One LONG day: first day in Italy

Okay. So I am here! In Italy, trip number two. There are a lot more people on this trip than last, so it will defeinitely be fun. We arrived in Nashville, at 8:30. We boarded our plane and left for Atlanta. The plane was a half an hour late taking off, but it took out some time from our really long lay over in Atlanta so it was fine. We got to Atlanta, and I ate qdobe :), one of my favorites. I also bought a neck pillow, which is a panda bear! how cute! It came in handy on our nine hour plane ride. We got on our international flight to Italy, which had over two hundred people boarding it. Once we finally got on we settled in and took off for Italy. We were all scattered, luckily I was sitting next to Tiffany on the window isles. There was two seats, then four in the middle, then two on the other window isle. last year I was in the middle of the middle section. Try not to sit there if you can. I watched Leap Year, an episode of House, and Dear John. I started Sherlock holmes somewhere in there but didn't have the attention span for it. The food was good,I had the cheese pasta thing, sort of like cheese lasagna but with no marinara sauce. Played a few games on the tvs in front of us, ate again, slept a little, and we were there. Going through customs took awhile just because there were SO many ppl. They didn't even stamp my passport though, the guy just looked at it, and gave it back. I was a little disappointed. I wanted to add another stamp to my passport.

Anyways, we got out bags, took a train through Rome, just to take another one back the way we came and to Civitavecchia, our destination. It was just the way the train system worked out apparently. We weren't lost or anything. We were all really tired on the train. I didn't get that much sleep on the plane, but I was so tired. It has been so much different than last time I was in Italy. I didn't feel that tired really, but this year I felt it. We got to our hotel, then got to our rooms (which took awhile because four ppl were given a two bedroom, and two ppl given a four bedroom. The keys were mixed up, and some weren't ready so we were waiting awhile). Then Lunch! we exchanged money, and ate at this "Ristoranto" that we ate our first meal at last time in Italy. It was good. I had the spaghetti carbonara. It is spaghetti with egg and ham. Sounds a lot worse than it is. It was delicious. Then, I was SOO tired, I couldn't wait to nap. We went back to the rooms, I literally plopped down on my bed and four hours later I woke up... to get ready and eat again.

We left the hotel for dinner at 8:30, got a picture of the crew outside the hotel, and ate one of our bigger dinners of the trip. Clifton (my dance teacher) likes to take us to places where we can experience the full idea of a dinner in Italy. Not every dinner is like this, but at least some of them. There were many, MANY courses with huge portions. We didn't even get all the way through the menu. We stopped after six appetizers and two main dishes. yea. Crazy. We had some nice red wine (we had a glass of white for lunch) and tried two other liquors. Lemon chello (we had had it last year, it is Cliftons favorite. It is sipped to cleanse the pallet after a meal) and braca (not sure on the spelling. It had a VERY strong smell, and weirdly enough it tasted like olive oil a bit. Wasn't as bad as Giorgio (Clifton's "husband")had said it is. He said Americans don't usually like it. BUT! the best part, was that today was Jordan's birthday, a girl on the trip who we like to call the child because she is still in high school. She is a part of the Academy of Math and Science at WKU, where kids have the opportunity to take college classes their junior and/or senior year. They graduate as juniors on college. Well it was Jordan's 18th birthday! At the end of the meal, our waitress brought out this cake and candles that were the actual numbers 1 and 8. We sang happy birthday to her in Italian and she blew out her candles. The cake was delicious, a sort of tiramisu, coffee, hazelnut thing. All of our food was good. We had a very thin bread, then prosciutto cured in three different ways, OLIVES :) with the pits still in them, This gross thing that was celery with vinager stuff on it -gross, some more thin bread with olived oil and eggplant on it (mom thought of you)and multiple types of sheep cheeses. We then went on to the main courses which were a pasta with meatballs (smaller than our American versions, and way better of course) and these very large raviolis. We stopped after that.

What is a night without gelato right! We stopped by the Siciclian gelato place by our hotel. I got strawberry and chocolate (they had put things away and were nice enough to take some of them back out again). Came back to the room, watched Romeo and Juliet in Italian! while unpacking. The gals in my room and I thought that it was an appropriate movie to watch. And now, I am typing this blog in bed, waiting to get really tired. Time change stinks, but today was still fun. Tomorrow, we rehearse. I am nervous. I really am in no mood to go rehearse, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Tomorrow will be a new day. Now that I think of it, I am getting tired again. well, goodnight blog. Italy is beautiful as always.