a blog for my last week of travels but here are the links for pictures:

Prague
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010127&l=0aca5&id=1279830007

Munich and Vienna
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010135&l=6a98f&id=1279830007

I have only 10 class days and then finals with a travel weekend in the middle of it all so I will be very busy these last days in Paderno del Grappa...

It's been a while...

So, it has been some time since I have updated my blog. Things have been busy here. Trying to get through midterms and papers before my travel break.

Last weekend, Kelsey, Natalie and I tried to train to Verona but didn't quite make it. We ended up spending the day in Padova instead (The pictures are from Padova). Padova is actually a really cool city and we chose to stay there instead of buying yet another ticket to Verona since the one we bought wasn't running since it was an Italian holiday. Why they still sell them? Not sure. It was only 4 euro though.

It Italian class we had a class session of meeting with the Italian kids in high school here. So before our adventures, the girl I was talking to actually recommended for me to go to Padova because it's a college town and lots of nice gardens and shopping. I'm in!

I didn't expect the gardens to still be in bloom but they were! Gorgeous. Fun fountains as well. These Italian cities keep captivating me and I just don't want to leave!

We ended up finding a HUGE market too. Probably not the best of places to end up but we enjoyed it :-) Ended up shopping around for a while too, as well as all the other stores around. I ended up buying a couple pairs of shoes and a purse and a sweater. I didn't splurge that much, the shoes were 12 dollars of something, can't pass up cheap shoes ;-) Or cheap clothing, purses etc. It'll be interesting when I have to pack up to travel for two weeks and haul everything around with me. I've been doing pretty good though, I'm not collecting too much really. Besides my new jacket... That's basically the only thing large that I've bought.

Last week was our second formal dinner. Very exciting as well! It was actually at a hotel and well, we get free wine at these events. Not just any wine but the fancy stuff. One guy ended up jumping in the pool before leaving. Oopsies. The food was also good but a consenses was made that the first dinner was better. We definately got more food at the second but not as good of quality.

I am getting up at 6 am to taxi to the train station to train to milan to bus to the airport to fly to Prague tomorrow. Always nice to use as many types of transportation as possible, right? I don't have school all next week so Amy, Kelsey, Natalie and I are going to Prague, Munich and Vienna. It is going to be a blast. I will update my blog as soon as I can, but I also return to school with more tests. I only have 3 weeks of classes left, including finals.

The time is flying by. I want to be home but I don't want to leave. I would be completely content staying here for another six months and just become adopted by CIMBA.

When in Rome...

I don't even know where to begin for this adventure... I am completely out of it today as I am trying to go to classes. I was only gone for three days. It was just a very packed, fast-paced weekend.

Friday morning we got up early and caught the train to Rome, arriving there about 1:00 in the afternoon. First thing we did, headed towards the Colosseum. It was so amazing to actually see. I really was in awe. We all took a tour of the Colosseum as well as the Roman Ruins and wandered the grounds. All the history and all the amazing structures. It really was a different feeling, sitting on actual ruins on the grounds and thinking about things... So worth it. Pictures don't do it justice.

Saturday we saw the Vatican, sixteenth chapel, and other religious aspects of Rome. Even just walking through the Vatican it took nearly two hours. That place is huge and there are so many statues and structures, I was a bit overwhelmed and couldn't handle anymore by the time I neared the end. The walls, the ceilings, the floors, the statues and artwork. It's almost like you have to go through at least three times, once looking down, next time looking forward and the other time looking up. It is so much to try to take in all at once.

We also hung out on the Spanish Steps for a while, a must do when you go to Italy. Even though the high season is over with, Rome was still full of lots of people. Tourists everywhere. I left thinking I knew some Italian, can kind of converse the necessities and did not use Italian once. Everyone spoke English and honestly, I barely heard any Italian, until a grumpy gelato man got upset with me being an American, as he is speaking English to me. He mentioned something about if I can speak any Italian after I asked what a kind was, so I was like okay, and started speaking some of the little Italian I know that we were taught to order Gelato and he continued to speak English back to me. He was pegging me as that "stupid American" and I think was just having a bad day.

