Era un buon natale!

Just when I thought I couldn't have eaten any more, Christmas in abruzzo, italia happens. This christmas was an experience I will appreciate for all the years of my life. Here, christmas seems like a span of 3 days. In lanciano, which is the most dearest town i've ever seen, there is a tradition called "squilla" which is when a bell rings for and hour to call all the towns people together. yeah so that didn't really happen, i just read about it in one the tourist books Lorenza's mother helped me get. So, for "squilla" we went over to Lorenza's nonna's house for dinner and exchange of gifts. it was a beautiful time with plenty of good food:
fagioli, pane fritte, some other fritte, pepperz?

I enjoyed every second of it. and this was only the beginning there was more to come. Upon the morning, I could not get out of bed. Yes, the impending doom of the fever has fallen over me. I was faced with the cold hard reality that perhaps i will not get to celebrate christmas eve, which is the best part! So, with this knowledge, i was determined to get out of the fever and stay in bed all day. After passing the day in bed, i checked my temp and it read to be 37, which i believe is the normal. and this news was good, and proceeded onto the most beautiful house in all of abruzzo. i wish i took more pictures of it:it was a huge house. When we arrived we went down stairs, or upstairs? both yes. and there lorenza made the nice menus with her wonderful design skills. while this was happening two large people, a man and a woman, came in through a back entrance of the kitchen. they claimed to be the babbo natales (santas). I just stood there and watched them throw on the outfits grab a large bag and bagpipe and go back out the back door. Lorenza told me to go downs stairs so i dont miss the show.



it was something like this. Hands down the best santa experience i've had in my life.

and so, following this was the never ending coming of food. the menu with some items missing:

so much goodness. so much beauty. I think I exploded. I'm pretty sure i did. that isn't all. though christmas day comes. and Lorenza visits the ER for her ear again. she has to stay behind for 10 days at home on antibiotics. Not so wonderful at all. so we proceed on to Vasto, Italy, which is probably 30 minutes or more away from lanciano, where i was, near the sea where there was more beauty and goodness:appetizers; finallly got to experience, prosciutto and melon. mmmm.

This blog is making me hungry. are you hungry? we ended christmas with a walk around vasto:



it was beautiful. I felt like I was walking through disneyland with the piazzas and castle:



and we returned to the fill the rest of the evening with games, and headed back on home.

I returned to Milan on the 27th. I turned 24 yesterday and had a lovely day around Milan, and now i'm here thinking up what is next!

martin was right, this seems a lot like a food blog than anything else...although it was my homework to take pictures of food. That was no problem, i was going to take them anyway. hahaha.

Ciao, Roma...

So this last weekend I went to rome. It is vacation this week so i decided, hey why not go to Rome! I booked 2 nights in Hostel Alessandro and went on my way to rome; an adventure by on my own. Scary thought at first but once I got there a flood of possibilities and beauty flowed into my mind. I arrived at the Hostel, a very nice hostel to be honest, not much of a walk from the train station and not far from the metro. They offered free pizza at 8:30 but i never bothered to try because the lady said the stuff went fast and i just didn't want to have to go back to the hostel for it. but otherwise it was a good idea. My adventure started and it was becoming dark so i decided to head on to the spanish steps and walk around from there. It being a sunday and a holiday weekend, the place was packed full of people.a river of people flowing down via condotti. after spending time on the steps I decided to follow my map for the typical "night stroll" from the spanish steps to the pantheon. but I could not follow the map exactly because everywhere I turned there was something to look at. walking less then a few steps at every corner was something to discover. I stumbled upon the trine fountain. I can't describe the feeling of wandering around this place and stumbling upon these sights. it's just like you're wandering and wandering and all of a sudden you turn the corner and you see this:
this is where i lost my map and thought well, i wasn't really following it anyway, it is no problem so i continue on wandering the beautiful night and i stumble upon music, dancing and a large crowd. I wasn't sure at first what was going on but i saw a huge menorah looking thing that said chanuka on it so i figured hey! its a jewish celebration, and decided to check it out and celebrate, clap and join in the fun.
After that i continued on walking and came upon this:
the great Colosseum where gladiators fought. it's huge. i couldn't believe i was just walking and all of a sudden there it is. i mean come on. this is probably the best evening stroll i've ever taken in my life. I spent some time hanging out with the structure and decided to go on the find something to eat. or maybe i ate before I dont remember but the man in the pizzeria was nice and the calezone was good.
I eventually grew tired of walking and headed back to the hostel. there were 3 other girls there, i did not really talk to them at first but they were all from different places, london, singapore and brazil, but ill talk about them later. I got ready for bed and fell asleep when i woke up the voice in my head said "You're in rome!" OMG! i'm in rome. i wake up early and decide to try out vatican city. this part of the city is so amazing. its just full of life and different things to see. it started to loook like rain when i got there and there was a line to get into the vatican. i wait there and then looked at all the things inside. it was beautiful. I came out and it started raining more so i decided i would go get my umbrella, rest a little bit and go back. but when i returned to my room, the girl from london started talking to me. Her story: she moved to rome on impulse and is now teaching english. beautiful. she had a lot to say and complain about but i decided to embrace her. we went for the walk i went on the night before with a few different turns and a few new things to see. I thought it would be nice to see the things again in a different light. and it was. it grew dark and our legs grew tired. we return to the hostel where i decided to take a quick nap before i decided to take a food adventure. I wake up and look to rick steve's for some food advice. i wanted something typical so i found ristorante da giovanni to be interesting. I tell the girl from london about it and she begins to help me find the quickest easiest route to get there. she comes over and starts explaining it to me and i'm like okay awesome! The girl from sigapore, not knowing what we were talking about, says "you're going here?!" pointing to the metro stop, "what are you going to see?!" me- "a restaurant to eat" her- "You're just going to eat?! I thought you were going somewhere to see the sites! all this for just eating! My god you are passionate about food!" -me "yes, yes i am". I learned quickly that food in italy is no joke. Just don't eat anything. it is an art. even elizabeth gilbert says so. she wasn't lying either. Eat. yes. So i head over the ristorante and was greeted by the sweetest old lady working in the kitchen and she says to sit sit go go. The owner explains the menu to me and i ordered the specialty "fettucine da giovanni" and a glass of wine. and for dessert some kind of lemon cream thing that was very good.


