Scusi, come si dice "stamps?"

Yesterday (Monday) was a pretty typical Monday with classes, however I had a few new experiences.

After I finished up with my two classes of the day, my roommate Kate and I went on a scavenger hunt to find this supermarket we had heard of called Billa. I had heard nothing but good things about it. My other roommate Jess said she felt like she stepped into a Giant Eagle. It's really sketchy on the outside with spray paint, but she was right! As soon as you step into it you feel at home, minus Italian writing everywhere and Italian music playing over the speakers. They even had normal carts like at home!

As much as I loved it, I still want to make my way to the market around here where you haggle for prices and buy everything fresh. I believe that would be the true experience while being over here. It's just a matter of forcing myself out of my comfy zone because my one friend went and she said she didn't run into anyone who spoke a lick of English. Kind of nerve racking if you ask me.

My other experience of the day was with Kate as well. I had to go to the post office to mail Ali her birthday card. It had something little inside of it, so it weighed more and needed more than €1,60 like a light letter or post card take. The post office set up is different than my hometown's. At home you just hop in line and wait until one of the two clerks are ready for the next person in line.

At Florence's, you take a ticket in the entrance. There are different types of tickets and each category has different services. So I pushed the button "P" because francobolli was listed underneath it, which means stamps.

I was number 354 and I waited with Kate in this big room with windows numbered 1-17 in a square around me. There were three signs where ticket numbers were listed with window numbers. When your ticket number shows up, you go to the window number listed. Sounds easy enough, right? However, I was beyond confused because I thought the three boards all had different numbers on them, so I was constantly turning in a circle making sure my number wasn't showing up. Not only that, but some of the numbers were 027, 024, 348 and 275. I was thinking what the heck, the numbers aren't even in order!

I was also nervous I was going to miss my number because they weren't calling out the numbers, you just watched the board, hence me spinning in circles. THEN it clicked. The boards were all the same, so I didn't have to continue spinning and the numbers were different numbers because of the different categories. Yeah, I felt rather silly.

So while waiting for another 10 minutes, I practiced my Italian in my head: Buona sera. Posso avere francobolli per un lettera? Grazie. Ciao! Translation: Good evening. May I have some stamps for a letter. Thank you. Goodnight.

Not too hard. Not too hard at all. My number was shown, I walked up to window number 17 and I stared at the man and said posso, ummm, ummmm. He just smiled. He had to have known I was nervous. But because he smiled my nerves went away and I said my practiced Italian. I'm learning if I at least attempt their language they are appreciative. I can only imagine why because if someone were to come into my work and bust out fluent French or something and expect me to know it, I'd be excuse me, you can go somewhere else.

In the end I successfully mailed the letter, and at the end of the Italian conversation he busted out English. At least I'm learning.

Afterwards, Kate and I went to our friend Yelena's house and we cooked dinner. Chicken, pasta and mashed potatoes. It was delicious.

Today (Tuesday) was another long Tuesday, but I have been enjoying my classes and have actually been productive. I wrote out my cover letter, updated my resume and began applying for more internships and scholarships. More than I've done the past three weeks here.

Today I also had a meeting with Flonthego, which is a website in Florence that the Communication students have to write four articles while we're here. Compared to being a writer and editor at the same time last semester, writing four articles total for the semester should be pretty easy.

Check out the website if you're interested: www.flonthego.com — I'll post links to my articles on here when I do them.

For the website, I have to pick a category I want to write for. There is the Arts, Music, Opera & Theatre, Travel and Lifestyle. All you do is write a presentation article 15 days before the event happens that you are going to cover and then you go to the event and write a critique the next day. It allows people in Florence to know what's going on and for students my age to see what their peer thinks about it. I think it's a really good idea and a cool online publication.

The other perk about it is that the editors can get me either free or discounted tickets for events, simply because I'm writing for them. Not too shabby. I was nervous in the beginning when I found out about this project because I thought I would have to interview Italians and write articles about the events, and knowing my Italian I would fail at doing it, so imagine the relief when I learned it was opinion based. I also just love to write — obviously, look at my blog— so it's another excuse to write more.

I'm off to make some hot tea! Buona notte!

When in Rome!

Friday

Rome. Where to even start? A city filled with history, beautifulness and crazy drivers tugged at my heart strings as the shuttle took me from the train station to my hotel.

Getting up early Friday morning was a pain in my butt. My alarm went off at 6:45 telling me it was time to venture to another city. Not being a morning person works against me. The night before I showered and packed because I knew I would forget to do something or end up rushing in the morning. Plus, if I had to shower I knew I would have to wake up a lot earlier because my roommates had to shower too.