I have also fallen in love with southern Italy. The pizza seems better, the gelato is better, the weather is warmer. I was in t-shirts and jeans and would get hot walking around. Now I am back north and wearing sweatshirts. (I know it’s not as cold as back in MN with the snow, haha)It was a perfect weekend getaway and I basically only ate Gelato and Pizza. I just couldn’t get enough of either. The bread also was different, and I enjoyed it more as well. It really is interesting how different northern and southern Italy are. My Italian professor tries to teach us both ways of speaking Italian (As they use different words in the different areas, not including all the different dialects) and gives us a quick overview of where we will hear what words, so we all were prepared for it.

We had some interesting run-ins with pickpocketers on the metro. There were three ladies with babies when we got on the metro Sunday morning (The metro was packed and some people couldn’t hold onto anything). They would just bump into people and of course others would assume oh, they are just falling trying to hold onto their kids… Well the lady sitting down next to me got my attention and was trying to converse with me saying they were pick pocketing and they did it to the man next to me. It took a while to get it through because I didn’t know if she was saying if they got me and I was like no, they couldn’t, I have nothing in my pockets and my purse is still zipped and closed… But I finally got it all figured out and tried getting the man’s attention but I think he realized what was happening (the ladies were on the other side of him than me. As I was trying to get his attention he turned the other way and put his hand is his pocket, so hopefully he figured it out but I had to get off at that stop.

I told everyone else I was with what was going on, they were right next to the ladies and were like UGH! I didn’t even think of that. One lady fell into me and grabbed my arm but I just let it slip my mind what was happening. Everyone made sure they still had everything, and everyone did. We all know to watch our belongings really close and are always clenching our purses and have eyes on each others things when on public transportation and the such. There was no one around to tell anything to to try to track the ladies down so we just had to go on our day.

The sick part of it is that we walked a lot of Rome for about 4 hours and then got on the tram later on, and who is on our car again?! Two of the same ladies, with the same babies. Poor, poor kids. They did not get nice looks from us, as we all glared at them and they knew we knew what they were up to. They kept trying to get off our car and onto another section but there wasn’t room so they just had to deal with us and weren’t really attempting anything.

They finally managed to get off our section of our tram but then ended up getting off at the same stop as us, again, and went directly over to the tram going the other direction. I was so angered by them… The babies were still tiny, prob only a few months old. Not a good place for kids to be all day… We mentioned this in International Marketing as we also talk about our travels and talk about what products and how to enter the markets where we visited and our professor told us how the larger cities actually have baby/kid rentals so the kids may not have even been their own. They can rent a baby for a day and then at the end of the day, the person in charge goes and collects all the babies and kids again…

The metros in Rome also aren’t very well developed... They get packed. One time, when we went into the metro, not realizing it was so busy or we would have walked, we got on the escalator going down and about half way down we realize people were not moving away from the bottom of the escalator and well... The people on the escalator can’t stop... So there was the domino effect at the bottom. This poor older lady behind me had some dilemmas as we were piling together but luckily we were there to help her get her balance and make it safely off the escalator. It was such a messy pile up.

Even though we came back with some interesting stories, Rome was still amazing. You just have to overlook the beggers (That will use any deformity or idea possible to get money) and really just focus on what is around.

Quick check-in

I'm almost done with another week of classes and then I am off to Rome for a long weekend. I am getting up early tomorrow (Friday) morning and catching a train down to Rome. Natalie and I booked our own hostel and are just worried about the two of us but we are technically going with another group of 7. At least on the same trains/taxis etc.

I am so glad to be done with this week but also am not looking forward to the weeks to come. We basically only have 22 class days and 3 final days left, basically 3.5 weeks left of classes... How weird is that?

Last week we went on a field trip to Pasagno for a class to see the temple. It was only a 15 min bus drive so we were there for about an hour and a half, saw the temple and ate some Gelato (Always a good treat). A group of us also went to the top of the temple (cost 1.30 euro) and were able to look out over the whole town and area as well as all the dolomites. It really was a great view.

Another class is going to try to schedule a trip to Verona for a day, if possible, and I have the same teacher for another class, so I've already told her if it happens, I'm going to join her other class for a day. I really hope to get there sometime, it's only about 1.5 hours away, depending on transportation.

