My first day

Hello from Italy!

Well it has been a long journey to get here. I am finally done (mostly) with my obligations before coming here. I stayed up very very late Tuesday night packing my last few things into storage and taking a few things home to my parents. Its not so easy when you mostly do all the packing on your own, plus it was very distracting sometimes to try and say goodbye as well as trying to do what needed to be done.

I arrived at my parents house about 10-10:30 in the evening and I was so exhausted but I talked with my dad and mom... had a shower as I hadn't showered in almost 2-3 days. I spoke on the phone a bit... and tried to go to sleep. I wasn't nervous really about my trip... in fact I was maybe a little excited but not very nervous at all. I just knew I had to get to sleep because we would be waking up at 5am, my dad and I, to go to Long Beach. I awoke to hear things moving and I forgot I was not in my apartment and I thought perhaps someone had broken in. I remembered though when my niece started yelling "MAAAAAMMMMM!!!!" and she would not stop. I figured it was already 5 am so I should get up... turns out it was 3:40am. I went out to see her one last time, I knew my presence would make her be quiet and sure enough she stopped yelling when she saw me. I went back to sleep and woke up again around 5:20am.

My dad drove me to Long Beach and I stayed with my aunt for awhile til my sister woke up. It was very fun to hang out at my sister's house and good to see my nephew one last time. Dru is getting to be gigantic! He is like a big killer whale now and only 6 months old. Later my aunt took me to the airport and off I went. I was not really bothered by the fact that I was alone, I just took it as time I could spend studying my Italian. I sat around for about 2 hours which went by really fast and when I got on the plane... I was fortunate enough to be seated next to a very very nice man named Phillip who was Swiss. We chatted a lot and it made the time pass by very quick. I spent more time studying and eventually it was night time... I did not sleep very well on the plane. By this time I had a huge headache and was so tired from everything that I started to feel a bit upset. I could not get comfortable at all and only got a few hours of sleep.

We landed soon in Zurich and I was very impressed by the airport there. It is very clean and streamlined, apparently it has won many awards. You take a metro to the other side of the airport for transfers and they have a big digital clock which keeps everything very punctual. On the metro, Phillip showed me that on the way over they have this weird thing on the metro where when you look out, it looks like a movie plays for you. It was very cool! I have not seen anything like it. In the bathrooms, they have dispenser sprays that you spray on the toilet paper and wipe on the seat to clean it rather than have the paper covers. I thought that was interesting. Everything is very clean and organized, I was very impressed.

The flight to Rome, I don't remember it much because I knocked out for the entire flight which was very nice. I woke up... waited for my luggage and very briefly I thought... what if the family doesn't show up? What if... my luggage doesn't show up... and then I stopped thinking about it and I was fine again. I met the father and children in the waiting area after you get the luggage and the children had colored signs for me with my name on it. It was very nice and they were soooo in shock. The father speaks English quite well and only sometimes doesn't know how to say something in English. He would translate things back n forth between me and the kids, and I felt very shy to try speaking Italian to them.

He showed me around the house, it is very very very beautiful where I am staying. My room and bathroom are FAR greater than what I had in California. OH and my bathroom has a bidet! I can't quite figure out how to sit on it yet but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

Well I think this is enough for now... I'll have to write later. My Italian is getting better.... but could use a lot of work of course. I will try to put up some pictures of the house so you can see where I am staying. Later when I get my own time I will take pictures of the city... lots of parks and trees, I woke up today and though "WOW I feel so blessed!"

Addio for now!
-L

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