My First Week

So I safely arrived in Italy last Friday night!  I had no delays in the airport or any mishaps.  The flight over from Chicago to Copenhagen went by pretty fast, I took a Tylenol PM and slept most of the flight.  We had a little layover in Copenhagen, but it was the perfect amount of time to get something to eat and walk around.  Around 7:00 PM we finally landed in Bologna.  The only thing I was nervous about was if our luggage made it or not. I have never been so happy to see my massive blue suitcases on the carousel.  One of the bags is on its last handle, so it will be retired after this semester.  We caught a taxi and he took us to Hotel Aemilia where we stayed because the dorm (Collegio Alma Mater) was not open until Saturday.  Thanks to the multilingual staff, check in went smoothly.  The hotel was wonderful.  It was clean, safe, and really affordable for a 4 star hotel.  The jet lag caused us to sleep later than planned and we missed check out, but the staff understood and did not charge us for an extra night.  We were now off to Collegio Alma Mater!


At the dorm we were welcomed by our student life assistant Hillary.  She gave us our room keys and showed us up to our rooms.  We weren't quite ready to unpack so we put down our luggage and went to see our director Todd.  He greeted us with a warm welcome and then gave us some suggestions of places to go in town.  So we went back to the room unpacked then set off to explore the city.  We had a map, but we mainly just winged it and learned from our surroundings.  Todd suggested we go to a coffee bar and try a hot chocolate.  In Italy, they do not add any water, they simply melt a pure milk chocolate and serve it with a spoon.  We agreed that sounded delicious and tried one ourselves.  It was the perfect way to start off my Dolce Vita.


Sunday Hillary took us to the heart of Bologna, Piazza Maggiore.  We took a group photo and then split off to explore and then make it back to Collegio Alma Mater by 2:00 for our departure to Interlaken, Switzerland.  I was in desperate need of shampoo, so we went to the Farmacia and with the help of the bilingual pharmacist I found a shampoo that did not have weird chemicals.  Then we stopped at a pizza shop and all enjoyed a slice of margherita (cheese and tomato).  It was time to head back so we could pack for our  weekend in Interlaken.   We departed for Switzerland at 2:00 PM and did not make it until around 10:00 PM.  We stayed at Backpacker's Villa a youth hostel near the downtown of Interlaken.  A group of us grabbed dinner then walked around.  We eventually went back to the hostel and after being yelled at by our Asian neighbors, we finally went to sleep.  


Early the next morning we met for breakfast then went to the Alps.  Paulo our wonderful bus driver took the ones not skiing to the train station where we road an hour train ride to the top.  Switzerland has to be the most beautiful country I have ever seen.  Being from flat Mississippi, I really enjoyed seeing the mountains.  But these weren't any mountains, these were the Alps and they were spectacular.  On the top of the mountain, there were many restaurants as well as bars.  We went to the tepee bar and enjoyed some drinks and the view.  After a few hours we road the train back down and went and explored more of Interlaken.  That night we enjoyed a wonderful community dinner cooked by Todd and his wife.  It was the classic Italian experience (even though  we weren't in Italy), we enjoyed great food, wine, and the ones around us.  The room was full of smiles and laughter.  We finished the classic European experience at the local pub.


Today was the first day of classes.  Today I only had Italian 101.  We went over the syllabus in English, but then the rest of the class was in Italian.  Quite overwhelming, but I think it will be a great class.  I really want to leave this semester being confident in Italian.  This may have been my longest week ever.  We have done so much each day it is hard to remember everything I did.  I might be possibly traveling this weekend, too.  So more to come.  


Ciao!