Barcelona and Lisbon

I know it has been a while since I've given an update but the internet has been hating me here. I finally was just able to upload some photos on facebook today and before I started writing a blog and then it failed as well.

As most of you already know, I took a travel week to Barcelona, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal. Both cities were a blast but I we were a little worn out by the time we got to Lisbon.

We flew to Barcelona and stayed there for four nights. We were in a brand new hostel (About a year old) and was made very urban. More like a hotel than a hostel... So didn't get the hostel vibes. Barcelona grabbed me right away and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's all the things to do, the city, or even being right on the ocean.

We spent the first 2.5 days touring Barcelona, taking the metro and walking everywhere. We saw a lot in under two days, including the park, the 92 Olympic stadiums and a famous cathedral that isn't going to be finished for many more years. The last full day we were there some of the group split off and went to a coastal city, but I stayed in Barcelona and shopped. They were very smart when they put a mall at the end of a pier. We didn't even realize it was a mall at first but once we entered, it was deadly. Good clothing stores for cheap. What more could someone ask for?

Barcelona seemed to be non-stop, early rise and see as much as possible. We didn't go in many places, only the Picasso Museum, since that was free the Sunday we were there. I found a lot out about Picasso that I never knew or that he even did ceramics for a while. The Arc de Triomphe (Barcelona style) was in a very nice park with palm trees everywhere (Those always grab me, just love them)

After we all were worn out from Barcelona, we headed to Lisbon. We landed in Lisbon and were immediately reminded of San Francisco. Very hilly city with trams everywhere and a golden gate bridge (looked very similar). Lisbon was very laid back and we would split off in group of two or three and some actually tried sleeping in in the hostel. This hostel was very cute and very much a typical hostel. Met some other great people traveling, even some other study abroad students studying in Spain.

We actually ate at Hard Rock Cafe twice while in Lisbon and all us Americans were able to get our fix of American food. One day three of us went to the beach, I'm sure it would be full of tourists during the summer. Had cute restaurants and shops along the boardwalk and jet ski and boat rentals during the day. Only three of us went cuz it was raining when we left the hostel and we didn't care while everyone else didn't want to go wander in the rain. Little did they know by the time we got to the beach it was already clearing up and the sun was coming out.

The city was very condensed and it was easy to walk everywhere but it also had all types of public transportation including a metro, buses and a tram. This capital city knew how to make sure people got around.

Another day we went to another touristy area with a castle literally on a sandy beach. It actually was surrounded by the water and was just a little ways out. People were filming a movie in the field behind it and Natalie and I almost walked right through it, being completely oblivious. We don't know any Portugese and when some guy started trying to talk to us we just ignored him and kept walking figuring it was someone trying to get us to purchase something (Or previosly some guy tried asking some members of our group to be IN a film) but then realized that he wans't trying to get us for something but was actually directing a film... Oops.

The streets in Lisbon were gorgeous, with decorated coble stone everywhere. It was interesting to see what designs they put and there even were fish designs near the aquarium.

It's just amazing how old some of these cities are and the building structures they have. It's also interesting to throw ourselves into new countries knowing basically nothing about their language or culture. Barcelona was pretty easy since 3 members of our group spoke spanish, although in Barcelona they speak Catalunyan but it was still basic to ask questions and get our point across. Portugese? No one knew. We just threw ourselves in and managed the best we could.

This past week of school was very busy and so will be the coming week. I was planning to go to Milan this weekend but am very glad I didn't as I have lots of homework to get done for tests again next week...

Today I am going to Bassano del Grappa, a city about 20 minutes away from here. They have a Saturday market and also is one of the bigger cities in the area. It will be nice to actually see more places around where I am living instead of always leaving. This actually is my first weekend staying in Paderno. I am already liking it. There's no need to rush off to other places, I need some time to relax.

Photos on the right - Barcelona
Photos on the left - Lisbon

More photos can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007984&l=4015a&id=1279830007
P.S. Dad or Sarah, I hope you are ready to change and wash my sheets weekly and clean my room twice a week. I am really getting used to this way of life :-)

School is getting busy...

School is very busy this week as teachers are trying to get tests and papers done before our first travel week. I seem to be doing homework or seminars non-stop and it's only Tuesday morning. I am excited for the travel week though, as I will be in Spain and Portugal.

