Sono Qui

Yep, that's right, I'm in Italy. At this very moment, while all of you are sleeping away, it is 12:15pm here and I am sitting in this wonderful little cafe drinking tea and eating a chocolate pastry. Yum. We found this cafe right down the street from my apartment that has free wifi. So, my roommate and I got up today (after sleeping in a little - jetlag is a pretty serious ailment) and headed to this cafe to check some e-mail and whatnot. It is so good to hear a little from home too.

sidenote - a dog just came and left the cafe.

Okay, back to being in Italy. The flights were long, the lay overs were longer (not really, but it seemed like it. I sat in Frankfurt for 4 and a half hours.) But, alas, I am here. My apartment is fantastic. Sarah Rumsey would love it!! Someone tell Sarah that I said that, because I have a feeling she won't check this for a while. We live on the top floor, up about 70 flights of stairs (really 8 I think, because we live on the American fourth, and Italian third floor, and there are two flights of stairs per floor). Either way, it's way up there, and lugging my luggage up that was a chore. We have two beautiful views. One overlooks these awesome red rooftops, and trees, and the other is to this little area between all the apartments where everyone hangs their clothes to dry. That's right, we have one of those great hang your clothes outside on lines places. It's just awesome. I wish I had uploaded my pictures. Somehow I messed that up, so you'll just have to wait a few more days. Maybe I'll get them on tonight, but doubtful.

The whole city is just, I don't even know if I can say. All the buildings are old and everyone speaks Italian. That's the easiest way to describe it, but I know that helps you absolutely none. I love just walking down the street and listening to the people around me, and knowing that in a few days I will begin to hopefully understand some. When that happens I'll be able to get up early in the morning and listen to the neighbors below me who cook the most amazing smelling breakfast and spy on their conversations. We have to leave our windows open for airflow. The windows are even amazing. Sarah would like them too. And she would like this dog that keeps coming into this cafe and the cashier keeps saying, "Vai, vai" which means go, go. Awe.

The Duomo - I cannot forget the duomo. We saw it first at night - my first night here in fact. I was with my roommates and we were just wandering up this street thinking it would be a few more streets 'til we came upon it and then suddenly it just began to appear around the corner. Beautiful. Absolutely incredible. Again, my pictures. Darn.

And the Santa Croce. I live probably two minutes walk from the Santa Croce. I have serious plans to do all my homework sitting in the piaza overlooking it. Our first dinner was at this restaurant (where whatever I ordered was not what I wanted), but we sat outside, right next to the Piazza di Santa Croce. It was beautiful. The weather here is nice too. I don't miss humidity one single bit. I like the breeze and the shadows all the tall buildings make for the streets below that keep everything cooler.

La Vita é Bella

Deep Breath.

By this time tomorrow I'll be chillin' over the Atlantic Ocean. And man am I ready to be there. My bags are packed; my camera's charged; my ipod is about to be updated. I have run more last minute errands than anyone should ever attempt. It has been a long summer of preparation and working and stressing, and it all comes down to tomorrow - and the next four months.

Whoa! I'm leaving for Italy tomorrow! Yeah, that sounds strange. The next time I put a post on here it will be from an Internet Train somewhere around Florence. Seriously, that's totally strange. I mean, I've been talking about this for a while, but tomorrow really isn't that far away. It is in fact... tomorrow. I can't think about it anymore.

Enough with the goodbyes. Bring on the hellos.

- 17.5 hours

preparativi

Check it out.

Preparing is not as fun as it should be. It shouldn't be this stressful to put my entire life into two medium sized suitcases. I mean, it is just packing, but a serious, scary kind of packing. The whole thing is starting to feel more real though. I mean, I'm actually leaving for Italy on Monday. Not, "I'm going to go to Italy one day," but "I'm going to Italy next week - this coming Monday." That's strange.

So, yeah - there's not much else to do now except wait. And pack. And say a few more goodbyes. And drink as much sweet tea as I possibly can in the next few days. And make a lot of copies of a lot of documents. And make too many decisions for an indecisive person to make in five days. And get my teeth cleaned. And celebrate my mom's 50th birthday. And keep reminding myself that in six days I will be staring at the duomo saying, "wow, all that stress was totally worth it."

- five days.

solo 10 giorni

Correction to the previous post.

My apartment is actually located here.

I was moved. Sadly I'm about 20 minutes closer to the school, except that's not sad at all. So, now I will be approximately 10 minutes walk from the school building.

Only 10 more days.

due settimane

Only two weeks more now and I will be nervously going through security (minus any liquids) and getting on a plane that will take me to an airport that will take me to a foreign country far far away. And, upon arriving (in two weeks and one day), I will be taken to the main building of my school located here. Then, I will be further shuttled to my apartment located here, where I will live with five other girls on the third floor of what I assume to be a very very very small apartment.

And there I shall live, while enjoying the Tuscan countryside and and living among the Florentines for the next 3 and a half months.

All in 14 days.

la visa è arrivata

My visa finally made its way here, and boy do I feel relieved. Seriously, I can now breath again. I was pretty worried about it, but I can officially enter the country... if I don't lose any of the five hundred and thirty-three papers I have to keep with me and have available when I go through customs. (The aforementioned number is both an approximation and an exaggeration.) But the point is, I have the visa and the papers and a plane ticket and luggage and will be getting traveller's cheques tomorrow, and so I pretty much have all the big stuff done. Now, it's just down to packing and figuring out if I want to take the blue shirt of the green one? or will both of them fit in my bags? or ... well you get the point. And I can handle it.

As far as field trips go, I finally made a decision after much deliberation. I will be taking a three day trip to the Amalfi Coast as well as a five day trip to Sicily which includes an overnight train ride and, well, did I mention it was to Sicily? Yep, I'm going to Sicily and the Amalfi Coast. P.S. for those who know Mrs. Clark-Brown and have enjoyed her multitude of lessons about Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius, the trip to Amalfi Coast includes Capri and Pompeii, so I will be seeing my sophomore and senior years of high school latin class in action. I have no complaints. Edith Hamilton and your mythology - I'm gonna have one up on you.

18 days.

Waiting...waiting...waiting...

I have hit this point in my adventure preparation I like to call the waiting period. I'm done with the major forms of preparation, and now I just have to wait. Wait. Wait. I'm a little sick of that. Honestly, it's beginning to make me nervous. This sort of nervous was one of the things for which I hadn't really prepared.

And the goodbyes have already begun, which is another thing to which I failed to give necessary consideration. My sister is coming in town this weekend, and when I say goodbye to her, it's goodbye until December. That's over four months between goodbye and hello. I am going to miss her a lot.

(Sigh)

Along with the goodbyes and the waiting period, there is the last minute decision making. I hate making decisions like this. Field trips. Should I go on the Tuscan Wine Tour or to the Amalfi Coast? Or should I go to Sicily with FUA or on my own? Who knows? But I probably should have decided that...yesterday.

24 days.