You and I

I'm in Italy and it's Tuesday night and don't have any homework due until Friday. So what do I do?

Learn a new song on my ukulele of course! I watched/listened to this video a few times, repeating the tricky parts, until I figured it out:


I sang it to Somers a few times (and Somers' mom with whom Somers was Skyping) and then she recorded me singing it. Unfortunately, the video refuses to be uploaded. It is on facebook, however, and in the meantime I will keep trying to post it here for you non-facebookers.

Pat-pat-pat your weave, ladies

Finally! The end of the laundry list! I know you're all very excited.

Well, I'm here in Siena and I am LOVING it. Siena and Florence have always been fighting against each other in wars, and once the Renaissance started revolutionizing everything Siena kinda took a backseat while Florence exploded into the capital of the Renaissance. The city isn't very big, and when the plague came through it ravaged all the people, who therefore couldn't change the layout/architecture of the city because they were dead. Thus the city pretty much looks like it would've looked 500 years ago. One of our favorite things to do is to go to the main square, the Piazza del Campo, and people watch. It's fun to see all the people - old people eating gelato, people napping in the sun, teenagers with their over-the-top PDA, and of course the little tiny kids who run around chasing the pidgeons. Audrey always insists we go to the Campo to take pictures of the people, especially the little kiddies. Creeper. "I just love people. Don't you??"

I really lucked out on my living situation. My roommate, Somers, and I get along really well. We have a lot in common. We even have the same toothbrush, which is kinda weird. We didn't really know each other at all before this, but I feel like we're pretty good friends. Unfortuanely for her, she has to listen to my little gripes when we get home, but she's still talking to me, so I guess that's a good sign. My host family is awesome. It's just Paola and Marco, but they are super nice and easy-going. I feel bad because I'm usually gone off to school before they wake up and then I don't get home until an hour or two before dinner, which is at 8pm every night. We have a fun time at dinner, though. They don't speak a lick of English, so it's all Italian, all the way. I feel like my comprehension has gotten a lot better. Marco and I have a fun banter back and forth at dinner because he picks on me for being so tall. He told me "it will make it hard for you to find a husband." It's just fun. Paola doesn't let us help with dinner at all. We keep wanting to help because we're American and we want to be polite and not be an imposition. But no. No setting the table, no serving ourselves, no clearing the table, nothing. It's an Italian thing, apparently. And she gives us so much food! Oh man. Every night after dinner I just want to explode, but the food is so good I can't help it.

It still seems weird to me that I'm taking classes here. We live outside of the city walls, and it takes me about 25 min to walk to the Campo. It takes another 7-10 min to get to the DA (Dante Alighieri, the school). And of course all of Italy is one giant walk uphill so I'm usually sweaty by the time I get there. My class schedule is nice, though. I'm only taking 12 credits - Italian 321 (3 cred), Eng 355 (3), Humanities 201 (3), an online religion class about the history of the LDS church in Italy (2) and a one credit class called "cultural proofs" which basically just requires me to do one Italian activity (like ask locals to teach me a song or look at art in a small church) a week and then write a one page paper about it. The coursework isn't too heavy, but I feel like our time is always spoken for in terms of extra trips and lectures. I really enjoy it, though.

Last weekend we went to Florence/Firenze for the first time. We didn't really do anything there except walk around and "get oriented." I wished we would've been able to go into the Academia or one of the Uffizi galleries, but I think some of us are planning on going back next weekend. We went up to a lookout and got a great view of the city and the hills of Fiesole:

Yesterday we went to San Gimignano and Volterra. We didn't have much time at either place, but both were very cute old towns. We climbed to the top of the highest tower in San Gimignano and had the most amazing view of the area. When we got back to Siena, we went to the Campo where we found that the city was honoring the Lupa contrada. They had a procession of the flag bearers from each of the contrade that competed in this year's Palio and we saw two flag spinners from Lupa do their thang. It was soooo cool. There were two guys in their get ups twirling flags and throwing them and catching them and stuff. If you've ever seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, the part when the Polish boy gets hit in the head with the flag, that's basically what we saw. Minus the injury. All that stuff takes place in Siena. The Palio is a big deal here. It culminates with a horserace around the Piazza del Campo twice a year, as it has been run for the past 350+ years. The entire city is divided into neighborhoods, contrade, and each contrada has it's own colors, animal and patron saint. And everyone has a contrada. It's like if everyone in the US was born with a devout loyalty to an NFL or NBA team that they support and cheer on until they die. And probably even after that. Each contrada has their own contrada fountain, museum and church. Diehard. You should probably wikipedia the Palio. It's like a religion. Seriously. Seriously.

