So much to do, so little time!

My apartment! (notice the pink post-it's- we labeled everything in Italian haha)



Today officially ended my first week of school; I only have classes Mondays and Wednesdays! My classes seem pretty cool, really small though. My "big" class is like 22 students and the smallest is 6 students haha. My teachers are chill so it should be a pretty good semester, my homework load is basically just to read, the usual. This week the gang and I started planning our travels. So far my roommate Christina and I are going to Florence next weekend to stay with my aunt, February 20-22 a bunch of us are going to Venice for Carnival, and February 27-March 1 we are going to Barcelona. We also signed up for 2 different day trips in April, one to Capri and one to Pompeii that includes a hike up Mt. Vesuvius! Still left to plan is spring break, we're thinking Paris, Amsterdam and London and a couple more weekend trips. There are so many places we all want to go, but not enough time! I'm considering pushing my flight home back a week so that I can go to Greece (the original plan was to go to Greece for spring break, but it won't be nice weather yet in March so it would sort of be a waste of money). Most of my friends are staying at least 2 weeks after school ends, so they plan to do more traveling. Staying an extra week would be cutting it close to going to San Diego for graduation, but whatever, it will be a kick ass grad month! Well actually grad like 6 months if you include this whole semester and Jordan in June hahaha.

Yesterday for Obama's inauguration, JCU (John Cabot University, my school here) had a little party for the event. They had the entire CNN coverage showing on the big projector screen and snacks and wine (of course!!!!). It was amazing watching him get sworn in and listen to his speech. An Italian news station was there filming our reactions during the ceremony. The whole room of students and faculty were just silent and I literally got chills during his speech. I started feeling a renewed sense of pride for America and it motivated me to want to be a part of that change. I love Italy, but nothing can top the freedom and uniqueness of the U.S.

After the inauguration, the roomies, Andrew, Zac and I went to a wine tasting our study abroad program organized. It was really fun to feel so classy and Italian, not to mention drinking some delicious wine! We tasted 3 kinds, a white, a red and a desert wine, each complemented by an appetizer. I surprisingly really liked the white, too bad I don't remember what it was! I guess I'll just have to try some until I find it!