Il secondo giorno

Today is the second day here! It's 5:15, so i can't say today "was", because i'm planning on having more of it!

We had our orientation this morning at 9:15, which was pretty helpful. Overall, we probably had about 6 lectures about different aspects of our stay here. After orientation and before lunch, I had to go take my italian placement test. I was fine on the paper test part of it, but when i had to go up and talk to the interviewers in italian, i choked. i realized that i wasn't comfortable enough with what i had learned recently, and i'm actually going to end up taking a section lower than the one that i had planned on taking. this is such a relief- i can focus on knowing what i've learned much better. it's an elective anyway.

i met up with some people in the school's cafe, which isn't that great, but had a good panino. that and a nectarine are all i've had today. it's fine.

i went and got my cell phone after that. mom and drew- i'll give you the "american" number when i get one so that if you wanted to call me, you wouldn't be calling long distance. the phone itself is free, and the rates are really good. if i call a number before calling numbers in the US, the rate is like 18 cents per minute.

i've decided not to go on any of the pre-planned trips that the school has. my friends and i are thinking that we can plan our own trips without the limitations that the others might have, and for less money. also, we can go when we want to go. i hope this plan works out and that i end up getting to go all of the places i wanted to go: rome, venice, cinque terre. and we're also thinking we'll go to a wine tasting in the outskirts of florence.

last night we walked around for a while searching for the place we wanted to go to dinner. we never found it, but ended up going to another place where they set up a few tables for us outside. i got spaghetti. duh. after that, we got gelato, which was amaaaaaaaaaazing. it was a perfect cure for the heat and dehydration. we walked around for a while trying to get kelly back to her apartment, since we weren't going to let her walk by herself and her 2 roommates are good friends and do their own thing :( on the way back from dinner, my roommates and i ran across some really drunk, strange men. it just convinced us more that no one is allowed to walk alone at night. definitely not.

tonight the program is hosting a welcome dinner at a restaurant. it will be a ton of people, but i'm assuming that we'll all just go together and end up sitting/talking together anyway. and it's free!

i love and miss all of you!