mmmmm. yeah. so after that i skipped on "home" ready to take on the next day. and on the third day, i decided to spend some time amongst the ancient ruins. and it was beautiful, and nice to just relax and stare at old things. then i went to vatican city again because i thought i did not spend enough time there before so i roamed around (haha) and ate a pizza and pastery and wandered around and ended up back at the spanish steps where i started and headed on back to milan. :)

fa brutto tempo

ciaooo

just a brief check in with you all. I just finished my second week of scuola and it is going well. Homework just keep accumulating.

today alex and pauline get married. i know they dont read this but CONGRATS YOU GUYS! i wish i could be there. i really do. i would have grown out both my armspits and worn a strapless dress just for you! but not really. it's the idea that counts, right?

anyway, what else, last week was a very fun aperitivo with massages and food and psychological analysis. i thought this event was great because its just good for the community and peoples minds. they have the right idea. it was a perfect placement in my life, a good relief from stress AND i got a new umbrella, they had these happy kits full of awesomeness:
contains: 3D glasses to see life better, nutella to dip my finger in, music to "ode to joy", happy vitamins that relieve stress, a free coupon for aperitivo, a red bracelet to warn the world i'm on my period, and a broken umbrella. the irony, i bought this kit fore the umbrella and it was slightly broken. hahaha but i didnt care because i was full of joy!

alright, thats all for now.

settimana scorso ho fatto tante cose

Let me start by giving a shout out to my grandfather because it is veterans day:
Happy Veterans Day!

Last weekend was quite eventful, i got to experience the italian hospital, well not me personally, i'm fine, but my dear roommate had a horrible earache to the point of bleeding so we made our way over to the ospedale alle 21:34 or something like that. Italian emergency rooms aren't that much different from american ones aside from the pizza delivery guy coming in to deliver a pizza to i dont know who, and the amazing espresso machines, and snoring homeless man. it's basically the same thing EXCEPT its free. we ended up spending 5 hours waiting for the nurse to tell lorenza to go to another hospital, then we arrive at the other hospital and they tell her to come back in the morning because there was no ear doctor at that time. Good ol' italy, sending people around the town just to tell them to come back later...anyway, she is better now. i'm glad. you're glad. we're all glad.

