Amazing

No other words describe it. I’m sitting outside of my apartment on my balcony looking off into the city of Torino. There is a beautiful lightening storm off in the distance. Although I have been here for three full days I still can’t comprehend that I am living here for four months.

Last message I left you when I went to bed at our hotel. The program directors set a room call for us so we wouldn’t be worried about waking up in time or our 10 am meeting. Strangely our phone call came at 8 in the morning. I said screw getting up 2 hours before I need to (even though I had already had a good 10 hours of sleep) and went back to bed. The phone rang again at 10:15 asking if I was on my way, my roommate lied and told her I had already left. After running around the streets for 5 minutes I found our meeting spot. I came in at the end of introductions, said my name then listened to the 5 minute speech about housing. Afterwards everyone had grabbed their bags and got on the bus for our apartment on via san domato. Unfortunately I didn’t know we were supposed to bring our bags with us. I ran up the three flights of stairs, packed my bags, and ran back down catching the bus just before it left. We arrived at the apartment and I met all my roommates. We helped the girls carry there bags upstairs, then carried ours up to the 5th floor where we live. We unpacked then went across the street to GS, our grocery store. Its location is super convenient, and very cheap. Finding things was difficult, but fun. We grabbed groceries, cleaning supplies, and a bunch of liters of wine, in boxes, for only 99 cents.

For dinner/Lunch I made some pasta then began our pre-party. After about an hour we walked down to our neighbors, hung out for a little, then headed out. We walked for 35 minutes and met some friends at hotel roma. We then all went down to the Po river, had some drinks and decided to walk back to our hotel around 3 (which is early by Italian standards. After about 30 minutes a lot of the girls complained about how sore their feet were and myself and a friend decided to head it on our own. We walked for another half hour trying to figure out how to get home. We talked to a couple of different groups of very friendly Italians that tried to help, but in retrospect were no real help. Apparently we walked near our apartment, within a couple of blocks, but missed it. A random car pulled up to us asking if we wanted a ride. He didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Italian, but we both speak Spanish. We talked on the ride home and he was very nice. Desperate, we took the ride and he brought us back to our place. He demanded 15 Euros, being exhausted I paid it without arguing and we headed for bed.

We woke up today around 2. Today was a lazy day hanging out, walking around the area near our place, and “enjoying” some boxed wine. Tomorrow we find out how to get to school and have our orientation and first day of Italian class. I hope everyone back home is well. I love to read your comments by the way. I will update everyone tomorrow.

Ciao