So as we locked out apartment at 7:30 A.M. we started our 20 minute hike to the train station. Two of my roommates had book-bags and my other roommate had a carry bag. I, however, thought it would be easier to bring my tiny suitcase with wheels. WRONG. Trailing that thing behind me on cobblestone was not too much fun. Yes, it was easier and my back did not hurt, but I was convinced it wasn't going to have wheels by the end of the weekend. Also, I probably woke up the city of Florence with it because of the "thumpity thump thump" noises it was making.

Arriving five minutes late to the station, we still were able to find our group. This trip was funded through my fee I had to pay with my tuition so we had chaperones for it. Our tickets were already bought and ready to go, which made life a lot easier. The best part was we were able to take the fast train. It took about an hour and a half and we flew through the countryside. Even though we were going fast I was still able to see the pure beauty of the Tuscan countryside passing wineries and country houses.

As beautiful as it was, my sleepiness took over and I was out.

It was about a 15 minute drive from the train station to our hotel with Roman traffic. Let me tell you, I thought it was scary enough being in the back of a taxi in Florence, but in a bus, oh my gosh I thought I was going to poop my pants. We almost took out a moped and the funny part was the guy driving it was fine with it! I could never drive here. I would be in an ambulance within ten minutes of being on the roads.

We stayed at a hotel called Hotel Navona. Now when I went on this hotel's website I looked at the rooms and the looked so pretty and spacious and the beds looked huge. It ended up being what felt like the size of a closet.

Now it was really cute, I'm not going to lie, but trying to maneuver around this closet of a room was quite the experience. Not to mention our bathroom was smaller than my closet at home.

After we checked into our rooms at the hotel our two chaperones, which were basically just there to show us around, took us to see the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. The Forum ended up being closed because transportation services were on strike. I knew a lot was going on in Italy, but I didn't realize how bad it was. I was told traveling in Italy is not good right now because a lot of transportation services are striking. I need to look more into it, but my teacher told me that the new Prime Minister passed something new that affects a lot of people and they are not happy about it.

After seeing the Forum from the street we walked straight to the Colosseum. My teacher was telling us all of the history behind it, but unfortunately I could not hear her because there were 39 of us trying to weasel our way in closer to her. I soon gave up and just looked at my surroundings and couldn't grasp the fact I was in Rome. I've seen pictures, I've been thinking about all of these landmarks since i can last remember, and here I was, standing a few feet away from this very old structure.

We had tickets to tour it, so we went in and climbed stairs to the second level and walked around the entire building. Words cannot describe what it was like to walk through it. It wasn't on my list of things to see over here, but it was mind blowing. Kory is very into history and watching discovery channel and all I could think about was "wow, I cannot wait to bring him back here and experience this with him." He'll probably appreciate it ten times more than me and we'll know everything there is to know about it within five minutes of being there — He said so himself.

After the Colosseum Jess, Kate and I went to grab lunch from this grab 'n' go place. Thank god it was time for food because all I ate was a yogurt and granola bar at 7:00 and it was not 1:00. When I get hungry I get weak and grumpy, as many of you probably already know.

The place had seats under a tent, and the best past about lunch was that it was right across the street from the Colosseum. My friend Jess couldn't have said it better, "Guys, we're eating lunch in front of the Colosseum. This is unreal."

After lunch we met back up with the group of 39 and our we went to the Pantheon. The church was gorgeous and breath taking. It was simply a massive circle shape with an opening in the ceiling. The floors even had holes to drain the water for when it rains.

Next, our itinerary allotted us free time for the rest of the day. I was wide awake and was all set to keep walking around, but a lot of my friends still had to check into their hotel rooms because they were not ready when we arrived. So I went back and laid on my bed to wait. Before I knew it, sleepiness overwhelmed me. It was about 4:30 so I set an alarm for 5 for a little cat nap. Didn't wake up so easily and slept until 6:30. It was a much needed nap.

Once Lydia and I gathered a few of our friends we ventured out to see Rome. We found the Trevi Fountain and I fell in love with it. It's so beautiful, especially when it's lit up at night. We didn't have coins on us so we didn't make any wishes that night. I asked a guy sitting down to take a picture of my friends and I. After we asked him if he was American and he and his friends told us they were from Minnesota studying Spanish is Madrid. It was really cool to meet people from my country and a state I've never been to. There are so many students studying all over Europe and it's always cool to run into them.

Afterwards we went back to wake up our friend Erika and then we stumbled upon this fantastic restaurant. I cannot remember the name, but they had a special for bruchetta, any type of pasta or pizza, homemade dessert for €16! The group of six of us all got the special and ordered two bottles of water and two bottles of wine. Everything was to die for! It was probably the best mean I've had since arriving in Italy. And the people working there were so friendly and welcoming, it just topped off the evening.

