ciao from italy!

It took me a total of 20 hours to finally arrive to italy! Whew, glad I got here okay and in somewhat one piece. I had 2 stops, one in NYC and another in Milan. The picture is of the beautiful sunrise I got to see from my airplane seat. Thankfully, I was able to get window seats more or less in the front of the plane J. On the flight I ate, watched fun with dick and jane (jim carrey movie), read Rick Steve’s book about Florence & Tuscany, practiced Italian, and slept. I was inspired by tiff and brought my own pillow – what a huge difference it made! On the way from NYC to Milan, I sat next to this nice Italian grandma who kept talking to me in Italian. i’m not really sure what she said but in my mind we had deep conversations about her family, Milan, and food. She taught me how to say beef and fish in Italian.

Once I got to Florence, I waited with hope (and some worry :p) for Michele to pick me up. O yeah, this would be a good time for some background information. I am in the Tuscana area of Italy in a small city called Pontassive interning at a Bed & Breakfast owned by the Cheli family. Check it out at www.casacheli.com. Massimo and Vanna are the parents of Michele (23 years old) and Orlando (19 years old). My aunt is good friends with Vanna after studying abroad and living at the Cheli’s apartment in Florence that they rent out to international students so that’s how I heard about the job. Anyways, michele finally picked me up after 2 hours of waiting! Thank God J.

The B&B is in the countryside of Florence (the city) so it took us 1 hour’s drive to get home. Once there, we had tortellini for lunch. I was super tired from traveling and jet lag so I took a nap and unpacked. I should take a picture of my room... anyways, I woke up for dinner (soup). Every meal here is freaking delicious. Hopefully I can make stuff for ya’ll when I come back but I’m pretty sure the ingredients in America cannot even begin to compare :\. After dinner, Orlando and I went to visit their neighbors and borrowed batman begins. A really cool thing about this place is that we see all the neighbors almost everyday. They randomly stop by to say hello and chat J. We watched batman begins and I definitely liked it more the second time around because I actually understood what was going on :p. this sums up my first day in italy that I’m writing 6 days later :p. o well, at least I’m updating!