Last week was my 21st birthday, so basically the whole school went out and partied for it. We went to a local pizzeria/bar and had dinner and drinks to celebrate. It was an awesome festivitie, and probably the biggest get together of the school since we have been here. Definately a different experience.

I spent last weekend in Cinque Terre on the Italian Riveria. It was beautiful. The Mediterranean was gorgeous and blue and still very warm. The 5 towns were extremely cute. Not a 'young crowd' attraction but still a must see place. We hiked and trained between the towns and made a point to make it to all of the 5 cities, Manarola (Where we stayed), Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, and Riomaggiore. All the towns had a different cuteness to them and had different draws. The hikes, which I'm usually not in to, were also beautiful. It was great to go up the mountain side above the sea and look at the cities from above and the sailboats in the distance. It was a very fast-paced weekend but definately was worth it.

Now I must cut this short and get back to writing papers and studying for tests. I have a feeling I am going to sleep for weeks straight once home with non-stop school during the week and traveling on weekends. (I'm sure that won't happen though, since I'll be excited to see everyone again and enjoy winter in Minnesota. Snow!!)

Made it to Slovenia!

This is going to be a very condensed version of my weekend. I don't think I am going to be able to keep up with writing about my excursions.

My weekend was AMAZING! We took a field trip to a WWI Memorial and a castle in Trieste and from there we were given the option to be set free or ride the bus back to campus. We decided to make it an adventure.

The WWI Memorial and Castle were a lot of fun. The Memorial even had trenches that you could go into and walk around, kinda crazy to put it into perspective. I didn't actually go into the castle because it cost more money, but I did walk around the grounds. It was right on the sea with woods and ponds all around.

We stayed until 10 pm in Trieste wandering the city until our train left for Ljubljana, Slovenia. Trieste, Italy is a beautiful city right on the sea and we were able to go out on a pier and watch the sun set.

We arrived into Ljubljana at 2 in the morning, only to leave at 2 am the next morning, leaving a total of 24 hours here. Our walk to our hostel seemed kind of sketchy. We didn't know the city, didn't know the language and didn't really know where we were going. Everything was completely fine and Slovenians are really nice and confirmed we were headed in the right direction to get to our hostel (My group was just four of us girls but there were probably about 50 of us from school that ended up there over the weekend). There also were broken bottles and graffiti everywhere on our path to our hostel so we were all of a sudden what we got ourselves into...

The hostel was very nice and there were a bunch of Brit's there celebrating a bachelor party. We pretty much got our keys and went to our room ASAP so we didn't have 8 old drunk men talking to us.

When we woke up the next morning when we woke up, we realized Ljubljana really is a beautiful city. Has a completely different vibe at night and during the day. Our hostel also was in the hotel/hostel area but not actually in the city center so there wasn't any night life by us to pass.

We wandered around Ljubljana and took a bus to Bled in the afternoon, where there is a lake formed by Glaciers. Both were very amazing places and the lake is beautiful in itself, not to mention the cute little town. We also were able to eat Mexican food in Ljubljana for dinner, which was a nice change from pasta every day for lunch and dinner.

We got back to campus this morning at about 10 am, after walking the Sunday Market in Crespano. It was a very fast paced weekend but worked out really well since we took night trains and didn't lose daylight hours and only had to pay for one night at a hostel.

The internet gets too slow here when everyone goes on to load pictures onto this blog page so here is the link to my facebook photo album with some pictures of this weekend.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2006869&l=520d9&id=1279830007

Settling down

Life has started settling down here in Italy but not completely. We sure are kept busy these first couple weeks. This past week I had stuff going on Tues-Sat from 9 am to 6 pm unless we got done early. We've been doing leadership seminars, a low ropes course, travel orientation, as well as a global cultural comparisons lecture. Some days were more boring than others.

The ropes course was actually a lot of fun, although I’m a little beat up from it. We had to climb the wall as a group and I smacked my leg on the top trying to get on the platform while being pulled up. There’s nothing wrong with a few bruises, right? The ropes allowed us to be outside and it was a very nice day when my group got to go. Unfortunately, the last group had rain so they had to do it all in the gym.