After being stuffed silly, we made our way to the rest of our friends at a bar called Trinity College and then made our way back to the hotel where I crashed into my bed. Walking all day and going hard from 6:45 A.M. to 1 A.M. the next day wears on you.

Saturday

I was able to sleep in a little later. About an hour later. Not good enough. When my alarm went off I've been more confused in my life. I was in such a deep sleep and in such a deep dream that I was completely thrown off when reality woke me.

After showering, grabbing breakfast from the hotel, and meeting the group in the lobby at 9:30, we began our busy, event-filled day. Our chaperone, Petra, whom I love, led us on a 20 minute walk to Vatican City. This trip was unreal. This was the one item on my itinerary I was really looking forward to. I just wish I wasn't so tired during it all.

We met my Italian Art teacher at the entrance of the Vatican museum. He told us the Vatican has about 10,000 rooms inside of it which is crazy! It took about 2 or 3 hours to walk through the entire thing, which didn't include walking around and looking at every room.

I really appreciated the fact that we had headsets that our teacher spoke to us through and talked us through our walk about the history of everything. In the Sistine Chapel I learned that Michelangelo painted it. It took him four years when he thought it would take him one. He stood up the entire time while painting it, even while he was painting the ceiling. You would think he would have been lying down on something while doing the ceiling, but he didn't. My teacher said Michelangelo said he could never read books the same way again because his eyes were so used to looking up while painting.

The really cool fact I learned was that Michelangelo was recommended by an artist named Rafael. He recommended him because he thought Michelangelo would screw it up and would it would make Rafael look better than him, but it did the exact opposite.

We ended the tour at St. Peter's Basilica. During my time there I had an emotional moment, and I really have no idea why. I knelt down to pray in front of Pope John Paul II's tomb. I started thinking about my mom and how happy I was that I get to share this with her here in a few months. Pope John Paul II is her favorite and I thought to myself, wow, I'm sitting right in front of him. I'm just thankful for everything that I have and for these experiences I am able to take on.

My friend Bethany and I decided it was time to leave after a half hour of looking around. While we were walking we watched these two men trying to avoid the police. We saw a man holding scarves hiding behind a truck and then a police car turn on its lights. The road was blocked because it was one way so the tiny police car had to go all the way to the end of the road and come back. Every time the police car did that the scarf man ran across the street and then the police would speed up and try to turn around again. The set up of the roads were definitely against the police but it was hilarious watching it. Needless to say, the police didn't catch them.

On our walk home we stopped at a restaurant for a quick lunch and ran into some Kent State people and ate lunch with them. It was a cute, quaint Italian restaurant off the main road. I had the pizza and cola deal for €10. Another good deal!

We met up with a couple of our other friends after lunch and made our way back to the Trevi Fountain. This time we made wishes!

After taking a much-needed hour and a half nap, I got all dressed up and the entire Kent group went out for a fully-paid, three-course meal at Trattoria Da Luigi. I scarfed down the first course, which consisted of pasta and risotto because I was starving and I thought that it was my dinner. However, I forgot pasta is only the first course meal here. Next we had what we think was a roast and potatoes. I'm not too much of a meat person except for chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers, but I didn't want to be rude, so I tried it. Eh, I tried it at least. The third course was salad. I find it funny it's their third course here because it's our first at home.

Lastly, I had tiramisu. SO GOOD. I could never get sick of such a good dessert.

Afterwards, Petra went out for a few drinks with us. We sat outside on a patio and were just talking and enjoying the night in Rome.

Sunday

Sunday morning I had to wake up an hour earlier than Saturday, but I just grew used to feeling exhausted. After chugging a cup of coffee and downing a pastry, we grabbed our luggage from our room that we packed the previous night.

After packing the bus up with everyone's luggage the bus drove us to Galleria Borghese. Rome was absolutely empty at 8:30 A.M. It was a different experience driving through Rome with no bumper to bumper traffic.

At the Galleria Rocky, my teacher described to us the history of everything while we walked past it, which was really cool. Seeing all of the stone sculptures was amazing. All of the sculptures started out as a block of marble, and somehow the artist created works of art that looked like an actual human being. It amazes me at what human beings were capable of back then. Now everything is done digitally and half the effort is put into everything. It's a let down.

The rest of the day Rocky led us around into a few churches and we were able to go into them and learn the history of them. Later a few of my friends grabbed lunch and ventured around Rome during our final hours in the city.

