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?