The global cultural comparisons seminar was also fun. First it compared what Italians think of themselves and what others think of Italians and then how different countries ranked in items like pasta consumption, obesity, number of credit cards, divorce rate, etc. Some of those things were quite surprising. Belgium has a divorce rate of 76%, I thought the US was bad around 50%. The little things that you just never learn… It also talked about how Italians and Germans are CRAZY drivers. The lecturer was talking about when he lived in Germany and he would be going 100 and people would pass him and he’d always wish one day, he could be that person too. Well his friend had a car that was allowed to go fast (Something with the tires) and they were going about 200, and STILL getting past. After that, he decided he didn’t need to be one of those guys.

I also learned I am in one of the wealthiest areas in Italy, the Veneto region. The rich Italian with a Vineyard and a place in the Alps is actually quite possible here… Still not happening, I just found it funny that I am in probably one of the only areas where that image is possible. I am told to go to Asolo, the grad campus, and car watch as million dollar cars like Bugattis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, etc. drive through. The Italians don’t go to University in this area as they will make more money with their family's businesses than if they went through years of schooling.

It thunder stormed on both Friday and Saturday and I thoroughly enjoyed them! We were inside both days anyways so I didn’t really mind. Today it is still raining, though. Not what I wanted… I was either going to go climb Mount Grappa or go to a Sunday market in a neighboring town where they basically turn their whole town into a market. The market is open every Sunday, so I will just go another weekend instead of doing it in the rain today. Instead, I slept in until 10 which was nice and now maybe I’ll get some reading down before classes again.

The Italians are supposed to get here today, as they start school tomorrow. I’m in an all American dorm I believe so I won’t really being seeing them. The other dorm that a few people are in will have Italians all over the place… We set up a projector that one of the students brought in the hallway of the other dorm last night and watched Wanted (It was cold and drizzly so no one really wanted to go out). So who knows if that will be okay to do once the Italians get here.

The weather is supposed to improve again for a few more weeks, at least until after our first travel break. Hopefully that’s all goes through, as I will then have nice weather in Spain and Portugal!

Hope all is well with everyone in the States! I am off to lunch.

My first view of Venice!!

Main intersection of Paderno del Grappa (Campus is in the middle of pic. Bank and ATM on the left)

Main Building (Office, TV room, large lecture hall)
There are three other buildings besides this one that we use on campus and basically that's all of campus.

My dorm hall (SGP)

Campus Courtyard

Not full schedule of classes yet...

So it turns out we only have each of our classes twice during the first two weeks. Otherwise it's all orientation type things we must attend. Even though I've only been to my classes once, I still have homework, due in a week or so.

I've probably wandered the whole town of Paderno except for some residential areas. It's pretty cute. We aren't allowed alcohol on campus or in the dorms, as it is an italian catholic boarding school, but we have two bars right across the street and two more a little farther away (About a 5 min walk)

I ended up not going out the first night but it sounds like it got a little carried away and people got overly drunk. I did go out the second night and know I am going to have to start liking wine. I had a Spritz, which is a hit drink in this region right now that includes wine. My Italian teacher told us we had to try it, just to know if we liked it. It was different, but okay. Had some liqueur and wine and orange in it. Kind of interesting.

I layed down for a nap today and ended up sleeping over 4 hours. That was probably long over due but I am all ready to go now. Maybe go out again? Who knows...

I'm meeting some great people out here and the teachers I have are all nice, so far. We'll see who my Finance Prof is. I have that at 5 tonight.

I haven't been doing much except hanging around campus and getting more settled in. They have been keeping us busy with seminars that we must keep attending. Tomorrow is the ropes course for my group and an all day thing of random adventures.

I do not know Italian yet, along with most people so that keeps things interesting. A lot of us took French so that likes to come out at random times when we are trying to speak Italian.

I have started making my list of all items I brought and am buying for my marketing class as well as their brand and where they were made. It's very time consuming and hard to read the labels on the Italian items as to where they are from.

I don't really have any new news and days will be going by very quickly once it gets rolling more. I am ready for it to cool down though so I can wear my pants and shirts instead of borrowing Steph's shorts (my room mate).


There actually is a crew of us from Minnesota, mainly from the metro area, they just don't go to the U. People love my accent though, since it is the strongest and of course when asked where I am from I have to say the "o".