The entire Kent group took a shuttle from the hotel to the train station and we were home at 7 P.M. Walking home was a drag, but I was in bed and asleep by 12:30 which is early for me. I'm going to try to do the same tonight because I felt so refreshed with nine hours of sleep.

The trip was a lot in three days and it took a lot out of me, but I cannot complain about that because it was worth it all! I loved Rome, and I cannot wait to go back with my family when they visit in April!

L'arte italiana

When I had my five week orientation class in November, one of the classes was dedicated to signing up for classes. We didn't have a plethora of options, but regardless, we had several. Once class that instantly caught my attention of Italian Art. I've always enjoyed the topic, but I haven't taken any courses in art.

I am beyond thrilled that I decided to take this course. On Tuesdays we stay in the classroom and learn about different arts and what they mean and then Thursdays we go out into Florence and see "in real life" what we learned on Tuesdays.

This week we learned about Saint Francis of Assisi and how the Franciscan church came to be. Today we went to Santa Croce, which is actually right by my apartment. Since I went with the class, I was able to get in for free instead of paying the five euro admission fee. Now, I'm sure the money came from my tuition somehow, but I'm still happy I didn't have to use my spending money.

The paintings and sculptures were absolutely beautiful. The most fascinating fact I learned today was that this church holds the burial tombs for Michelangelo and Gallileo. To think two men who I have read about in textbooks in class are buried in what is basically my backyard, is mind boggling.

Here's some interesting facts I learned about this church:

-Santa Croce was built in 1294 and the architect is to be unknown.

-When this church was built in the 13th century there were two rich families who patron the church. In order to patron the church you would buy chapels where you would be buried. The second richest family of the 13th century actually owned the buildings where my apartment is.

-There are tombs in the ground of the church and you can see them outlined on the floors. Some of them are family tombs, meaning families have one grave. If you see an oval-like shape on the tomb, there are two hooks that turn to open the oval. Once the oval is open the bodies would be slid down through there. Two years after the deaths, someone would go down into the tomb through the oval and gather all of the bones and put them in one corner. This made room for more family bodies when other died.

-It is in the Catholic faith that on judgement day if your body is all in one place, you will be able to get to heaven faster. This is why the people would put all the bones in one corner of the tomb two years after death.

Bon Appetit!

It's been a busy past two days to say the least. Obviously, since I haven't posted a blog in that time. It's been a good two days though.

Yesterday I had classes, which nothing major happened at. It's not much different than being in Kent, except for the Italian accents my teachers have. I really enjoy listening to them talk to each other in Italian. It's such a beautiful language. I really wish I was fluent in another language, and I wish I could just switch it just like that. My poor children. I'm making them start when they're seven years old or so with another language. I think it's so important to be fluent in something other than English. English is the dominating language around the world, but I'd still like to know something else.

Last night I went over to my friend Carolyn's apartment for dinner. She's over here with the architecture program, which has been in Florence for over 40 years. The journalism school just started coming here two years ago.

Anyways, I've been friends with her since freshman year. She lived across the hall from me, and we lived across the hall sophomore year too. Last night I met her roommates who are also in architecture and her other friends in architecture who came over for dinner.

Carolyn cooked a fantastic chicken meal with vegetables. That with a few glasses of wine made the night a lot of fun. I feel like all we did was laugh. Afterwards her roommate, Carolyn and I went out to an Irish Pub with more architecture students. It was a lot of fun and nice to meet other people. I've never been out on a Monday night and Carolyn and I kept saying we couldn't believe we were out on a school night. But hey, you're only studying abroad once! It's not like I'm making it a weekly thing.

Today I had classes and the day went by decently fast, which surprised me. Since Tuesdays are my long days, I dread them when my alarm goes off. However, it was a good day. In my European Practicum class my teacher took us to one of the spots where we can choose to make a video.

For the class we have to make a five minute or so documentary on a topic we choose that they give us. The choices are jewelry making, leather making or mosaic making. Today we went to a shop for the mosaic makers.

I have never seen anything like it before. This is a type of art where they use all natural stones they find to create pieces of art. The owner of the store has been working at the store for 60 years, starting at eight years old. This art has been around since the Renaissance, and these artisans make all of these artwork pieces the same way they did back then: by hand.

The owner's shop we visited is family owned and has been since it first opened in 1852. He said this type of art is something you learn as a child growing up and a skill you have to obtain rather than be gifted it. He said there are only four shops left in Florence.

While we were there our teacher had to translate for us because he and his son did not speak a lick of English. When he would say words I know I would kind of understand what he was saying, but at the same time he was talking really fast — like I do in English.