Next, my trip to Genova! home town of my great grandfather Joe! wow! I started my journey by waking up at 6am and headed over to the train station. the air smells lovely in the morning by the way, i always forget how nice it is to greet the morning so early.

here is a picture of me sitting on the train ready to embrace a 2 and half hour train ride. the ride was mostly beautiful, some parts rainy, some parts foggy, some parts sunny. and i got to ride the train along the Mediterranean sea and see the waves. it was amazing and so long since i saw a huge body of water in that fashion. so i arrive and i meet my new friend Davide who was so nice to invite me to see Genova because he grew up in a town near by and knows the town pretty well. so we first got in the car and began to drive to Zoagli which is a town before genova, and we get out to take pictures of the roaring sea:


roaaaaaaaarrrr! yeah! It was like disney land splashmountain but better. so after that we ventured on to genova. we started off with a nice piece of foccacia, which is what genova is famous for and there's not arguing why, because it was amazing!
mmmmmmmmmmm.....i ended up buying 2 more kilos of this stuff before going on the train ride back home. so the rest of the day was amazing, i got to go through the small streets of genova, there are many small streets the are strewn throughout the city. and there are also a lot of hills. davide took me up this treacherous hill only to be greeted by this:
and this

we were a bit high off the ground, but amazing! so then we continued even more on, and i got to touch the sea and it was great. i already want to go back!
lets not forget that i got to see christopher columbus' house. what a small house it was...


lastly, I finally started courses, and they have been going great. I might have started out a little insecure and timid about the whole thing but really its not that bad and it is actually a lot of fun. the other students in the class are really helpful to me. they also think its really cool that i'm from california. they're like "WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA CALIFORNIA!" and im like "yeah.....you're italian!" but not really i dont say that. I already have some homework and i'm excited to do it! its been so long! alrighty, i must be going.

cooking a kitchen in my chicken

hello all and welcome,

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!!! Don't really have plans for this special day. :(

Sundays in Milan are rainy days. it's true. every sunday for the past month has been rainy. interesting, eh?

Tuesday for sure and finally I will begin courses. Finally, the studying part of studying abroad.

The past week has been quite nice. Dinners with friends and enjoying the fall leaves. I enjoyed some Bolognese cuisine the other night:




It was delicious. and yesterday Lorenza's Parents came to town. it was fun to meet them and we ate fish and potatoes.

I'm foreign.

I want to marry music

it's just that great.
yesterday was my friend's birthday. we went out for pizza and i told her happy birthday in french. you wont believe my french is worse than my italian. atleast in italian the letters make sense...anyway, we went to this concert and got to enjoy music by pianista Francesco Di Gregorio. It was beautiful. he played pieces by Robert Schumann, Fryderyk Chopin, and Franz Liszt. There were many people there my grandpa's age and people yelled "BRAVO!" when he was done. it was just ammaziazione and nice to be in a place with a stage and a performer and music.

humphrey bogart e barack obama

so i'm just sitting here thinking about this summer. At the beginning of this summer i packed up all my stuff from my apartment in Daly City and headed for Fresno to search for a job that i was only going to hold for 3 months while holding the possibility in my hands that i might not even go to italy. Now that i think about that person i want to laugh just because i know how it works around here. I want to go and calm my self down and say "shut up, you're going." i'm also thinking about how quickly life changes like seriously wow. 3 months ago I was seating the lovely citizens of Fresno, california. Now i'm sitting in an apartment in Milan, Italy next to a smelly cat. and when i walk out side the sounds are different, the people are different, the rain is different, the smells. mmm. the smells.
It's design weekend in Milan, I decided to go check it out. It turns out the design museum was free admission. i looked around at the exhibits. I didn't take any pictures inside because i wasn't sure if it was aloud. but i did take some outside. and also there were over 2000 posters outside near the duomo about 7 different causes, (the mafia, HIV, whale extinction, Tiger extinction, Poverty, Health Care and the other one i forgot). it was cool. powerful. posters with a cause. inspiring.

Napoli sounds so appealing

oh how the week flew by, it's already thursday. Let's see...I finally experienced apertivo. Two girls, one from san francisco state, who is also french, and a girl form mexico, and i ventured out into the wild, we walked around the castle, not inside, to the park and spent some time there and listened to the pigeons and other people talk to the pigeons. I was hungry so we all decided to go to a restaraunt for apertivo or "happy hour". this is the most brilliant concept ever. buy a drink and eat whatever you want. RIGHT?! right, yeah i ate too much. when i got home i couldn't stop drinking water.
This week i went to the library and signed up for a library card. I got quite a random selection of books, a scary horror story for young kids, an adventure across the seas with jack black! i simpsons comic book, and T.S. elliot book of poems about cats, that one was for lorenza.
yesterday i had a headache all day and today im trying to recover. it is still there a little bit. good thing i dont have school.