Speaking of religion, we went to church here for the second time today. The branch is tiny. There are probably fewer than 20 people, including children. Today in RS there were only two other women besides the teacher who weren't with our group. And one of those was the RS pres. One of the elders is the branch pres. and the whole meeting is conducted in Italian. It's a really great branch. Everyone is so nice and they seem to be glad that we're there, if only that our group is like a choir. We sang We Thank the O God for a Prophet at FHE last week and it sounded amazing. Like gave me goosebumps awesome. We have just the right balance of sopranos and altos. And one bass. Not bad for only having two boys with us. Maybe I should learn the tenor part for the hymns. Inni, as they're called in Italian. Oh and I was asked to say the closing prayer in sac meeting last week, and I said it in Italian! It was terrifying and I was shaking like crazy but I was so glad I did and I think the members really appreciated that I had decided to honor their branch and language even though there were more Americans in the congregation than Italians. It felt really good.

I can't believe I'm actually here. I can't believe all of this is acutally happening. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I love Italy. I love being able to understand people when they speak Italian. I love speaking Italian. I love Italian food. I love the idea of "dolce far niente / how sweet to do nothing" while sitting in the Piazza del Campo. I love gelato. I love window shopping everywhere I go. I love that I've purchased four scarves already. I love seeing multiple ridiculously attractive Italian men every day. I love seeing multiple ridiculously attractive Italian women every day. I love the walking the streets and seeing the contrada's colors on lampposts and flags to mark their territory. I love Siena.

I love my life.

Mangia Mangia

Ugh I'm so far behind on these posts.

Day 6 - Friday!
Long version: We switched things up a bit and instead of having a free afternoon our morning was free. So the team (Audrey, Olivia, and me) decided to sleep in a little bit and then start our morning at the Piazza del Popolo. We had gone there already, but this time we wanted to go to the Santa Maria del Popolo which had been closed the other times we stopped by. Inside this church are two huge paintings by Caravaggio: The Conversion of St. Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter. Maybe you've seen/heard of them. That was another one of my highlights from Rome. They were so massive and really just amazing. I can't wait until we get to go into the museums in Rome when we go back in November. After the Caravaggios we headed out of the city to the non-Catholic cemetery to visit John Keats' grave. The cemetery is really cool because no only is it really old, but there are all kinds of people buried there. It used to be that if you were not Catholic you could not be buried inside the city walls. Keats was a Protestant, if that. It was really cool to walk around and see all of the tombstones. Some were more elaborate than others, and we found that most of the tombstones were written in Italian, English or Greek. We even found one written in Japanese. After that we went back into the city to go to the Santa Maria della Concezione, which we dubbed "the creepy church." We called it as such because it used to house Fransican monks, and on the side of the church is a crypt. It's not very big, just a hallway with some niche-like rooms off to one side, but it was veeery very interesting. They have used all the bones of the skeletons to decorate the rooms. For example, some of the walls were lined with stacks of skulls and femurs to make niches for a robed monk skeleton. Like, hundreds of skulls. And the ceilings were decorated with patterns made from vertebrae and other little bones. It was so bizzare. Olivia and Audrey have both taken anatomy (Audrey was a TA even) and so they were both geeking out and identifying and naming all the bones in the decorations. After the creepy church we went back to the Vatican to see if we could manage to get into St. Peter's. The line was insanely long, again, so we decided we'd just wait until November to go back in. Instead we had a snack by one of the pillars in the square and then went back to our hotel where we were supposed to meet up with the rest of our group. Talbot took us to San Pietro in Vincoli which translates to Saint Peter in Chains. Under the altar are some chains that are reported to have held St. Peter bound when he was in Rome before he died. And not only were those at that church, but it is also the home of Michelangelo's Moses. Oh man. The Moses was incredible. So life-like, so powerful. It was really awesome. It was interesting for such a grand piece of art to be in that church, though, because the rest of the interior is really kinda boring. No massive frescoed walls or anything. An interesting juxtaposition. Anyway, our next stop was another church - San Clemente. Upon seeing it, it's really not that exciting. But as we've been learning, it's not just about the outside. San Clemente is a Catholic church that was built on top of an early christian church that was built on top of a Roman pagan church to Mithras. So a triple layer church. We had tickets to go down to the Mithras church. It was hard to imagine that that place was once at ground level and was where real people would go to worship Mithras two thousand years ago. Paul and Peter may have even seen/been inside that very place. Crazy. It was very fascinating. We've seen so many examples of how Catholic churches and traditions take their root from the basic designs of the ancient Romans. What a rich history.

