I'm Here!

I am finally in Italia! The first two days have been full of excitement and curiosity. I flew out of Syracuse around 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon after a tearful goodbye with my parents. As I settled into my seat on the plane and buckled my seatbelt, it finally hit me that I was REALLY going to Italy for a whole semester. Allie, Kelsey, and I flew together from Syracuse to Washington Dulles, where we maneuvered through the airport to catch our next flight directly to Roma. We coincidentally had seats next to each other. After my last and only prior trip to Europe, I knew I needed to SLEEP at some point during the flight, because we arrived at 7:45 AM in Roma. The woman sitting right next to me was from Italy, so I enjoyed chatting with her about my expectations. I asked her what I really needed to do while I was there, she replied, “EAT EVERYTHING! EAT! EAT! EAT!” (in her Italian accent of course). We also were able to discuss the gross airplane food. It was funny to watch her face and she stuck her fork into her rosemary chicken. “Che scifo!” as the Italians would say, meaning, “gross!”. I watched Bridesmaids on my laptop and later slept intermittently for the rest of the flight. I also stumbled upon several other students who were attending Lorenzo de’Medici, the university. Allie, Kelsey, and I were worried that we would be the only students, because we knew that Tuscania is typically a very small program. But to our surprise, the group ended up being much bigger than expected! When we arrived in the airport, we went through passport control and got our stamps, then proceeded to baggage claim and luckily all of our baggage was there! We met other LdM students and went to go through customs. Strangely, we didn’t have to do anything to go through customs. We went to walk through the gate and it closed so that I was the only one left on the other side. The officers pointed at me and gestured for me to come back to them. Great…I thought I was in trouble with the law already. They told us to leave, even though we were very confused that we didn’t have to do anything at all. Crazy Italians. I went through a lot of blood sweat and tears for that visa so I really wanted them to take a good, hard look at it J. We then went to a café in the airport because we had to wait until 1 PM to be picked up on our private bus to go to Tuscania. We were disappointed that we had to wait 5 hours, but we ended up meeting tons of great students. Our table at the café grew larger and larger with each hour. We soon took over basically the entire thing. There were about 20 of us in all. Most of the students are spending the whole semester in Tuscania, while others are doing what is called the Three Cities program in which they study at 3 of the LdM campuses throughout the course of one semester (Tuscania, Rome, and Venice). Friendships have already been formed and I can’t wait to get to know everyone as the semester progresses! The students are from all over: Nebraska, Texas, Massachusetts, Trinidad & Tobago, NYC, Washington state etc. We all enjoyed getting to know each other….for several hours of jet lag. We also encountered an older man who was hilarious. He was most likely drunk and he proceeded to stretch his legs in the middle of the airport while we waited to leave….

Massimo, one of our student advisors arrived at 1 to pick us up. We loaded the bus with our luggage and made our way to Tuscania. We dropped everyone off to their respective homes. Lots of students are staying in their own apartments, but Allie, Kelsey, and I are all staying with host families. Allie and I were towards the end of the drop off, and this is when I really started to get nervous! Mei, our other advisor, called our names to get off the bus and we were quickly greeted by our host mom Marisa. She is such a sweet woman! She speaks absolutely no English, so Allie and I have been working very hard to keep up and communicate to the best of our ability. She as been impressed with what we know so far, and she is constantly encouraging us. Her husband was waiting for us when we arrived. He is very funny and is always making us laugh. Marisa gave us a tour of the house and let us pick out which rooms we wanted. Both of our rooms have balconies that look out into the countryside. E BELLA! She then walked us to our school to show us how to get there, less than a ten minute walk. The town is very small, which makes it very warm, welcoming, and safe. It is “antico,” as it has been around for many many years. When I asked Marisa how long she has been in Tuscania, her response was “sempre,” meaning “always.” She said it so affectionately that I knew I would feel at home here.

Next we went out to dinner with the entire group to a restaurant, Palombella! We has a delicious meal including pasta with tomatoes and mushrooms, pork and potatoes, and a pastry dessert with nutella and a lemon cream. And of course…VINO! I was able to get to know the young man sitting next to me, Brian, throughout the course of the meal. He studies at Ithaca College and plays the guitar, so Mei suggested that we sing/play together. Hopefully I will be able to keep my singing up while I am here! I also got to know Mei. She is extremely helpful and made it a point to ask her ANYTHING. She loves Tuscania.

After dinner, probably the funniest moment happened. Allie and I made it back to our house safely around 11:30, and Marisa had given us keys to use. Keep in mind that these keys are SUPER old school. However, we were LOCKED OUT. We tried both of our keys over and over again, but were unable to open it. We freaked out, then decided to reluctantly ring the doorbell. No answer. Uh oh. Eventually Marisa came to the door and opened it. Of course I blanked on how to say sorry in Italian, but Marisa did not look too worried. She smiled, said goodnight, and went back upstairs. Allie tried practicing the lock, and of course it worked on the first try….we made a great first impression, right? Dumb Americans.

This morning, I woke up around 7 and had my first shower experience. The house is quite cold, because heating is extremely expensive in Italy because they purchase their energy from Germany. So, the heat is only on for certain hours during the day. I decided to go for the shower instead of the tub/shower, and it was successful, even though I was cold in between. Marisa had breakfast waiting for us which included a special cake-like bread to dip in cappuccino which was delicious! We went off to school for our first assignment: an Italian placement test! We then had to have a brief interview in Italian with the academic advisor. We had an orientation to discuss rules and sign many forms, then we headed back to the house for il pranzo, lunch. We had of course, pasta with a little sauce, fennel with olive oil, prosciutto, salami, and mozzarella. Amazing. Maria was their, Marisa and Costantino’s daughter. She is older but speaks a bit of English so she helped to translate a few things. She told us that this house is our house now, which was so sweet! Marisa wanted her to ask us if there was anything we wanted to ask or needed in terms of food, housing, etc. We tried to ask for a garbage can in the bathroom to throw tissues and stuff which resulted in a little confusion and laughter. We then took our siesta and made our way back to campus to make some copies. We explored the town a bit even though it was dark, then came back to the house for la cena, dinner. I asked Marisa if we could help her, and she had me stir an egg and flour into a bunch of cut artichokes. We asked Marisa the words for each thing we touched. We had lots of trouble with the word for artichokes, and I honestly still can’t remember it. We ate salad with delicious vinegar and olive oil, a fried artichokes, and little balls that were filled with meat (again, not sure of the name, pretty sure it’s poltata). Costantino and Marisa asked us if we wanted to play cards after dinner and it was quite the adventure. We still don’t know how their cards work, but we played in teams so they helped us. There was tons of laughter, and I enjoyed seeing our host parents interact with each other. 

More updates to come....we are supposed to get Internet at our house today, and I'll put up some pictures too!