When the sun shines we'll shine together

My first week of presentations was not bad. I'm looking to start school November 2nd (my sisters birthday)since I have not yet recieved my schedule. So here is a whole other month of...possibilities and improving my italian. haha. Tuesdays and Saturdays in october are golden days in milan. museums free on tuesdays, and when couples travel, the woman's free on saturdays. I need to get on that.
Also this week I went to the polizia to finish my permit process, no it wasn't over, THAT day was fun let me tell you. First I went on the bus going the wrong way, then the street turned so I got lost and it took me 3 people to find the office, then i ended up waiting an hour for them to call my name, took my fingerprints and waited again for another 2 hours to get more detailed fingerprints.
I got a codice fiscale, which was fun to figure out how to get, it's like a ssn. I couldn't find the place and the google street view showed me a bank. I go there and i notice the address is correct so i go in the bank, grab a number and wait for a consultant. I go and sit down with her and tell her I need a codice fiscale and she laughs a little at me and says "quest e' una banca", this is a bank, and i'm just thinking..........yes............yes it is........so she shows me to the correct facility and i wait there for a bit and soon enough i have a codice fiscale! all set.

The search for the sacred grail

it is now that time I report of the interactions with NABA (Nuova Academica Belle Arti, the school i attend in milan, the city that i live in in italy, the country i live in on this earth, the planet that inhabits life....). so, school has begun and i haven't got my schedule yet but that is okay because that is just how the system works apparently. I came to a few realizations today. First, was to let go and just go with it, not because i don't have a choice, but because this is how it work. Thinking about this and writing it down has made me come to another realization. This has been the game since i even decided to study abroad. walking into a dark cave and not knowing what lies ahead but thank God some tools drop down from the sky and find the holy grail. Anyway... back to school. so it was raining quite hard today, and I wasn't sure which presentation i should attend because i haven't go my classes yet so i planned to attend both. The first one i believe was more on my level but the second one was quite entertaining. I must say though, I'm glad i have chosen a major in visual communications because without the visual aides i think i would have had a difficult time following. This is when my other realization came, I'm going to have to work twice as hard, to grasp an understanding of what is being said plus produce work and learn new skills and techniques and exams! wow. haha. anyway. i'm in for a ride. and inspired to create. i can't wait!
cultural awkward moment: after the presentation everyone rushes to the back table to sign the attendance sheet pushing and grabbing and i just stand there waiting. but i'm not even on the sheet, that is probably because i'm a foreign student i guess. i think. yeah.

It's been a while?

yesterday, i went to school to organize classes for my schedule. School starts on monday. I haven't recieved my exact schedule yet but i'm guessing it has to be sooon............
I went to IKEA the other day. It was quiet a journey to get there. FIRST we had a lot of time to kill before the bus came. so we wandered around the center and ate many pizzas and a huge fried ball stuffed with rice, cheese, and ham. yes. yes. yes. i forgot what it was called. anyway we got lost some how and then found our way back to the center and headed on towards the IKEA bus stop. we JUST missed it. so we waited another hour. then finally, it came and all my wildest dreams were about to come true...not really, i just had never been to IKEA and was curious as to what the big deal was. WELL! it's pretty magical, i dont think i'll be going back anytime soon. I got the most amazing moka (italian coffee maker) and a cork screw. beautiful. Go to IKEA: check.
following that lovely extravaganza ...I went to the bible study with Giuseppe and this time there were more people. nice. people. we read and discussed Acts 27 but i caught bits of it. oh dear. but anyway afterward i met this girl that giuseppe was telling me to get to know, she is from the east coast of the US. and what she told me was everything i ever dreamed about. hahaha. their ministry is basically hanging out with people and getting to know them. no strings attached. this gets more exciting all the time.

Raining

Let's take a walk...

yesterday I met up with Giuseppe the guy that was an Italian Missions representative at Urbana 09. I had lunch with his family. it was quite pleasant. we had gnocchi, chicken, and salad. His wife is from Liverpool. She has a English accent and speaks Italian as well, but not with an english accent. This home was definitely unique with it's mixture of english and italian. the young girls spoke both languages, but of course Italian was their main language. We watched this really awesome movie called Summer Holiday. It's an old film from the 1960s. It's a brilliant film and i recommend it to anyone who likes musicals and traveling. e poiiiiiiiii, i went home to make pizza for a delighful pizza party, well i didn't make it...........but it was homemade...... mmmmmmmmmmm.

today, I went to Giuseppe's church, which is in a school. They just started the church last december and does not have too many goers. they said it really depends. the attendees are all new believers. this i think is cool, though when i came today, only one other person came so there was about 6 of us all together, which is counting the worship leaders, guiseppe and his wife, and the school janitor. the gathering/discussion was all in italiano and i understood about 40% of it. the other lady that was there was from sicilia and introduced herself exactly like this "Ciao, sono siciliana!" and it didn't register to me what she said so i just said "sono kristi" but she said she was sicilian, in case you didn't catch that either. Anyway. This could be interesting getting involved.