I am off to attempt to do homework now before my class tonight. I am probably forgetting a lot of details to inform you all of but I am just not sure what there are.

Beginning of the Adventures and loving it!

Wow! Has it ever been quite the adventure… (But yes, I am finally on campus. Safe and healthy (now))

It all started leaving Minneapolis. We had a few issues on the plance. Technical issues included the air conditioning and not being able to open the air valve to start the engine so we were stuck on the plane for about 45 minutes. But don’t you worry, there was plenty of entertainment on the flight to keep us occupied.

Right in front of me was this guy… Well, he was EXTREMELY drunk and he also had to buddies on the plane as well. They were all scattered around and all wasted. I never saw the third one but the two guys talking weren’t even sure if he made it on. One guy was in charge of the luggage so all bags made it on the plane, but that wasn’t their biggest worry either.

The guy in front of me decided he had a problem with the guy next to me (Who seemed like he was having a horrible day already). So he called his friend (which is when I realized there were a few of them on the flight) and was like “Man, there’s this dude. I’m about to fuck him up, man.” And so on. Blurting it out loud so everyone on the plane could hear him talking about kicking this guys ass. From what I could recall it was cuz the guy next to me wanted him to put his seat forward a little bit while we were waiting on the plane. The other guy comes over and finally finds his friend and is trying to figure out where he put his bag, while the one that put them on the plane had already forgotten… So someone on the plane was smart enough to say look on the other side after they were searching for about 5 min, and there it was. One of the flight attendents finally came and moved the guy in front of me to another part of the plane and I’m guessing was told he’d be kicked off if he didn’t calm down. You can sense the relief on my section of the plane when he was finally moved. The rest of the plane was peaceful and we made it to Amsterdam safely.

I met up with a couple other guys in my program at the Amsterdam airport and we flew to Venice together. We also met another couple people in our program that were on the same flight as well. We seemed to be running into people in our program everywhere as a lot of us stayed in Venice last night (Sunday).

We got off the plane and took the bus to the train station, where our hotel was. As we are walking to our hotel, it decides to rain. No biggy, right? Well… Then it starts to down pour. Our hotel was only a couple blocks from the train station but we hung out at a store front under an eave waiting for it to pass. We made it to the hotel quite easily and didn’t get lost. (Good thing I had the name of the hotel and the close up map of where it was cuz the guys I met up with couldn’t even remember the hotel name. I didn’t either, which is why I wrote it down before leaving.) I think my dreams about getting to Venice and not having a passport and not remember the name of my hotel or directions helped a lot for that part. Otherwise who knows… We may have been wandering for a while. Or searched it on the internet, but that’s too easy.

We met up with the rest of our crew at the hotel and settled down (4 guys, 4 girls) before heading into Venice for the night. We went into Venice around 18:30 (Gotta practice military time) and had spaghetti and beer on the canal. We hung out and chatted for a while and then decided to start walking and wandering around Venice. it’s all windy streets, so we put some distance on. We decided we were really tired and needed to go to sleep so we should turn around and go back. Well, going back wasn’t so easy. We didn’t want to back track but then we ended up getting lost. It was Sunday night so only restaurants were open so we no longer had crews of people to follow. We would stop and try to locate us on the only small map one of us had along… Took some time. We realized we needed help getting back when we started walking in circles. We heard English, so that was our chance to ask. The lady was great. She was so happy to see fellow Americans and more than happy to tell us our way out. We got fairly close to the train station but just weren’t getting there since we would always run into dead ends and turn right when we were supposed to be finding narrow, creepy road ways that turned left. As we were making our way out from where we got stuck, we seemed to gather more Americans that were lost in our area. We collected at least three more while navigating ourselves out and just told them to follow us (since we had directions now, just had to find the roads. We really only needed to take a left, right, left and we were where we needed to be). It was great and we no longer felt completely ridiculous as all of us Americans were getting lost. We finally got back to our hotel around 23:30-24:00 I believe…

