To describe this day in one word it would be "perfect." We met at the Duomo, which is the central place for my group to meet at. I still have no idea where I'm going so thank goodness I have my friend Lydia who is a walking GPS. I consider her my personal Google
Maps. We take a turn here and a turn there and voila! we're there! The architecture of the building is breath taking. I cannot get over how beautiful the building is.
Deb, my Italy orientation teacher from the fall semester, and Stan, the dean of my college, gave us a mini tour before we went to lunch. We got to see Kent State, which is so cool because the architecture is so old and there are paintings on the walls of the buildings that are over 700 years old. The history of this place is beyond fascinating.
Then our whole group of 16 walked to the restaurant called Osteria De' Peccatori. I got pasta in salsa alla vodka. SO GOOD.
Although surprisingly I enjoyed Kory's version of pasta with vodka sauce at home better. And yes, I did tell him that.
After dinner we had macchiatos, which were so tiny, but boy did it do it's job. I was exhausted, but after an hour I was wide awake. It was very strong, but after a few sips, it was yummy.
We then ventured and took the group to our apartment and showed them around. After that we ventured to the next apartment and oh my gosh is there apartment massive compared to ours! It was gorgeous. However, I like ours more because it's small, quaint and it feels more Italian. I think our ceilings make it feel more like that.
Next we walked the streets to this gelato place. BEST GELATO EVER. I got nutella gelato and fior de latte. The latter one was beyond amazing, so delicious. The nutella with it made sparks fly off in my mouth. The best part was it was only 2.50 euro. So cheap!
Deb and Stan then showed us to a great exchange place where we could get Euros for American dollars. The best part was that there was no fee to do it so it was the exact amount. Good for a poor college student.
Deb and Stan continued to show us the city and places to shop for food and other necessities. Before I knew it, it was 5:00 p.m. The day had flown by.
After Lydia and I made a pit stop at our apartment, we ran into our neighbor when we were leaving. She didn't speak a lick of English but we tried using our Italian we had learned from our previous semester class to communicate with her. She was so cute. We introduced ourselves and she asked if we were friends and had moved in yesterday. She then introduced us to her friends as they walked up the stairs to meet her. It was really cool to actually use my Italian and try to communicate with it. She was just so cute and I want to meet her again and actually talk to her and get to know her.
One thing I want to do over here is meet an Italian family and get to know them. I think that would really be something different than just going to school here.
Lydia and I took a stroll later and crossed the bridge. She is recreating pictures her mother took when she backpacked through Europe years ago, so Lydia wanted to find this one spot where one of them was taken. So we climbed this steep hill on the opposite side of the river and successfully found it. Seeing the two pictures compared was so cool.
To end the night we went over to the other girls' apartment. We walked to a pizza parlor, picked up pizzas, went to a convenient store, grabbed cheap wine and went back to the apartment. We ended the night sitting at a kitchen table eating pizza, drinking wine, and telling stories and laughing. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.
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