Ciao a tutti!!
I cannot believe I have been in Italy now for exactly a week. So much has happened since last Wednesday when I left my small town in the USA to fly over 5,000 miles to a country where they speak a totally different language and have different customs. So far I love it here in Lecce, it is a beautiful old city and soo different from my town back at home.
I guess I should start at the beginning of the trip. It was a little hard to leave my parents because they were so sad. I got to orienation at about 11:30, so not many people were there yet. We hung out for a while, waiting for people to show up. When they did there were people going to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ghana, Turkey, and South Africa. There were about 120 students there and about half were going to Italy. I found several people that were going to be staying the same city as myself. The orientation was ok, but it was basically just the rules and we also had a italian lady who did an exchange to Alaska come and tell us about Italy. The best part was getting to meet people that I had been talking to on facebook for several months.
On thursday we flew out at about 6:00, I sat next to Heather and Dani, we had awesome screens in front of each seat, so Heather and I took pictures of the flight info, and I also watched the Sex and the city movie and What Happens in Vegas. Then we had a five hour layover in Zurich, we looked around at the shops and got some amazing free chocolate samples. Then we had an hour flight to Rome, where most everyone slept.
At Rome AFS volunteers picked us up and we took buses to the hotel. Italy was totally not what I expected, when I stepped off the plane. We got our rooms and then had freetime until dinner. It was so awesome getting to meet people from other countries and talking with them. I met a really nice girl, Agnese from Latvia and I met even more poeple going to Lecce.
On the last day of orientation the poeple on my train took a bus at about 11:30 to a train station in Rome, on the train our whole section was Lecce people. It was a 6 hour train ride, but seeing the scenery was cool. But towards the end of the ride I got really nervous about meeting my host family, especially after seeing all the families at the stop before. When we got off the train my host mom came over and I was soo relieved. We went out to dinner and has pizza, which was an individual pizza for each person, then my host sister and her friends to me to the hang out place to meet more people. It was soo hard because I understood like no italian.
All my days here so far have been soo busy, my sister takes me a lot of places, and one morning I was sad because of frustration with the Italian, so my host mom called the host mother of Emmett, who lives a 15 minute walk away and we hung out at his house for a while and then explored the city. I love going out in the city on my own because it is nice to feel the freedom and to know that I can actually find my way around.
So much has happened that I cannot write it all here, but if you have any questions just let me know.
Yes, the gelato here is fabulous, especially the strawberry, I also really like nutella!!!
I have not taken a ton of pictures so far, because I dont want to feel like a tourist, but I do have some that I will upload later. It is so funny seeing tourist around the city because although I am American, I am certainly not a tourist here. I am starting to understand a little more Italian and I start school on Tuesday
Bacione, arrivederci