But it was interesting because I could follow what he was kind of thinking or saying by his facial expressions. For instance, when someone in my group would ask him a question he thought was funny he would laugh or if he told us a joke. Even without the actual words used to communicate I could grasp what he was trying to get to.

Another wonderful experience I got to have tonight was a free cooking class. Now when I say free, I'm sure it came out of my tuition somehow, someway. Kent State books activities for students to sign up for while here and they are all free. For instance there is the opera, a tour of the gucci museum, etc. All of which I plan to do. But tonight I went on the cooking trip to "In Tavola."

We all met at the school and Petra, the person in charge of organizing the event, led us across the Ponte Vecchio, a well-known bridge in Florence, about 10 minutes away to a cooking class. There were 29 of us and we split up into different groups. There were about 9 of us in my group in one kitchen.

From there we made vegetable millefoglie as appetizers, homemade noodles, homemade ragu'alla bolognese sauce, homemade tomato and garlic pasta sauce, and homemade tiramisu.

Oh.my.lanta. It was all so delicious. I know I had helping hands, but I never thought I would or could contribute to something so tasty. Making the noodles was so cool. All it was, was flour, egg and a little salt and voila! You have noodles.

Afterwards the group of 29 went downstairs and ate our delicious three-course meal.

Sidenote: I wrote this blog Tuesday night, but I'm posting it Wednesday because I got distracted last night. A.D.D. much?

Sitting back and relaxing

Today I was in much need of a resting day. Almost every day so far I've been running about and trying to see things, shopping, grocery shopping or school. Today I needed a break and get all my ducks lined up.

I made a to-do list and I have finished up almost everything so far. The one thing that takes forever to do no matter what is laundry. I put one load in last night and one load in today, simply because it all wouldn't fit in at once due to the size of the machine.

My roommates have all done their laundry at least once or twice since we've been here, but I haven't done anything in two weeks. Thank goodness for packing a plethora of socks and underwear!

I started the laundry last night at around 10:30. The machine finally decided it was done cleaning at about 1:30 A.M. I was too tired to put it out to dry, so I grabbed it out this morning and then threw the rest of my clothes in for today.

Here's the difficult part about doing laundry during the day: You cannot use any other appliances while it is on. You can only use one appliance at a time. For instance if I'm cooking something on the stove or oven, my roommate cannot be straightening her her. You can charge computers or cameras and such while an appliance is on, but that's all. It takes up too much electricity and if you do have more than one on then the electricity goes off.

I asked my roommates if they needed anything for the next three hours, and they said no. After about a half hour, Kate realized she wanted to cook lunch and then we realized she couldn't. So it was bread a jam for lunch until about 4:30 when the washer was finished.

It hasn't been a problem yet, it's just a matter of planning and making sure everyone is okay with not using anything.

Now I'll just wait for my clothes to dry over the next day and work on homework.

The leaning tower of where?

This morning when my alarm went off at 8:30 A.M. I immediately regretted staying up until 2:30 reading. The only thing that got me out of bed was the fact that I knew one of my roommates would beat me to it and then I would have to rush to get ready.

Today I went to Pisa. To see what? I'm sure you can figure it out. The leaning tower of Pisa! My roommates and I met some of the group at the Duomo and ventured to

the train station. The trains to Pisa run about every half hour so we weren't in any rush.

Once we got there we purchased our tickets for only 5.90 euro each way. Not bad at all. Once we got on the train we enjoyed a wonderful ride through the Tuscany countryside.

I was told by a few people that there is nothing to do in Pisa. It's just the leaning tower and that's all. Once we got out of the train station I found that hard to believe because the city was gorgeous.

It took about 20 minutes to talk there, but it was well worth it. I got my traditional picture of holding up the tower!

I was pleasantly surprised at how pretty everything was. Italy is just beautiful all around, and I cannot wait to see more of it.

Planning trips are not as easy as I thought...

So the reason I did not write last night was because I was completely stressed out with planning my trip to Auschwitz. I was trying to book this trip from 6 p.m.-1 a.m. off and on. At first I thought planning trips would be relatively easy. Pick a flight, pick a place to stay, transportation and voila, it'd be all ready to go.

Three other girls and I are going on this trip. Yelena found flights from Rome to Krakow, Poland for 45 euro which is about 57 dollars, which isn't bad at all for a flight. So we booked it. Wrong decision.

After we booked it we started looking for trains from Florence to Rome. Then we looked for hostels in Krakow. We had luck with the latter and not so much with the former.

We got a hostel for two nights for 17 American dollars for each person. It looks cute too. I thought hostels were all like bunk beds and small like dorm rooms.

