OMG. awesome

Hi all!!

So here it is, from the beginning.

I met Mandi while waiting for my flight in Chicago, and we flew to Detroit. With maybe ten minutes to spare, we met Jessica and all flew to Rome. I watched the movies Sunshine Cleaning, New in Town, and a little bit of 17 Again. I had a teensy bottle of white wine with my gourmet (ack, it was awful) meal. I tried to sleep, wasn't very successful, but I got coffee in the morning, so, hurray. We got off the plane, got our visas stamped, and actually quite quickly found our bags. We finally trudged our way to the ticket booth and got an express train into Rome's main station and then caught a train to Terni. Apparently we had gotten on the wrong type of train, because when the lady came by to validate our tickets, we had to pay extra.

So when we got to Terni, we met another girl who was actually on the same train as we were, her name is Crystal. We all called one of the professors and he came to pick all of us up. Terni is in a valley, and San Gemini is on a hill, so we got to wind through all the hairpin turns in a tiny little truck. Whatever, it was a blast.

We arrived in San Gemini and brought all our stuff up a steep set of stairs, and got into our rooms. there are three different apartments for the students, and I haven't seen the other two. Ours has four rooms, two singles and two doubles. I'm rooming with Jessica. We have an awesome little bathroom, it has a bidet...which is interesting. Our kitchen is tiny!! Especially for four girls, but, so far we've made eggs with basil, which were actually pretty good.

So yesterday, we got a tiny tour of the town, and one of our professors (the same one who picked us up from the train station) bought us all gelato. I had pineapple, and it blew my mind, so good. Then we had a little time to relax, and unpack, then we went out to dinner with the people who were already there. There are two research assistants from UW-Milwaukee here, too. They love Wisconsin, which makes me instantly love them. HA! At dinner, those of us who had arrived that day were pretty wiped, and so we left a little early while the others went out to the only other bar in town for more drinks. Today, we had planned on visiting the local pool, but nobody was really awake until about noon. So we made scrambled eggs for breakfast/lunch, and then at 3:30 we had orientation and met all the others who had arrived since last night. There are 13 of us in all. Just after we got to our 'classroom' (it's this old old building with...well, i will just show pics eventually) it started thunderstorming like nobody's business, and the ceiling leaked, and the lightning took out the power, so that kinda put the kibosh on the internet. After orientation, we went for another tour of the town (which most of us have already seen at this point, after grocery shopping--which is definitely an experience when none of us speak ANY Italian--) and then we went to see another of the apartments (way nicer than ours, but still....) then we opened a bottle of wine (It was sparkling white wine, from Umbria , a riesling, and pretty dry. I wish I could remember the name, but I can't, and the only place we get wireless outside of the classroom is literally on the steps outside the classroom. so that's where I am ) Then we went to the closest bar to all of us, Bar Centrale, for another beer. After that the 'program' took us out to eat, at a villa outside of San Gemini. We had several courses, started with antipasti, where we got kind of a sampler of appetizers, and then got spaghetti with meatballs, then chicken with a salad, and then a sort of chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and lemony sauce on top. All of it was so amazing. At the end to top everything off we all took a shot of grappa! Hahah, it was...interesting, and very very alcoholic. We all rode back, and now there are several other people on the stairs outside our classroom on the internet.

Class tomorrow starts at 9, and we're getting an overview of the history of San Gemini, and in the afternoon traveling to the archaeological site of Carsulae, which are Roman ruins. I'm SO pumped.

Love to you all-

and I miss you like crazy, my fellow rangers.

Love Siri