When one door closes a cat jumps out the window

...No really, she jumped out the window and we couldn't believe it. We didn't even know she did it until we looked around and realized she was no where to be found. Lorenza began to panic, but i kept calm and went out to look for her. I knew she couldn't have gone far, and that she was not dead, though Lorenza was sure she was dead. I looked and tried to ask if anyone has seen a cat and they did not know. I went back up to the apartment and still no sign of the cat so I stare out the window a few more times and this time I am sure she must have not gone far so I go back out and start thinking of my life without this smelly cat and how i will miss it's stupid smell and how sad our lives would be without it. I search again and this time one of the guys I asked about the cat started to try to help. Lorenza came down and started looking as well. The man spotted the cat, alive, of course. It tooks about 10 minutes to catch the cat because she was behind a fence and trying to climb trees...oooooooooooooh gatto.

... then we all went out for gelato!

stranieri

Hey everyone. so. let me tell you. not fun things. but some fun things. i will tell you. some things. so today i finally submitted the thing i need to submit to get my permit to live in Italy because i'm foreign. of course. I do what my paper says to report to the italian questura for a permit to stay, which is the italian police. I look up where that is and go there then they tell me to go to this immigration place. so i go there and the lady told me to come back monday (this was friday). so okay i go back monday and get lost because the train i need to take to get there was temporarily out of service so i guess i wander around aimlessly for a bit and get on a random bus and get off two stops later to look at a map and find the street i need is a few blocks away. so i follow the street and after 15 minutes i find that the street disappears somewhere else and i lost the street so then i just keep walking in the general direction not quite sure where i am going. i had called lorenza but she didn't pick up. Later, i find an outside market and i was thinking OH i've been here before, but no it wasn't the one i have been to before, so i make my way through the crowd and realize i am indeed hopelessly lost. oh but no! i notice a missed call from lorenza and call her back to tell her im hopelessly lost but she assured me i was not and to ask someone where the nearest station is. so i'm like thinking... oh dear... and right when i hang up with lorenza i turn the corner and there it is! the place i was headed to...only to discover...i could have gone to ANY post office. yep, thanks for letting me know. but 25 confusions, 13 wrong turns, 6 people and 70 euros later "LOOKS LIKE WE MADE IT!" i'm happy to be alive and get that business out of the way. what an adventure!

in the mean time........

cotoletta.

coffee!

just a little more panzarotti in my life

It rained pretty hard yesterday. a nice walk around the neighborhood was wonderfull, though i got a little wet.
we went to a friend of lorenza's for a panzarotti party. it was beautiful. so much. panza. rotti. so. much. goodness and panza and rotti. All in italiano. nice. we played a game. I managed to follow. it was easy. an extensive version of pictionary. rah rah rah. almost forgot to mention, i got to ride in a car on the streets of milan for the first time. in a smart car. and there was 4 of us. beautiful. you can imagine. the beauty. imagine it!

"the cat bit the sugar"

yesterday was much fun. except for failing at the post office, i'm not even sure if it was the post office. so i still have no stamps. sorry for those who are expecting post cards. I will figure this out soon. Later, I got to experience a cupcake celebration and met new people who were all very nice, friends of Lorenza. I got to meet a guy named "Davide", which is a great achievement because it reminds me of Oggi in Italia, the silly lesson films i had to watch in Italian 101 and 102. Made my night i must say. He said italian is a dying language and only italians speak italian. well.....yeah....but......that doesn't stop me from wanting to speak it. I just need to get over myself. then we headed over sometthing that was like a discoteca or club. ill say club. it was pretty amazing... the music...the dancing...amazing...the djs....amazing... i wish i can reinact it for you. one of the dj's enjoyed singing along with the music a little too much, i must say.

and today it is raining. woooooooo!

ho paura di parlare

so i sit here listening to the beautiful sounds of my korean neighbors singing karaoke at the top of their lungs. yesterday, was an awesome day. I think i had an italian over load. must have. my head hurts a bit. I discovered my great fear of speaking italian. I met Zaino, a friend of Lorenza, whose real name is not Zaino but sounds something like Zaino, which means "backpack" in italiano. He speaks english as well as i speak italian so we had interesting conversations. I think he might have been making fun of my Americaness i'm not sure. but this must have been good for me to struggle so i can learn. I got to experience a great italian delicacy panzarotti, which is fried bread stuffed with mozzerella e sauce. mmmmmmmmmmmmm. for dinner it was another adventure, Lorenza wanted to try quesadilla because there is not much mexican food around here and she never had it. we came up with something close to a quesadilla. then for dessert we had the best pancakes in the world. my brain is still exhausted even after sleep.

