End of Orientation....

Ciao tutti!

I will be finishing my posts on the last several days soon, but I want to try and keep up on a daily basis for now. Today I woke up at 7:45am to get ready in time for my first Italian class! We took the metro to the Cadorna station and then walk the four blocks to the IES Center. It takes about 20-25 minutes. I have been placed in IT200 along with about 15 others. The teacher is wonderful! She is upbeat and easy to understand. The class is two and a half hours long, five days a week for the first three weeks. Italian intensive indeed! The entire class is spoken in Italian, I've been able to understand everything, but am having a touch of hesitation before speaking. It's exciting to think that soon I will be walking around and speaking Italian with no hesitations!!

After class I went home to Via Tiziano, 18 and took a nice long nap. It was very difficult to wake up in time to go back to the IES Center to go to the post office. All of the students need to apply for Permesso di Soggiorno (Permission to Stay), which is a rather lengthy process. Thankfully I got mine done fairly quickly, now I just have to wait for my date at the police station to give them my fingerprints and such.

Around 3pm, my flat mate Quinning and took the metro to Buonarotti, our stop. We went to the grocery store and stocked up on some food! It was actually pleasantly inexpensive! Yet delicious. My go-to food? Fresh baguette, fresh mozzarella, tomato, and pesto! OM NOM NOM!

By the time Quinning and I returned to the apartment, all of our flat mates were home so we congregated in the kitchen and talked about all the important stuff: Italian classes, shopping, and, of course, guys. It was one of the first times we've had all six of us there (one of the girls was a late arrival, thanks a whole bunch Hurricane Irene!). We gossiped, compared sheet and towel prices, and then I made some coffee. My friend Nicole, from DU, came over, so we could all go shopping for sheets and towels around 5:30. Theresa (my roommate), Nicole, and myself got our act together and went to Zara Home where we met up with another friend, Hannah. It was a lovely store and we all had a great time shopping the sales! We found some wonderful things and had many laughs along the way.

Due to our shopping excursion, we all were in desperate need of food. And pronto! So we went to a place called Pizza OK near Hannah's apartment! P.S. There was a gelato shop right next door! I had una copppetta piccola di Yogurt Greco and a few nibbles of my friends' pizza. Dopo cena, we all went our separate ways and Theresa and I went home to take lovely cold showers and prepare for bed.

As it has been a most excellent, yet tiring week full of activity, I must now say buona notte. It looks like there will be IKEA, sleeping in, and time to finish catching up with my blog tomorrow. I hope that this finds you all living life to the fullest!

Ciao, ciao!