WOW! What a trip...

Oh my GOD! How do I even begin to describe what has happened over the last two days (or is it three? one? this time change thing is still a little difficult for me haha).

Lets start at the airport shall we? I checked my luggage (everything was under 50 pounds thank god, and went through security without a hitch. I boarded my flight, and shortly after was flying to Rome! The plane was practically empty. There were like 75 people tops on a massive transatlantic plane. This was amazing because that left A LOT of empty seats which I then proceeded to help fill. About an hour into the flight, I was sprawled out over two seats. By the time we hit the three hour mark, I had all four seats of a middle section of plane to myself....AMAZING!

So I almost died laughing when I was what I would be watching for the first movie during my flight (they showed two total). THE MOVIE WAS MAMA MIA!!!!!!! All I could think about was my mom, Andrea, my aunt Nay and my father (mostly my father because he would have wanted to DIE if he was forced to watch that). When Mama Mia was over they showed the Dark Knight, but I fell asleep...oops...

When I landed in Rome I had to take the Leonardo Express to the Termini train station in Rome. This is where the two girls I was travelling with and I met up with another girl in our program. We hung around Termini for a little while and grabbed lunch. My first food in Italy was soooo yummy, and I got it from a fast food place in the train station!!! It was called something like Chef Express or something.... It was a little loaf of bread, cut in half, with some proschuito, tomato, lettuce and mozarella cheese. Delizioso!!!!

After that we began the 7 block trek to the bus station (but NOT after seeing a few gypsies with "babies" who were asking for money... ALLIE!!!). We ended up going in a bit of a round about way so I am assuming that our "little trek" eventually became 10 blocks instead of 7. That doesn't sound toooooo bad, but you have to remember that I was carring a heavy purse and lugging two 49 pound suitcases over cobblestone streets and sidewalks.

Haha, at one point I think that we were walking past the UK or Russian (or something) Embassy and there were ARMED GUARDS just casually walking around with M16s in hand...you know...no biggie.

So we had about an hour to kill by the time we reached the train station. We landed in Rome at 7:21, grabbed the 9:06 train to Termini (our luggage took FOREVER to come out), arrived in Termini at around 9:40, got lost in the train station for a little bit, met our friend at 11:30 and were at the bus station by 1pm, which is actually 7am eastern time. Our bus didn't leave until 2:30 so we grabbed some pizza (which was AMAZING by the way Andrea) and each had a glass of wine. Haha that was soo strange for me. I ordered my pizza and they just assumed that I wanted wine with it haha.

The bus ride was bittersweet. The sights were amazing. Cliffs and hairpin turns all throughout the trip. When I say that Ascoli Piceno is in the middle of a mountain range, I am not kidding....It literally is between two mountains! CRAZY!! The only bad part of the bus was the man sitting two seats behind me that got carsick the whole way... GROSS!! THREE HOURS OF PUKING!!

When we arrived in Ascoli Piceno and met up with our program directors who showed us to our apartments... all I have to say about them is AMAZING!!!!! SOO GORGOURS! They are new apartments and are literally luxury apartments. My room has a bathroom attached and I slept in a queen size bed last night... They are situated right in the middle of town and are a five minute walk from ANYWHERE! AMAZING!!!!

Everything here is so gorgeous!