Here's a link to where I will be staying: http://www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/poland/krakow/4924/

Now that we had that booked, Kate and I began the search for trains again. This is what drained everything out of me. All trains stop running at 9:00. Oh and another thing — everything here is in military time. So I'm learning to use that now too.

So if we leave at 9 p.m. we get at the Rome main airport at 11:00 p.m. Here's the kicker. The main airport is not what we fly out of. We fly out of a small airport 20-30 minutes away and we can only get there by bus. Oh wait, our flight is at 6:30 A.M. and the buses don't start running until 4:30 A.M. So it looks like we're spending the night at the Rome main airport. HELLO COFFEE!!

Other than that, everything will hopefully, HOPEFULLY go smoothly. Everything always works out in the end — that's what my motto always is, but last night I could not get those words through my head.

On the bright side, I'm going to Auschwitz!! I'm so excited. Today in class my Italian teacher had us ask each other questions — in Italian, obviously — as an exercise, and someone asked me where I was going to travel. I said Auschwitz, and Nicoletta, my teacher, was very interested and told me I had to tell her about it when I got back.

A look into the past: I've always enjoyed learning about the Holocaust in school. Now don't take that the wrong way. I wish the events never happened, but I've always been interested in the subject. When we had to read Ann Frank's diary in the eighth grade, I read it from cover to cover. When we learned about it in history, I was always paying attention. I've only seen black and white pictures, so to put this into real life is going to be unreal. I've been told it's a really hard journey to go through this camp, and I can only imagine.

I've been to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. twice. Once in the 10th grade and once this past summer. The first time I was in it forever, and this past year I was with Kory and I made him look at everything.

____________________________________________________________________

Today in my Art History class we started our ventures around Florence. This class is going to be fun because for almost every class we are outside of the classroom. Our teacher takes us around town and shows us sculptures and plazas and tells us the history behind it all.

I find history fascinating and listening to him talk about the history of where I was standing was very interesting. I felt knowledgeable too because yesterday in the Genius of Florence, another class, we had learned a little bit about the history of the city, so when my Art History teacher was asking a few questions, I knew something.

Growing up in America, you learn about some history about Europe, but mainly you learn about America — obviously. So learning about another country's past was new to me, and I liked it.

Another happy note: I think I'm finally finding my way around the city and know where I am. It only took me about a week and a half to figure it out, no big deal.

I'm not in Kansas anymore

Tuesdays are definitely going to be my longest days of the week. I have four classes starting at 9:15 and ending at 6:00. I have a break from 1:45-3:30, and I took a quick "napski," which refreshed me a bit.

Today I had two of the classes I had yesterday, and then I had my Italian Art class and my Practicum in European Media. I am really excited for my Italian Art Class. We only meet a few times in the classroom for lectures throughout the semester, and the other days we meet we're out touring museums and churches. I took the class because I want to learn about the art and history of this city. I knew that if I had a teacher introducing all of the information to me I would be more prone to learn it.

For the Practicum in European Media class, we are making one documentary for the semester. It's going to be interesting because I only know a little about producing a video. I made a few in my videography class and one for a fashion blog I wrote for last semester. So I know something about Final Cut Pro, the computer editing software, but I don't know everything.

With everything in journalism going online, it's vital to know how to post interesting things with your story, and a video is something that will add to it.

Besides school I did something I rarely do. I cooked, and I was quite happy with myself. Now, I can bake really well because it requires exact measurements with a strict recipe to follow, but with cooking, you can just throw stuff together.

So I decided to visit online recipe websites and start with something simple. I found chicken salad with mayo. Easy enough, right? I ventured to one of the supermarkets, Meta, and picked up the essential ingredients. One of which was chicken — of course. Now everything in this store is in Italian so it said Petto di Pollo a fette. I knew di meant of and pollo was chicken so I assumed it meant something of chicken. Now I pondered on what a fette was. It looked like chicken breast, so I just grabbed it.

Once I got back to the apartment I had my friend Jess look up what it meant. Thank God it was chicken breast. For all I know it could have meant feet of chicken.

After that situation I whipped up a very satisfying meal. You have to understand I am not a very domestic woman. I've burnt grilled cheese before, BUT I'm learning. I signed up for an Italian cooking class which is free through the school for next Tuesday, and I am looking forward to that.

Fun fact I keep forgetting to post is that at that the supermarket they charge you about 20 cents for bags, and you bag your groceries yourself. You feel like an idiot in the beginning when you stand there thinking the cashier is going to bag them for you like at home. In that sense I think we're spoiled in America and don't think about too much. It's the little things here that are different, but they make you realize you aren't at home.