Short version: Caravaggios in Santa Maria del Popolo, cemetery and Keats' grave, creepy church - Santa Maria della Concezione, St. Peter's square, San Pietro in Vincoli (chains of St. Peter and Michelangelo's Moses), triple-layer San Clemente

Day 7 - SIENA!
Long version: This was our last view of Rome! We left in the morning for Siena via a hired coach. About halfway there we stopped at Sarteano, a small town just inside Tuscany. Here we met up with Luca Bonomi, who works at the Dante Alighieri (DA) and is basically our ambassador. Our Virgilio, you might say. He took us to a very little know place in Sarteano where they have discovered Etruscan tombs that are hundreds and hundreds of years old, and one of the tombs still has vibrantly colored frescoes on the walls. This was also the spot where we got our first real view of the Tuscan countryside and I'll tell you what, it looks exactly like all the pictures you've ever seen of the place. It was absolutely beautiful. Luca had arranged a lunch for us at a local cafe, so we ate lunch in Sarteano before getting back on the bus to finally get to Siena. Everyone was nervous to meet their host families, but we were all very excited to get into Siena. We got dropped off at the train station in Siena and then our families came to pick us up. I'm rooming with a girl named Somers (like summers), and we have become pretty good friends. I like her. Our family consists of a husband, Marco, and his wife, Paola, who are both in their 60s. Paola and her sister in law came and picked Somers and me up from the train station and took us to Paola's house. They live northwest of the city center in a cute little apartment on the first floor. And they don't speak any English. Gulp. After we had unpacked all our stuff, Marco took Somers and me on a walk to the Piazza del Campo, the main piazza of Siena and the city center. It's where they run the Palio. We got back to their house just as Paola was finishing making dinner. We eat at about 8pm every night. And we eat a lot. Paola and Marco don't eat very much, but boy do they fill up our plates. And of course genuine Italian cooking is excellent. We always eat a first course of pasta or rice and then the second course is usually some kind of meat and a vegetable or potato side dish. We finish off usually with fruit or cheese or both. And I had mentioned something about how I was excited about the gelato here, so we typically have gelato after the fruit almost every night. It's a good thing I've been doing so much walking because my eating is rivaling that amount. It's all so good!

Short version: leave Rome, Sarteano and Etruscan tombs, Siena!, meet our family, walk to the Piazza del Campo, eat, eat, eat, eat and eat some more

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita...

I'll send a postcard to whoever can tell me where this blog title comes from without cheating!