The next morning would be great, right? Pack up and head to campus? No, not so much. I felt like I was gettind dehydrated on the walk but once I decided to buy water we didn’t pass another store. Only restaurants and I didn’t feel like dealing with it. So in the morning? I was SICK! (I’m thinking because of dehydration and plane food combined) I woke up around 5:00 and felt nauseaus but just layed there until 8 when I was supposed to get up to take the first shower. I thought sleeping longer it would go away… Not my luck. I took a shower, went to breakfast and drank some orange juice. I couldn’t remember acqua meant water in italian so I didn’t know how to ask for it (We were being served). Orange juice? BAD idea… I sat for a little bit and then went back to the bedroom and BAM! To the bathroom I went. I was now vomitty sick. Luckily, I had only had liquids so it wasn’t too bad. Although, it wasn’t all at once. It was in increments when I felt gross. So I was pukey sick all morning, last time was on the train to Bassano del Grappa at about noon. No fun, but then I was all better and ready to get to my room.

Everything has been good since. I am actually sitting in my dorm room typing this up. I am in one of the smaller rooms but it’s still not that small. It’s MUCH bigger than T-Hall. We only are in our rooms for studying, no TV or anything so a big room isn’t compeletely necessary. We have our closests, bathroom, shower, book shelves, bed, night stand. It’s pretty well furnished. It’s a very cute small campus. Makes me wonder why I went to such a large school when I like small petite things. There are two dorm buildings (I believe) for us 92 students and then 2 buildings with classrooms in it (Although one building isn’t completely ours, only a couple rooms, as it is an italian boarding school. There also is the main building with the office and events set up in, which is outside my window.There is a rec center we have access to that I believe is for the whole town (of 2,000 people). It has a couple pools (one small one) and the regular rec equipment. It is right under a tunnel from Campus, so very convenient. I have not been inside yet, but it is my mission to spend some time over there this semester. I guess we’ll see how classes go… It’s Very cute, very little. My first class starts tomorrow at 8:30. I have 8:30 classes every day. Good thing I was getting up early this summer, hopefully it stays.

I am all unpacked and set up in my room. Didn’t forget too much, that I know of yet. It is very mosquito’e’ as we found out last night, so I will need to get some bug spray (Yes, I know I wrote it on my list that I made with everyone and yes, I still forgot it). I also need to buy some summer clothes, as I didn’t bring shorts (besides cotton work out ones). Luckily, I grabbed a few tanks and can just wear my under tanks. It is much hotter here right now than I expected. Definitely still shorts, T-shirt weather. Even at night. Doesn’t seem like it is going to cool down much, but at least when it does, I have my jackets and gloves ready! I didn’t forget those J.

I also have been having moments of AHH!!! What have I gotten myself into I want to go home, this is too long moods and then other times where I am very excited. Right now? I am in my happy mood and ready to go. When I was sick, I wanted to be home and curl up in bed and not train/bus around Italy… Typical mood while sick.

Tonight we have dinner, a welcome orientation and a welcome party. Hopefully I won’t be up TOO late as I must remember I actually have class tomorrow morning… Classes? Who takes those, we all just want to be here and travel and not have classes…

I will have internet in my room by tomorrow, hopefully. They somehow lost my form but I was able to fill out another one and they will set me up. I am heading over to the comp lab to post this (That is if they found the missing key to open it).

So far, as you can tell, it has been quite the adventure but I’m sure it will calm down as we now must get into the groove of being on campus and going to class. But I have a busy schedule ahead of me these next couple days…

All for now, more stories to come.

Oh yes, and mother, I figured out who was in Finland with a passport. It was a girl from Minneapolis who goes to Oregon and her parent’s go to Fenstad’s resort every summer and she happened to go with this year. She was part of my crew at the hotel last night. Small world, huh?

Also, this is where I’ll mainly be placing stories instead of sending multiple emails to multiple people. Especially these first couple weeks their won’t be much personal contact as I am trying to meet more people and be… studious?

Italy Bound

So, today I am off. My plane departs at 9:15 PM and I have a layover in Amsterdam before reaching Venice. I won't get to Venice until 4:30 tomorrow afternoon (local time). 

I will be in touch with everyone once I settle in and get my internet working. I don't actually get to campus until Monday evening and I'll be starting classes Tuesday.

More soon!

Hey Everyone

I will be using this to post pictures and stories about my time abroad.








View of Mount Grappa from the dorm hall