Finally... I've arrived in Italia (after about a week straight of traveling)! First was Bumbershoot in Seattle.. an EXCELLENT music festival that was so so so much fun... seeing the Black Eye'd Peas live was awesome! But of course, seeing anyone live would be awesome... those were the first concerts i've ever been to haha. So during that I think I got negative sleep, combined with a nasty cold was a very sick girl (me) ha. I lost my voice the second day... mannn did I sound unattractivo! That was for three days.... and I totally recommend going to everyone because I will most DEFINETLY be returning next year :) After Bumbershoot, my friend Abby (who is also going to Italia, I think i've mentioned that) flew to New York... got in, about three hours later (10 pm) we were showered and ready to see the town in all of its city never sleeps glory! Time's Square was a high point in this adventure. We stayed up till the lovely hour of about 8 am, then slept in till 3, when we remembered we had orientation in an hour. We arrived an hour late, which I consider excellent timing haha. Orientation in New york was pretty fun, although a bit boring, it was great to meet all the people that I had blindly added on facebook in real life! We did orientation stuff... which was kind of just a whole lot of being talked to for a while. Met some super cool people at it tho, and I now miss them all because I am alone in Milano! :P We then flew to Zurich (let's just say it was a pretty okay flight, except for being sick and lack of sleep). The airplane crew were sooo funny! We were the loudest section... and they came by a lot and asked "what are you doing??" haha. After Zurich we flew to Roma... I was SOOO excited to finally have arrived! The first thing I did was get pizza with my friend Emily, we were pretty pleased about this... plus the slice was HUGE. Mmmm italiano pizza = win. So then we took a bus to the orientation... which we were informed would be two days long. Turns out we arrived a day later than everyone else who was already there and had already met each other. Greeaaat. After meeting everyone we had a long long LONNNG night in the hostel... got no sleep :/ but it was fun :P The volunteers were sooo funny! They were very young and amusing... when they showed us what the italian host parents would be like when first meeting us (very huggy and kissy) it was sooo funny. The day after I left with the other Milanese at 10:30... we took a 4 hour train ride to Milano... where we walked into a room FULL OF SCREAMING HOST PARENTS AND SIBLINGS. Being nervous as it was.. this was crazyyyy. I saw my host parents (very exciting) and then we had to introduce ourselves in front of everybody 1 at a time... nice. After that we grabbed my bags and drove to what is now mi casa! We had a delicious dinner.. eggplant lasagna something? I don't know but it was effin' gooood. Gosh i get tired while typing this... arggg okay so my host family is veryyy nice :) the language barrier is super difficult because they are being really understanding and speaking a lot of english but it is STILL difficult! Today (sunday) I went to church this morning... for the second time EVER! Ha. It was okay... couldn't understand anything but I met Francesca's amici (my sister's friends) after.. and two of them go to mi scuola (school). This is bene (good) because then I will at least know someone... i also met a cousin y aunt. The rest of the day was great... bike riding to il parco (the park) and meeting more famiglia amichi (family friends). I also met the son of a family friend that had gone on an exchange to Wisconsin for a year... that was cool because he understood the process and such and it was super good to talk to him. Now I get ready for dinner... It is a tradition for mi famiglia to go out for pizza the night before school starts (which is domani (tomorrow)... ahhh)! Wish me luck... till next time :)
Ciao ciao y buono notte!
xoxo, Katie

Today, I was approached by a homeless man who asked if I had any change. I only had two dimes, but I gave it to him anyway. As I watched him walk away, he put the dimes in an expired parking meter of a strangers car. MMT - makesmethink.com