Day 4

Long version: In the morning we went as a group to the house where John Keats lived when he moved to Rome from England after finding out he had "consumption" aka TB. We sat in a big study and one of the curators of the house told us all about Keats and his life and friends and all that. I wished I had known more about Keats before we went - it would've given me a better appreciation for being in his house and learning about his life. When we were done it was about lunchtime so Audrey, Olivia and I (when I refer to "we" this is usually the combination of people I'm talking about) went to a little trattoria near the Piazza del Popolo for lunch. That was actually the only sit-down meal we had in Rome besides the hotel dinners. From there we went to the Vatican again. When we were there the first time half of St. Peter's was closed off for mass so I didn't get to see all of it. Well the line to get in was huge so we decided to skip St. Peter's and started on a walk that Talbot had written down for us to do. We walked from St. Peter's toward the Castel Sant'Angelo which is a big castle-like structure that was originally built as a mausoleum for the emporer Hadrian. In subsequent years the Popes used it to hide from invading armies and stuff. We then crossed the Ponte Sant'Angelo and headed toward the Via dei Coronari, which was probably my favorite place in Rome. It was just a little, quiet street with a great history. Christian pilgrims would walk down this road along the Tiber River on their way to the Vatican. Naturally, vendors sprung up offering all kinds of trinkets and the coronari, rosary beads, were the biggest sellers and thus the road is named. Now there are mostly antiques shops. It was so different than any other part of Rome we visited. We walked along the Via dei Coronari until we hit the Piazza Navona, at which point it started to pour buckets of rain. And of course, we weren't anywhere near a Metro stop. So we cut our walk short and went back to the hotel. It stopped raining while we were en route, but we were soggy and didn't feel like resuming our walk. We had a nice night in instead.

Short version: John Keats' house, Vatican, Castel Sant'Angelo, Ponte Sant'Angelo, Via dei Coronari, Rain


Day 5 - giovedi'

Long version: What a day. We went to the San Castillo Catacombs in the morning. Getting there was an absolute disaster. We had to take the Metro to a bus stop near the edge of the city and then catch the 118 bus to take us on the Via Appia (this road has great religious significance for anyone who believes in the New Testament). Easy peasy, right? Wrong. We waited for a half hour for a bus to come by. But when it came we were down two people who were taking a potty break. Some of us got on the bus thinking they would just catch the next bus, but Talbot decided we should just wait so we got off the bus. That is, most people got off the bus. I, however, did not make it off the bus. Instead me and Travis took the bus to our stop and decided to wait for our group at the catacombs. And wait we did. It was an hour and a half before the next 118 bus came. An hour and a half. 1.5 hours. Travis and I basically had to wait under a little tree by the road unable to communicate at all with our group. In the States I would've just whipped out my phone and texted my peeps, but no. Not in Italy. No phone. When the bus finally came, I realized we had gotten off a few stops too early, so Travis and I had to walk up the Via Appia to meet up with our group. Fun fact: the Via Appia is an ancient Roman road. It is cobblestone and is lined by 13' walls. It is wide enough for one car to comfortably drive through. So naturally it is a two way street. The shoulder is about a foot wide in most places. Yep. Travis and I almost died a few times while walking down this ridiculously tiny road with cars zooming past us. It's a miracle we're alive. Seriously. But the catacombs were pretty neat. Kinda spooky, but neat. Instead of waiting for the stupid 118 bus to take us back to our hotel we took the 218 bus which went a different way but still got us to a Metro station. And we only had to wait 10 min or so for it. Boo 118 bus. Hooray beer! I mean, hooray 218 bus! After composing ourselves at the hotel, our mini group set out to finish our walk from the day before. We started this time at the Piazza del Popolo were we got to see two gigantic Caravaggio paintings in a church nearby. Those were definitely a highlight of Rome as well. We then set off down the road where we passed by Caesar Augustus' mausoleum. We also peeked inside a church called the Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso which was gorgeous, and also where a couple was being married! As we continued down the road we passed by the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) and eventually met back at the Piazza Navona where we had abandoned our walk the day before. We seized the opportunity to go back into the piazza to check out Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers and look inside Borromini's Sant'Agnese in agone. Afterwards we took the Metro to the Piazza della Repubblica so Audrey could check out the Fontana delle Naindi with its "sensual nymph" statues. Yeah. And then that night after dinner we went to the Colosseum so we could see it in the nighttime. They had turned out some of the lights so they could shine some projection on it, which was a bummer, but it was still very pretty. I didn't have a tripod so I couldn't get any good pictures. Oh well. Still a good day.

