First Day

Woke up early Monday because it was the first day of my Italian class!!! Took a shower, blow dried my hair... Even put on a cute "short set." Went to a cafe and got a cafe latte and a donut with sugar on top. There was no mom or roommate to pump me up for my first day. Luckily I had Mariel's old yellow i-pod (yes, I receive hand-me-downs from a twelve year old.. sad). The i-pod was filled with anything that Miley Cyrus ever sang so I put "Party in the USA" on repeat and skipped to John Cabot.

Seven people. That's it. Seven people including me. So this was a maximum six friend potential classroom. One girl is Italian and can fluently speak Italian. To say she's not really looking to make friends is a nice way to put it. One guy wears completely all black-t-shirt, pants, shoes, socks all black. I've now been in school for two weeks... His outfit has not changed once. I'm curious how many of the same shirt and pants he has? Does he rotate or just wears the same thing every single day? I quickly noticed the kid in the corner with the British accent. Ends up Cody is "my first friends' " (Rusty, Brendan, and Joe) other roommate! His family is from London, and he goes to American in DC. There was a girl next to him... I instantly liked her. We quickly bonded over our lacking Italian skills! Dominique was a tall blonde who plays volleyball at Gettysburg. A nice gay couple came in late. They have yet to come to class on time once. Dominique, Cody, and I went to get coffee right after class.

For the first time ever, I was not the weakest link in my Italian class. The girl that speaks fluent Italian obviously makes every other American in the class look bad, but other than that I was on par with the rest of the group. My teacher is incredibly sweet. We got a chance to ask her questions... I decided to spice up class a little and ask when the first time she fell in love was... she smiled and we all were entertained for ten minutes. Painless first day!

After coffee I ran over to a McDonalds a mile away to meet Jill for a quick meeting. She gave me a list of priests that I was to interview in the following weeks. I then went on a little run. I ended up almost falling into a fountain when I tried to fill up my water bottle. Probably would have felt great though. There is absolutely no air condition anywhere! I met Jill at the Angellicum, one of forty something Vatican Universities. Jill studies there, and I joined one of her classes for fun. I sat next to a priest from Rwanda. He was thrilled I had spent a summer there, and we bonded talking about "banana beer" and the capital, Kigali. After class we went to a great restaurant that has yummy American cheeseburgers. A few priests joined Jill and me.

I got to bed, and looked forward to meeting my new class friends at the cafe by school before Italian!