I have to go to the post office sometime this week to get stamps to mail a few things, and I have to admit I am nervous because I don't want to screw it up and overpay for something. It's definitely a learning experience. Our teachers have said if you don't feel uncomfortable at times here, you're not getting the full experience. Culture shock is something very real.

So many choices!

Tonight "mi familia" sat down and tried to start planning our trips we want to take over the next four months. Unfortunately I do not have the money nor the time to accomplish all of these, but here is my bucket list (in no particular order):

- Pisa

-Spain

-Southern Italy

-France

-Dublin

-Amsterdam

-Auschwitz

-Greece

-London

-France

-Venice

Now here are my absolute must sees:

-Auchwitz because I have always been interested in the Holocaust and learning about it. It was such a big part in the world's history, and I am so close to it.

-Milan because I want to meet my family near this town. I plan on writing to them and meeting them. I was in class for the first time today and both of my teachers asked if I was Italian, asked about my past and said my name was really popular. That made me so excited because back in the States it's not too big. Also, the said the name Bianchi is a very well known name and that is one of my mom's really good friend's last name. When they went to Milan to visit they went to a cemetery and saw both our last names next to each other. I would really like to find that.

-Greece because I have always been in love with the pictures of this country. It has always been on my list of places to travel to. It is stunningly beautiful and I cannot imagine what it is like in person.

-Ireland because I want to meet my family there from my mother's side. My grandma said her first cousins really want to meet me and that excites me. I want to get to know another part of my past.

-Venice because the pictures of the water through the city have always grabbed my attention.

-Southern Italy because it's simply warm and I really want to see the mediterranean sea.

If I can't get to everything else on my bucket list, I'm okay with that because I plan on coming back. I find this place amazingly beautiful. Before I left home for this trip I started thinking about coming to Europe and freelancing my writing and living pay check to pay check and experiencing different cultures. I'm starting to think I'd really like that more than spending my time in New York City. It's funny how your opinion and life goals change over time. It honestly scares me.

In other news, classes started today and I'm thinking they're not going to be as hard as Kent's are at home. I think they will still have their harder times, but the teachers here know you are here to travel and experience things.

I really enjoy my professors so far. Nicoletta, my Italian teacher is a sweetheart and I'm looking forward to learning from her. Fabio, my Intercultural Communications teacher is entertaining and I look forward to learning from him as well.

I started forgetting that I was over here for classes too, but I think they're going to be fun to learn in and on the bright side, I have to walk to Florence in 50 degree weather to get to class instead of through Kent, OH in 17 degree weather!

It's like an ice box in here

I'm finding it difficult to adjust to how Italians live in the sense of heat. It is the Italy law that you are only allowed to have your heat on for 10 hours a day. Therefore, our heat is on 6a.m.-9a.m., 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Every time it is off it is absolutely freezing in this apartment.

I am naturally a freeze baby. I shiver in the 30-40 degree weather, and when there is no heat on I freeze under my blankets.

Yesterday I saw that it was 17 degrees at home and a snowy blizzard. It made me so happy when it was in the fifties and sunny here. The fact I get to miss winter this year is a really odd thought, but hey I'm not complaining.

Today I also found myself waking up at 3:30 p.m. I think it's safe to say I've been in a dire need for sleep. So other than sleeping today, I'm just lounging around the apartment.

I went out to shop with the roommates for a little, but I think because I got too much sleep I'm just drowsy. So now I'm making pasta and laying on that couch for the rest of the night, and tomorrow I start my first day of classes. Buono notte!

I don't understand you miss

"Can I have a medium patate?"

"I don't understand miss."

"Can I have a patate?"

"Si."

Now not knowing what size I just ordered I paid for my McDonald's french fries and hoped it was a medium and not an extra large.

Even though Italians know English as well, there are some who cannot understand and I am learning new words and how to communicate better with others. For instance, I learned medium in Italian is Medie. The poor woman at the cash register was so confused, but I finally got it across.

Trying to communicate with a language I've only had a semester of is difficult, but I feel like I'm slowly getting better. I know the simple terms like thank you, your welcome, good morning, afternoon and goodnight, how much does this cost, etc. It's gotten me through these couple of days here.

However, even though I've used English a lot more than Italian I like trying to use what I know and give it a try. I'm finding the people appreciate it if you try.

Although, there are people who just don't like Americans. Today Lydia and I went into a store and the woman said "buon giorno" and we replied with the same. She must have heard our accents because when we said "ciao" she gave us a snotty look and said "bye."

It's the luck of the draw I suppose.