Short version: Via Appia bus disaster, San Castillo catacombs, Piazza del Popolo and Caravaggio paintings, Augustus' mausoleum, Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso and wedding, Ara Pacis, Piazza Navona, Piazza della Repubblica, Colosseum

You aughta be in pictures

Here are a few of the pics I took from the first three days in Rome :)

Cathedral at the top of the Spanish Steps:

Views from the Spanish steps:

The Pantheon:

The occulus of the Pantheon:

Inside the Pantheon:

The facade of St. Peter's Basilica:

View of the Vatican from the Duomo of St. Peter's:

Light from the windows in the Duomo of St. Peter's:

The Roman Forum:

The outside of the Colosseum:

The inside of the Colosseum:

Throwing a coin over my shoulder into the Fontana di Trevi:

Roma: Citta' Aperta

Day 3 – TUESDAY

Long version: We got a later start in the morning, which was very nice. We went down to the Roman Forum again, but this time we actually got to go inside the grounds and check out the ruins. We had semi-formal class on some dejected-looking rocks and talked about what the Forum looked like in its hey-day. We spent the morning exploring the ruins. I think everyone, especially Talbot’s wife Sandy, is a little of afraid of me now because it was so hot that day and we kept stopping in direct sunlight to talk about things so by lunchtime I was tired, hot and sweaty and really hungry. Let’s just say I had a little diva moment. I was strongly advocating a lunch break. And by strongly advocating I mean I was about ready to start threatening anyone who stood between me and food. They all think I’m a little crazy. And they’re right. After we ate lunch, though, I was way better. Afterward some of the girls came up with an irritability scale for me: “on a scale of one to Arethra, how black are you right now?” like that Snickers commercial.  Anyway, I went from Arethra to Oprah after lunch, so all was well. We were done with the Forum for the day and our passes also let us into the Colosseum, so that’s where we went after lunch. They’re right next to each other. So instead of just oogling at the outside of the Colosseum we got to go inside and see all the stuff. The stuff was basically just the ruins of the stadium. The floor has been removed so that you can see down into the rooms that were under the arena. Oh, fun fact: the floor of the Colosseum was made of planks of wood that were covered in sand. The Latin word for sand is “arena,” and thus the modern usage of that word to represent any kind of athletic stadium was born. Cool, huh? The inside of the Colosseum wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d imagined. The outside, of course, is so distinctive in its architecture, but the inside was very plain and mostly brick. Man, is it huge, though. We were free after that, so we went back to the hotel to rest for a little bit, then I went out with Audrey, Olivia and Allyson back to the Trevi Fountain. I did the whole “throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain” bit, which is supposed to ensure that you will one day return to Rome. Of course, I am returning to Rome on Nov 16, so I guess I just wasted that 20 cents or however much it was. From there we were going to go back to the Piazza Navona, but ran out of time. Instead we stopped by the Pantheon again before heading back to the hotel where we had dinner, followed by a short lesson on John Keats.

Short version: Roman Forum, Colosseum, diva moment, Trevi Fountain

Quando a Roma...

Hey! So I asked my host family at dinner tonight if they had internet and they said yes! I guess that was something they didn't think we would consider a necessity, but here we are all the same.

And here I am.

I’m writing this from Italy. Italy! I can’t even believe I’m actually here doing this. We just got to Siena. We spent the past week in Rome and ohmygosh it was incredible. I still don’t think it has hit me yet that we were actually in Rome seeing in real life things we’ve only seen in books and pictures. As boring as this is, let me go day by day and tell you what we did.

Day 1 – Sept 5, Sunday

Long version: After almost 24 hours of traveling, I made it to Rome! I went RDU-ATL-EWR-FCO. Yikies. Once I got to the airport I had to wait for everyone else to get in because we were all taking a bus together from the airport to the hotel. Unfortunately, I was one of the first people to get in so I ended up waiting in the airport for 7 hours. I know, right? All I wanted to do was shower because I felt so gross. But we finally made it to the Hotel Pacific and got all checked in. I ended up rooming with two girls, Olivia and Allyson. They both had been in Italy for a while so they could travel a bit with their families and whatnot. I don’t know how it happened, but we had the smallest room. Everyone else had terraces, too! The door was 6’ tall, as was our showerhead. But, it didn’t really matter because we spent so little time in the hotel. That night, we went out with Dr. Talbot, our director, and his wife and 14-yr-old son, Sandy and James, respectively. The subway (Metro) had a stop close to our hotel, which was nice. So that night we went to the Spanish steps and saw the outside of the house where John Keats (poet) lived when he was in Rome. From there we walked to the Pantheon. It was closed when we got there so we couldn’t go inside, but we had time to walk around. I went with a couple other girls to Della Palma, which apparently has the best gelato in Rome. I got three gusti (flavors): Kinder Bueno (like the chocolate bar), cannoli and nutella. Mmm. From the Pantheon we walked to the Piazza Navona which is home to Bernini’s fantastic Fountain of the Four Rivers. To round out our first excursion into Rome, after the Piazza Navona we went to the Trevi Fountain by way of passing the column of Marcus Aurelius. The Trevi was absolutely amazing, but it was very crowded. This is the same fountain that the girl dances in in the movie La Dolce Vita, and another woman does the same thing in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun. We went back to the hotel after that where I was finally able to get some sleep after 40-some-odd hours of no sleep.

