L'arte Di Essere: Orientations and Arriving in Sorrento

Ciao tutti! I'm sitting on the balcony of my flat in Sorrento, watching a beautiful sunset with a view of the mountains and the sea. The last week has been absolutely crazy, so get ready for a huge blog post. Enjoy! :)

So let's start with orientations. I will separate it day to day, and give you a summary.

Wednesday: I arrived in New York City, and I met a ton of people I had talked to on Facebook as well as some I hadn't. It wasn't as bad as I expected, as far as orientations go. When I was moving my bags into my room, I dropped my phone and cracked the screen (for those of you who don't know, I had just cracked it a few days before I left and then I got it fixed, so it was especially frustrating) and ended up breaking the flash and the camera. So since I was planning on using my phone as my camera and I didn't bring a camera, I have been unable to take pictures, which is really really upsetting. But besides that, nothing really special happened, it was mostly traveling and orientation.

Thursday: I woke up instantly feeling sick. My throat felt like someone had run a razor on the inside, and I had pretty bad congestion. Plus, (this happened every day of orientation) I could barely eat. Now those of you who know me know that this is not like me. I can eat an entire house, but the entire time I was at orientations every time I would begin to eat I would immediately feel sick to my stomach. I tried my best to force down what I could, but it was still a lot less than usual. In the night, the Italy kids (who by the way were by far the loudest out of all the groups) got on the plane and we were off to Italy. Even though the lady next to me and my friends on the plane yelled at us for being too loud for 3 minutes straight, the flight was really fun, and although I only slept like 45 minutes I got really close to a lot of people! Nighttime plane rides are the perfect environment for deep conversations.

Friday: I arrived in Rome, feeling absolutely exhausted but running on adrenaline. My friends and I spent the night exploring the grounds of our orientation site, and we discovered some amazing places. We set off alarms and went into abandoned underground tunnels and up onto really high roofs that had beautiful views of Rome, and by the end of the night we were covered with sweat and dirt. At around 12:30 I went to sleep, and although I didn't have the best night (the beds might as well have been made out of bricks), I would still say this was one of the best days I've had in a while.

Saturday: I still felt pretty sick, and until the afternoon, we were at a nearby school doing orientation activities, but it was still pretty fun. The Intercultura volunteers were all very young and chill, so we got along well. Plus, two of my very good friends were in my group, which means I will get to see them more throughout the year so that's good! In the night my friends and I started adventuring, and we ended up on this hidden roof with a lot of people. I made friends with a lot of people from Denmark (who thought that I had the same smile as Demi Lovato), and we all just laughed, talked, watched that stars and just had a good time. I went to sleep at 1:00 but a lot of them brought out mattresses and stayed out there for the whole night. Needless to say, it was a very fun night as well.

Sunday: In the morning I watched old Italian movies with my friends and just hung out, and then in the afternoon I took a train to my host family. Francesca and Speranza (my sister and my mother) were at the station to greet me (their adorable little Fiat was obviously too small to fit 5 people plus luggage), and we drove from Naples to Sorrento, stopping on the way to take a few pictures and by some pastries. I met some of Antonio and Francesca's friends, unpacked, and had a delicious dinner that night (I felt bad I couldn't finish it because I felt sick). Then I went out with Francesca and one of her friends, and it was great. The town is beautiful, and we kept running into other friends. It was so chill, we would run into someone, spend some time with them, and then they would part ways and we would keep walking until we found someone else. I met lots of people, and although I only understood around 15% of what was being said, it was very fun.

Monday: In the morning Francesca and I went to the post office to get my residence permit and figure out what to do with my phone (here an iPhone 5s costs almost $1,000! It's insane. But luckily, a place in Napoli sells it for only 250 Euros, so we will go there soon.) And then we went home, hung out, started watching Burlesque, but then stopped and met up with some of her friends. I wanted some gelato so we got some and walked around, and I felt so happy walking through the narrow Italian streets, dodging zooming vespas, and just feeling quite Italian. However, Italians speak very very fast, so I was able to only understand a few words or phrases every now and then. We all went back to our home, and we hung out until it was time for Francesca to go to the gym. I was planning on going with her and then going out in the night, but I have a huge headache (thanks to jet lag and trying so hard to keep up with the Italian conversations) so I decided to stay home and go to sleep early. I think if I can get one nice, long night of sleep I will feel a lot better.

But overall, I am happy to be here and everyone is unbelievably kind and welcoming! Although at times it is hard to understand each other, we can usually figure it out through a mix of English, Italian and Spanish (While writing this I had a long conversation with one of Antonio's friends, Massi, and it was 50% English and 50% Italian, but we understood each other almost perfectly). It is exhausting and confusing, but I am very glad I decided to do this. Now I will post some pictures I stole from others since my camera is broken, and I will keep you guys updated on what's going on!