Today Lydia and I ventured into town and got lost, not on purpose, but it turned out to be a great mistake because we got to see parts of the city we haven't been introduced to yet. We ended up being four or five bridges away from ours, which was quite the hike. Once we got back, Lydia figured out that we had walked four miles!

I was told to bring comfy shoes because all I'll do is walk here, and boy I couldn't agree more. I could not tell you how many miles I have walked in the past three days. More than I did over winter break, I can tell you that much! My legs are definitely feeling it.

The city is beautiful though and I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.

Orientation

Today was orientation and to summarize it in one word it was long. I woke up wide awake at 6 A.M. for some odd reason and could not fall back asleep. So Lydia and I started off the day with some of the other girls at cafe Mario at the corner of our street at 7:30 A.M.

I got this delicious pastry and a cappuccino. At first Lydia and I stood at the bar and were going to eat it there because we thought you weren't allowed to sit, but then the bartista told us to sit down.

The day pretty much consisted of sitting in a large room with 133 other Kent State students. Other students from other schools are apart of the Kent State program, which I didn't know happened. So it's nice to meet people from other places.

During our lunch break we went to an Irish pub. We got there at 11:30 and wondered why it was so empty. We forgot Italians don't eat lunch until 1 or 2 in the afternoon; however, since we had to be back at orientation at 1:30 we had no choice.

Something I've learned about Italy so far is that you order your food with your drinks. The waitress got our drinks for us and never came back, and we had to ask her if we could order food. She was very patient with us.

I also find it so odd because you don't tip over here. Since I'm a waitress I find that so bizarre, but they get paid minimum wage. I wouldn't like that at all because I can make bank on tips and it's cash that I can get right away. You can leave a few cents if you want and the waitresses are very appreciative, but it doesn't bother them if you don't.

After the food reception at the school my roommates and I went to a supermarket. It felt like a typical grocery store where you get a cart and stock up. The thing about Italians though is that they don't stock up for a week or two like we do. They buy what they need for dinner and that's all. So I'm trying to see what it's like to live like they do, so I got some yogurt for breakfast, juice, and cheese and crackers for a snack tonight. It only racked up to 5 euro, which was fantastic.

Now I'm just relaxing, sipping on wine and eating my crackers and cheese. Perhaps i'll curl up with a book tonight. It was a long day, so i'll be getting to bed at a decent out tonight.

La bella città

This morning I woke up to complete darkness. Mybedroom has windows, but when they are shut so you would think it's the middleof the night. So when I woke up at 11 A.M. it looked like it was 6 A.M.

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.

It's no longer a dream

This isn't a dream anymore! I'm in Italy sitting on my couch. It finally it me when I got to my apartment that I'm here and that I'm not able to go home. I am nervous/excited. It's the strangest thing thinking that this is my home for the next four months.

When I first arrived we grabbed our luggage and were given a taxi and boy do Italians drive like mad. I thought we were going to either crash into another car or hit a pedestrian. I can only imagine if we drove like that we'd get the finger all the time.

Once we got to our apartment, Lydia and I were exhausted. Two men helped us carry our luggage up three (which felt like five) sets of stairs. I was so thankful because I had NO idea how I was going to carry 150 pounds worth up those stairs. When they were leaving I said thank you and he asked the other woman who was with us in Italian how to say "you're welcome." It was so cute.

After Jess and Kate arrived by taxi the Italian woman from the Housing Agency for students gave us a tour of our apartment and helped show us how to do things around noon. I must note that we have to take short showers here because water is expensive. I take 15 minute showers. This will be a task for sure. Also, we cannot have more than one appliance on at a time or else the power will go out. SO, we cannot have the washer running while someone straightens their hair or the oven on while someone is blow drying their hair. PLUS the washer can have cycles that take up to three hours. Life changing!

Next I was laying in bed and before I knew it it was 6:30 p.m. I had slept half the day away. Jet lag is a real thing. I also thinking running off of 4 hours sleep within 36 hours just about did it for me.

Once I showered and got all squeaky clean, Lydia, Jess, Kate and I went out to try to meet some of the other girls for dinner. Since it was out first night in Italy, we didn't know our way around much. Needless to say we got lost and ended up at this cute little Italian restaurant. I of course got pasta with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. It was very delicious! I also got bruchetta as an appetizer and it was to die for!

The thing I find hilarious is that Italians know we are American before I even speak a lick of English or attempt to speak Italian. I don't understand why and it drives me nuts. So our waitress knew immediately we were.

Once we left dinner we ventured to the river which was absolutely gorgeous. The way the buildings and lights reflect off of the water is stunning and breath taking!

For the rest of the night I relaxed and unpacked for the rest of the night. Enjoying Italy!