Short version: Arrive in Rome, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, first gelato, Piazza Navona, column of Marcus Aurelius, Trevi Fountain

Day 2 – Labor Day

Long version: Another action packed day! We got up at the buttcrack of dawn to get a headstart on our day. First we went back to the Pantheon and this time we got to go inside. Raphael and Vittorio Emanuele II both have their remains in the Pantheon so we got to see those, too, which was cool. After that we went to this little church called the Santa Maria sopra Minverva where tucked in a little corner is Il Cristo, a statue by Michelangelo. From there we went down the main road, Via del Corso, to the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II which we call the wedding cake. Vittorio is responsible for uniting all of what is now Italy. It was pretty recent, too – Italy wasn’t united until 1861. Behind his monument is the Campidoglio, a small piazza that was designed by Michelangelo. The pattern of the stones on the ground is the same as the pattern of the stones in the courtyard of the JFSB, for those of you who are familiar with BYU. And just behind that is the Roman Forum. That’s the ancient center of Rome, and now only a few things remain. The Colosseum is right behind the Forum, so we went there, too. There is a Metro stop literally right across the street from the Colosseum, so that’s where we got back on the Metro and went back to the hotel for lunch. After we ate we went to the Vatican. We went to St. Peter’s Basilica (also designed by Michelangelo) and climbed to the top of the dome (the Duomo). It was about 21382739 cramped steps to the top, but once we were there the view was spectacular. We could see the entire city, it was incredible. We had a nice break on the roof of St. Peter’s after climbing back down from the Duomo and then we went down into the actual basilica. That’s where I caught sight of the Pietà by Michelangelo. I almost cried. It was so amazing. I couldn’t believe I was actually there, seeing the real thing. I didn’t get to explore the church as much as I wanted to because we were there at 5pm and that’s when they have mass and close off the church past the trancept. I didn’t get to rub the foot of the bronze statue of St. Peter from the old basilica, see the Baldocchino up close, see the altar underwhich are the remains of St. Peter or go to the end of the left trancept which is the spot where St. Peter was martyred. Oh well. We’ll be back in November.

Short version: Inside the Pantheon, Il Cristo, Wedding Cake, Campidoglio, Roman Forum, Colosseum, climbed the Duomo, St. Peter’s Basilica

Ok, so it has taken me a bazillion and a half years to write this and now I need to go to bed because I am super tired. But I now have internet! Huzzah! I'll keep the overdue updates coming and eventually try and post some pictures :)
 
Ciao ciao!

Sono qui!

Hello blog world!

I'm finally in Siena! We spent the past week in Rome and it was absolutely amazing.

I don't have internet access at my host family's house and my laptop is having trouble connecting to the wireless at the school, so I'm using one of the school's computers, complete with an Italian keyboard which keeps messing me up. So much has happened in the past few weeks that I'll have to post a laundry list of all that we did. Don't worry, I wrote it all down so I can reference it later. But right now I don't have near enough time to say all I need to say. So instead, content yourself with this little post and know that I am here and am having a blast. I've already made some really great friends and I have of course seen many amazing things.

So, dear reader, I will spend some of my free time typing up my blog on Word and then I will post it when I have internet access.

Ciao ciao!

Volere è potere

Well. Here we are.

