Ciao!

As of 3:30 am EST/9:30 am CEST, We travelled about 12 hours total: Louisville to Charlotte was about an hour and 15 minutes, then Charlotte to Rome was about 8 hours and 45 minutes. That's the longest flight I've ever been on, so I was a little nervous when we began boarding. I ended up sitting next to a delightful lady from Nashville named Terri. This was a really nice relief, being able to talk to someone about familiar things...it kept my mind off of the flight! Her daughter even visited Carson-Newman when she was looking at schools; it was great to share conversation like that with someone.

When we got here this morning, the first thing we did was claim our luggage and pass through customs and such. After that, we boarded our charter bus and headed to our hostel, Litus. You can check out pictures of where we're staying here: http://www.litusroma.com/. I'm sharing a room with 5 other girls, and our room is the biggest; we have 2 huge, tall windows that face the ocean. We opened them up this afternoon and just let the Roman breeze blow in. :) After freshening up and checking in with parents and such, my roommates and I headed down to the beach and walked around there for a bit. We ended up getting "gelato," which ended up not being gelato at all! Mine was the Italian equivalent of a Drumstick...haha. We're learning! After that, we all came back and took nice, long naps (I know this will make a certain someone especially proud ;) ). We had a short Orientation tonight at 7:00 with our directors and teachers, and after that, 2 of my roommates and I headed out to grab something for dinner because all of us were really hungry. We ended up at a small pizza place about a block from our hostel. Between the three of us girls, we finished off a delicious ham and cheese pizza. It was definitely...exquisite, haha.

Classes start tomorrow (my Michelangelo history class is Monday-Thursday, 10:00am-12:00 noon, and my Drawing II class is Monday-Thursday, 4:00pm-6:00pm), and some friends and I may head into the city tomorrow after classes for dinner. On Tuesday we'll be touring the Vatican and St. Peter's, and I'm pumped for that!

Anyway, it's about 10:00pm here, and I'm exhausted. Jet-lag hasn't really affected me too badly; when we landed this morning, it really did feel like 9:30 am rather than 3:30 am, and after my nap, I feel totally adjusted to the time here. I think it's just a matter of not having really slept in the past 2 days. :)

So, for tonight, ciao!