First Day of Training

This morning I didn't hear my alarm go off, but luckily one of my roommates was able to wake up without one. We went to have breakfast at 7:30 in the lobby, and I have to say, these are my kind of people when it comes to breakfast. I'm not much of a breakfast eater, and apparently neither are they. I had a vanilla cream croissant with pineapple yogurt, and it was absolutely delicious.

Afterwards we walked down the down to some Villamiglia place where we received our greetings and did tons of icebreakers and games. I learned some new songs, one including lyrics about bubblegum, and did some fancy dances with lots of bootyshaking. We also played charades with partners trying to explain our flights and our worst dates, and during mine I was able to pull out the MJ moonwalk. It was baller.

For lunch we walked down the road to this beautiful recreation center. They served fresh salad, potatoes, risotto, and pane. It really wasn't all that fancy, but tasted soooo good because everything was fresh. The salads taste so much better here than they do back at home. The rest of the day we played more games as if we were the children and the staff members were the tutors, just so we can get an idea about how we should go about teaching. I probably knew this before, but I was reminded that hand gestures are extremely helpful, as well as repetition and speaking slowly.

Dinner was scheduled for 8:30pm at a restaurant about a mile from my hotel. It was such a gorgeous walk, and I came to find out that the restaurant was literally sitting right on the beach! I threw my purse down on the chair and immediately ran into the soft sand and dipped my feet into the brisk water. Apparently the water here is very dirty to the natives, but it was cleaner than the Atlantic at Rehoboth, so It looked wonderful to me. We took pictures with some of the other tutors, and it was simply a marvelous evening. I grabbed some of everything for dinner: penne pasta in a mix of marinara and pesto, potatoes with sausage, salad, eggplant with marinara, chips (aka french fries), a piece of turkey (i think), two mushy green squares of goodness, and something that I think was a pesto ball. For drinks I had sparkling water and white wine, and followed the meal with cappuccino and gelato. The cappuccino was not included in our free meal, so I had to go up to the bar and order it. In Italian. Even I was impressed with myself.

This place is absolutely amazing and I feel so at home here. I remember a lot of you told me to have fun, but make sure I come back to the US at the end of the summer...Might not be able to keep that promise after all. :-P

"Welcome to Italy!"

Getting on the plane from Frankfurt to Nice in the pouring rain.

View of German mountains.

After over approx 36 hrs of being awake and 15 hrs of travel time, I finally made it to Italy! I'm currently sitting on my bed in my hotel in Sanremo.By the way, it has a balcony! I can't believe that Italy is just like it is in the movies. Actually it's even better and I absolutely can't wait to start walking around on the streets!

A bunch of the tutors are at a pub around the corner from my hotel right now, but I decided against going tonight since I look terrible and smell like a dead roach that's been soaked in formaldehyde. My flights were okay, but I was barely able to get any sleep. But I met up with Daniela, another ACLE tutor, who had my same flight schedule so we met each other at the terminals.

My first flight into Frankfurt wasn't too comfortable. I had a middle seat on the plane, with a cute German couple to my left, and an unsociable boy to my right. A young German couple was sitting in front of me and they were making out during the entire flight. Talk about awkward. I did however manage to catch a few winks. But I woke at one point to find myself nearly drooling on the poor German woman sitting next to me. Luckily she was sleeping and didn't notice.

The airport in Germany made me dump out my water bottle after customs, so I haven't really had anything to drink since then. The German man made such a big deal out of it. The flight from Germany to Nice was very relaxing. We had to take a bus to the plane, and right as the bus stopped, the heavens decided to open up and downpour as we were trying to board the plane. I had a window seat with lots of leg room, and found myself dozing off before we even took off.

In Nice I met up with a few other tutors, and we waited about an hour to catch the bus, then had to take 3 separate trains which were as slow as inchworms. The sights were beautiful, but we were all just so tired that we pretty much slept the whole way. Finally met up with the ACLE staff and they gave us some brief overview about tomorrow in addition to a packet of paper which I still have to read.

Then one staff member took me and 3 other girls off at our hotel, but as we pulled up, a teenage boy ran out of the car in front of us in only his boxers. He started hard core kissing this girl on a moped while blocking the traffic behind us. He then jumped back in his car and his friend took off. While this was going on, the acle staff member commented, "Oh boys, put some pants on...Well girls, welcome to Italy!"

Da Capo

So here we are! My first blog for my first trip to Italy. For those who haven't heard (shame on you), I'll be interning in Italy this summer. I'm working with a program called ACLE http://www.acle.org/ where I'll be a camp counselor teaching Italian children to speak English.

I leave tomorrow at 8pm for my 12hr flight. Depart from Philly to Frankfurt, Germany (2hr layover), then to Nice, France. From there I'll be meeting some other ACLE tutors and we're going to catch a train to San Remo, Italy where we'll have our week-long orientation.

Now here's my plan: A lot of family and friends have been asking me to keep them updated, and I feel like this is the easiest way. I'll try my best to write everyday, but I have no idea where I'll be each week, so I might not have good wireless access. Not only that, but I tend to be really bad at keeping things like this going. I'll try my best :) But I promise to post my best photos for you to see.

As of right now, I only have my clothes packed, and not much else. Yes I know, procrastination. But in my defense, I only had a week to see everyone in DE before my trip.

Countdown to liftoff: 21 hrs!!