I'm going to Italy in 2.5 days. I can't believe it. I'm really going. I'm really, actually going to Italy. I'm going to live there for three months. I keep expecting to wake up and have none of this be real. I have dreams that something traumatic happens to me and I can't go. Like that I get in a terrible car accident. Or, my personal favorite, that I get diagnosed with cancer afterwhich I go straight to the beauty salon and shave my head G.I. Jane style and donate all my hair to Locks of Love since I'm going to be bald anyway. But none of that has happened yet. And the closer I get to Saturday, the more I am relieved that I'm still healthy but also the more I am scared that my catastrophe is right around the corner.

Every step of the way to getting to Italy has been a huge pain in the patella. Getting my passport, getting all the right paperwork for my visa, every single payment step - they've all been marred by miscommunications and inconveniences.

But like I said. Here we are.

I am unbelievably grateful for the opportunity I have to study abroad in Siena. This has been a long time coming. I don't know when I first decided I wanted to study abroad in Italy or even study the Italian language. I guess I attribute my initial interest to a project I did in first grade when we learned about Pompeii. I remember we made a book about the ruins and drew pictures and stuff for it. One of my pages was about how they uncovered a bakery and found eggs intact and even a loaf of bread in the oven. Other than that early exposure, I suppose I've always loved Italian food. I mean, come on, who doesn't?

When I was a little older, my family lived in Germany. One time when my grandparents came to visit, they took me with them on a trip to Switzerland, Austria and Italy. We didn't even spend a whole day in Italy. We went to Venice and I still remember walking through the piazzas saying "no grazie" to the old ladies shoving flowers in our faces, scratching the mosquito bites I got all over my arms in our hotel room in Austria the night before and the food. Oh, the food. Every time we walked past a gelato stand, we'd look in our hands. If there was not already a cone of gelato there, we'd buy more. As a 10 year old, I was in heaven. The canals may have smelled terrible, but that was a small price to pay for unlimited gelato.

The only other contributor as to why I've wanted to do this is from my experience working at Disney World in Florida. I met so many people there. I literally talked to hundreds of people every day from all over the world. I worked every day with people from all over the world. I was so amazed at how fluent in English my international co-workers were. I had taken Spanish in high school, but I only knew enough to say "no hablo español / I don't speak Spanish." I wanted so badly to speak another language. So when I got into BYU, the first class I signed up for was Italian 101. Part of the reason I wanted to go to BYU was because I knew they had a study abroad program in Italy.

It has been two years since I worked at Disney. I have taken four semesters worth of Italian classes. I can speak Italian without too much tripping over verb tenses and grammar. I applied to study abroad. I got accepted. It's paid for. I am going to Italy.

I believe that if you want something, you should go get it. You can't just watch your life go by - you need to be there directing your life. No one else is going to do it for you. It's your own fault if you're left wondering "what if...?" You have to try. Even if you hate it or get hurt or it isn't right, you have to try. You have to know for yourself. I thought I wanted to be an engineer, so I tried it. I changed my mind, and I'm ok. Now I know. I wanted to work at Disney World, so I did. I wanted to learn Italian, so I did. I wanted to study in Italy, so I am. I believe that God has a plan for me. I believe that God has a plan for each and every one of you. You'll know when something isn't right, like I knew about MSOE and being an engineer. I was scared. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. So I waited. I tried some different things. Most importantly, I let God have the final say. And look where I am now. I'm going to Italy and I'm happier than I've ever been.

This blog was created to serve as a public journal of my experience in Italy. I am going with a great group of people from BYU who I hope will bear with me and my somewhat off the wall personality. I am so excited to learn from them and grow with them in this experience. I hope to be a good friend to them, and I hope they will know that I genuinely care about them. This is our experience. I am so grateful that I have the chance to share in this with them. I'm grateful for the Our Family for Families First Foundation, which has not only funded my college education, but has also genereously contributed to my study abroad program and made it possible for me to do this. I am grateful to my family. They make so many sacrifices on my behalf, and especially to my parents who have also paid for a good chunk of this trip (thanks for earning the coins, Dad!) And of course I'm grateful for all of you! I have made so many great friends and I hope you all can vicariously enjoy this amazing experience.

So...

Here we are.



Are you ready?