Il gatto tries to catch a fly

piove!

It was a nice switch up on the weather today with some rain. I decided to take pictures so i went around alittle bit back to the duomo and galleria. and it was so beautiful to see the rain fall and all the people unprepared and prepared. at one point it rained heavily and it was wonderful. I came back because it was getting cold and wet. I took a nice 2 hour nap. visited with Lorenza and had sparkly wine. she showed me how to make sauce out of nothing. well of course it was something but not the usual. it was delicious. we discussed foods that america has that italy doesn't. they don't have jello or pancakes. not too much of a shame on the jello. but pancakes. i must start a pancake revolution in italy! this must be why i am here! of course! anyway........we also discussed the italian government, which was also pretty eye opening. I won't go much into it but it made me think about how it is not only the US government that is corrupt. we just get more of say in how things work. what isn't corrupt? your face isn't corrupt, that's what! ha! so yes... i have 3 mosquito bites on my gomito (elbow). they itch.

<3

mangiamo gelato per sempre

so today was much better. this life, I can enjoy. I went back to the galleria and duomo with Lorenza and Francesca this time. AND i had gelato. chocolate and raspberry. this time it was like i went to heaven and then died. yes. went to heaven and THEN died. no just kidding i lived...
I got to finally experience an italian super market. it was fun trying to figure out what things were. good thing some foods are universal or else i don't know what i would eat.
theeeee evening was topped off with a fun time singing and playing guitar with Lorenza. she's a great singer. she should be a singer.

Don't Die

buona sera

so last night was fun and WOW! the streets of this street change completely at night time let me tell you. in the day it looks normal and not much people but once night time hits all the ristoranti put the table outside and there is so many people! SO MANY! and you can see soooo many people! it's like...........what are all these people gathered outside? for no good reason! it's amazing! lorenza, francesca, e i went to go get something to drink and we sat outside. wow there was a lot of...................pretty lights. ........and poeple. just everywhere in the streets on the side walks in front of churches. wow. night life here is happening. and it is happening now.

now for today........

today was not filled with gelato...................it was not filled with pizza..........how very sad are you to hear this. i went to go meet my friends from san francisco state. we went to one of the fresh markets buy their house and it was so amazing. i got fragole e vino. then we went to the duomo! I got a cellphone........kind of..........not really........i thought i could use the sim card in the phone i already have but it didn't work. nope. so i have to wait to get a phone to put it in. we went walking around all the stores in the great mall and it was beautiful. i was getting tired though. i think there is jet lag. so then.........i got a sketch pad. YAY! then it was getting late and the girls had to go meet some people but i just wanted to go home because i was so tired. and we almost got lost but then i wasn't lost and found my way home very easily. almost worried you didn't i? hmm? yeah so my strawberries went bad. so no more strawberries. but i still have my vino. tomorrow i must have a better day! I PROMISE! BUONA NOTTE! <3

ciao...

so this is my first entry for this blog thing. I am not much of a blogger but i thought the experience called for it.
Here i am in italy in my apartment getting ready to eat some pizza! yay! I already tried the precious gelato that lorenza told me that was the best in all milano. and it was amazing though i don't know if it was the best because it was my first but i guess i should trust a true italian.
I took a nap shortly after eating gelato. Everything is in italian which is awesome! so when i stepped off the plane i took the shuttle over to central milano and "Ironic" by alanis morrissette was playing on the radio, which was in fact totally ironic, dont you think?
I was able to contact lorenza using other peoples phones. very nice of them. we took the tram over near where we live and i was immediately greeted by the huge duomo! it was beautiful and i will take a picture soon. it is hot today, which i guess is unusual this time of year. must be because i am here. ;) so yes
the apartment is really awesome and there is laundry hanging outside! wow! It is hard to take in that this is my life now. totally different and different than what i expected. everyday will be something different for a while. AAAAAAAAAAAH! I love you.