I still don't have internet so right now I am sitting on the floor in the lobby of the hotel across the street using their wireless which is incredibllyyyy slow so forgive me if I don't write much. I've had an amazing time in Italy so far. Mom and I drove to NYC and stayed in a hotel the night before I left and ate tons of chinese food because who knowss when I will have it next, and we drove to Newark the next day. My flight was easy- I actually was able to sleep a little because no one was sitting next to me on the plane so I could streatch out. When we got to rome they loaded all our luggage on trucks and we took buses into the city to our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Pace Elvezia which is supposedly a four star hotel but I'm not so sure about that... it was nice but the rooms were teenie and the walls were paper thin. They HATED us because there were 150 20 year olds staying there with all the other regular guests...I guess the first night people came back at like 3am and piled into the elevator and broke it...whoops. When we were in rome we visited the collosseum, the roman forum and all the ruins, and the trevi fountain and spanish steps. one day that we were there we took a bus to pompeii (and had to get up at 5:45 AM which was very very not fun)...pompeii was really cool but the weather was AWFUL...it literally started hailing while we were there which kind of ruined the whole experience...we drove to sorrento and to the amalfi coast that day too which was SO BEAUTIFUL. the weather was so bad that we stayed on the bus the whole time, but it was still incredible. we were driving on these tiny roads literally on the side of cliffs overlooking the city and the water, the entire time we thought we were going to drive right off the side. hopefully we will be able to go back when the weather is nicer. we also went to the vatican and the cathedral, and saw the sistine chapel which is wayy more impressive in person than I ever thought it would be...slides in art history class don't do it justice.
My roommmates are so nice I love them all!
I got so lucky. It seems like everyone else on this trip already knew each other when they came...besides the six of us. We all get along great and have been spending a lot of time together. Florence is so beautiful. I loved rome but Florence is so much more managable...I already kind of feel like I know where I'm going. We havent actually done much touristy stuff here yet, we have just been settling in and finding grocery stores and where classes are and places to eat. I have had either pasta, pizza, or a panini literally for every meal since I have been here. we've also had wayyyy too much gelato and nutella....and fanta which is so yummy here it is toally different! Our apartment is hugeeeeee it is three bedrooms and three bathrooms, a kitchen, and a tiny living room and tiny dining room which is a bummer because there are not a lot of common areas for all of us to hang out in. Our bedrooms are huge though. It is vey italian looking...we all have these crazy frescos on our bedroom ceilings. We totally lucked out because our apartment is actually owned by a hotel across the street, which means they clean it once a week and supply us with toilet paper and soap and towels...and if anything goes wrong we just call them and they come over and fix it (so far we have blown the fuses three times blowdrying hair). we have all come to the realization that just about nothing in italy works, and that no one is ever on time for anything. after all the adaptors and converters and transformers mom and I went around buying....I still pretty much cant get anything to work. our best friend, Mark, the hotel manager, told us that it is because there are actually three different types of outlets in italy. so the hairdryers that we bought in rome dont even work here, we had to get an adaptor for them. my phone died one of the first days I was here, I think maybe I blew out the battery when I tried to charge it? so I was phoneless for days until we got to florence and I got a new one. I also am currently moneyless because bank of america is evil and decided to ruin my life by not telling me that apparently my debit card that I have been using was only temporary and they were sending me a new one? so it got cancelled the other day....I discovered it when I tried to pay for stuff at Ikea. luckily I had enough euros to get by and my rommmates have been lending me money, and mom fedexed me a new card so I should be all set soon! we started classes today and were having a big dinner for everyone at the school tonight (yay for free food) so I've got to go get ready for that. I think I will probably set up a photobucket or flickr account soon so I can put up pictures, but with this internet it takes foreverrrr to upload anything
