New things!

In Italy, I do lots of new things!  For starters, I brush my hair all of the time.  Which is weird and unlike me, but there are several reasons for my doing so; number one being that it’s really humid here and my hair has decided not to be super static-y every time I touch a hairbrush to it.  Number two is that there are so many girls here that I inevitably shower less and therefore my hair is greasier and needs more brushing to distribute all of the gross oils.  That’s probably more information than you needed (or wanted) to know, but I thought I’d just be blunt.

The second new thing I do is something that I learned from my Wilberfamily a long time ago but never put into practice until now.  I drink hot water; not tea or espresso, just hot water.  I drink tea occasionally but I’m super picky about the kinds that actually taste good and since I don’t really drink coffee at all, I stick to the hot water idea.  I will probably try some espresso later today when we go out to a bar (which is what they call a café here in Italia) and half of me is hoping I like it and the other half of me is hoping I’ll still prefer hot chocolate.  Apparently the hot chocolate here is more like warmed up pudding slash our normal hot cocoa in the States, so I’m not quite sure if I’ll like it yet but since it has the word “chocolate” in it, I’ll bet it’ll be fantastic!

It rained all day yesterday, but today we were able to look out the window and see the gorgeous Alps!  I feel privileged because Andrew said that it was so foggy when he came that he didn’t see them until after the first week.  Today the sun is shining and it makes everything much homier and a little more bearable as far as temperature goes.  Not that it’s colder than home, but it’s been rather chilly the past few days and mixed with the rain, jet lag, and adjusting to meal schedules, it can make things quite miserable.  I don’t know if it made the other girls miserable, but I will be the first to admit that I miss the hugs of my brothers in the mornings and nobody really hugs here except for me and Ttea.  I’m sure that will change as we all get to know each other, but for now it just makes me miss home a little more than usual.  I will try not to dwell on that fact, but it’s there nevertheless and I suppose it’s just something I’ll have to get over and push through because it’s part of that awful “growing up” thing.  Bah.

These are some of the Alps as we're on our way to Pordenone for the day

Today turned out bright and beautiful - as you can see!

Anyway, I’m typing this as I wait for our Sunday service to start.  I’m looking forward to it because I think it’s going to be a lot like the home church that we used to do when we weren’t formally members at any particular church.  Samuel Jr. said that we have a worship time and then his dad, Sam, comes and preaches.  I’m really excited to get to know Sam because I’ve heard a lot about him, plus he makes some of our meals and they are absolutely delicious!!  He cooks like my dad; by instinct.  They all say he rarely uses a recipe and it always makes me smile fondly and think about dad.  I’ll finish this blog post after service and let you all know how it is!

Sunday service here was very nice because it was homey; we sang as Caitlyn played guitar and then we all listened to Sam's sermon which was on compromise.  Then we took communion with real red wine, which I despise, and after service we signed our lives away on forms that said SBI isn't libel if we have drug or prostitution rings in our dorms.  (That took all the fun out of dorm life, unfortunately.)  Lunchtime came and then we all sat in the courtyard and soaked up the sunshine because the warmth felt incredible!

This is what we call the "courtyard" - on the left (and out of the picture) are tables and chairs where we reclined to enjoy the rays

This is my lovely Mattea, enjoying the sunshine.  The second floor, first door on the left, is my room!

 This is a pretty plant that we have all over campus, but I liked this in the sunshine today; it made me smile :)

This is a fountain downtown, opposite Martin's Bar

This is the front of Martin's Bar and I laughed because the tractor made it seem like home

This is the fountain where we fill up our water bottles every morning and the water is wonderful!

This is me, Rebekah, Anna, and Brittney in Pordenone!

Random fact about Italia, numero five billion: stop signs mean yield, and yield signs mean stop.  No joke.  Plus, if you're going to go into a round-about (of which there are PLENTY), you turn on your left blinker to go right and your right blinker to go left.  Things are a teensy bit backwards in this country, don't you think?

Classes start tomorrow, so it's off to bed for me!  Ciao!