dia uno

Friday, Jan 9 2009
About a zillion thoughts were running through my head on the flight, as they had been for the days and weeks leading up to leaving.  Among them were:

-I am SO not ready for this
-day dreaming different scenarios of what my apartment will look like and who my roommates would be
-figuring out the time difference, repeatedly
-determining reasons why i went into spasms of uncontrollable smiling

The flight was at night, and we didn't see any sunlight until less than an hour before we landed.  My first landmark came with the first city lights I saw.  Tiny yellow-orange globes clustered together in a variety of blobs and rectangles every few minutes or every few seconds.  After the first town I spotted in Europe, I think I spent about 20 minutes straight staring out the window and spotting more towns.  Plus many more minutes after that–I couldn't sleep much.

Instead, I fell asleep on the hour-and-a-half bus ride to Viterbo from the airport in Rome.  I flashed in and out of sleep, trying to convince my brain to stay alert, feeling madly awake for a few minutes while enjoying the coutryside that immsensely reminded me of Israel, and falling asleep again.

At around 11 a.m., I opened my eyes and legitimately thought we had driven to Tzefat, a holy city in Israel.  About a minute later, Stephen, one of our program directors, said we were entering Viterbo.  The buildings on the edge of down had the same misplaced, sporatic feel as the ones in Tzefat.  

We drove on into the city.  While we were stopped at an intersection, I looked out my window to a building with walls that looked like they were stacked in front of eachother and painted dull yellow.  Out of the third or fourth floor window, a man, in full winter-weather gear, was hanging more than half out the window and spackeling the wall of the building beneath him.

We're staying the first night in a hotel for "orientation," which doesn't make much sense since our orientation isn't until Monday.  My guess is they just didn't have our apartments ready yet and needed to throw us somewhere.  If anything, this has taught me that I do not, in fact, pack light.  I am dreading tomorrow morning when I'll have to carry my enormous bags back downstairs (in an elevator that only fits one person and two bags uncomfortably, and through doors so thin my duffel couldn't fit through them sideways).  I'm also expecting no elevators in the apartments and some necessary teamwork to get the bags into our rooms.

We just spent some time walking around Viterbo.  I think the anticipation of getting here hit me more than actually arriving; maybe I'm just feeling non-chalant because we haven't really done anything yet.  I did, however, eat my first slice of pizza in Italy.  As Murphy's Law would have it, it took about 20 minutes to find the first pizzeria and about 3 minutes to find each one consecutively after that.  I have four words: sicilian mozzerella thin crust.  Oh yeah.  You know you want to come visit me now.

I'm wriitng this, back in the hotel room, where we've got a little break before going out to look at cell phones.  I've got my phone from the USA with me, but the rates for making calls are outrageous.  You can, however, text me on the number you know and love, because I still get those for free.  New phone will (hopefully) be pre-paid and mainly for conversing with others within the continent.

There's day 1, in not so much of a nutshell.  It feels like it's been going on forever and it's only 2 p.m., but that's probably because I haven't really slept and it's 8 a.m. New York time.

Until the next entry,
Ciao bellos!