About time.

As of today, I've been in Italy for a full calendar month, and it would appear that that's how long it takes me to get in gear and create a blog. I went to Genova & Tarazze over the weekend, so I'm pretty exhausted and am certainly not going to do a full update right now, but the incredibly-short version goes something like this:

• August 16 - I arrive in Rome and then spend 5 days alone in an empty city (it was still ferrie, or country-wide holiday fun time, when I arrived) trying to find a grocery store and to apply for my permesso di soggiorno.
• August 21ish - Lisa comes! We spend the next two weeks doing everything there is to do in Rome. Some incredibly good times... Feel free to look at the albums on my facebook if you haven't already.
• September 4 - I take a train to Milan from Rome, have lunch with Beatrice, and then get shipped to an agriturismo called La Torrezzetta (the actual spelling espcapes me) with the other 100 IES Milan kids. We get oriented, and I meet the music kids from Denver University and some others.
• September 6 - I move into the Collegio di Milano with 9 other IES kids. Single rooms, 90 Italian students, every meal in the cafeteria with the Italian kids. We all sit together and talk at every meal, which is nice but exhausting (and is still exhausting two weeks later).
• After that, we start our intensive Italian. I like my class a lot, although I moved myself down to be in it because it's what I need after skipping so many levels at IU.
• Last week, I and the Denver kids discover Le Scimmie, home to live music every night and an excellent aperitivo (very good drinks, okay food, but all very cheap). That night an Italian band called Dio della Love plays, and we all fall in love with them. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any albums out. :(
  
• This weekend, by strange coincidence I and the Denver kids end up at the same hostel in Genoa. We have a great time exploring the city and climbing many, many more miles uphill than we had ever even considered wanting to climb when we were looking for the hostel (located on top of a monstrous hill/mountain) on Friday, and then we go to the beach at Tarazze on Saturday. A great trip. Sunday night when I get back, Brandon is in town for the evening and we have a nice aperitivo at a bar in the same neighborhood as Le Scimmie. We have a lot of fun, and Vienna sounds fabulous. I can't wait to visit!

Tomorrow we finally audition for the voice teacher, so I'm going to get some sleep so I can at least attempt to do a decent job. I can't wait to meet her!

Hope you're all doing well... I'm having a great time, but I do miss you all a lot.

(Also, I had to edit this post because I changed tenses in the middle of the list of bullets. I was very disappointed in myself. Not okay.)