Falling in love with the Tuscan sun

Well I made it! Which I'm sure most of you know already.  These past five days have been the most exhausting, yet incredible days ever. So I'll take you day by day to share what I've been up to!

Sunday/Monday

The 8 and a half hour flight wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got to my seat first (I sat in the middle section on the isle, it was perfect!), shortly after an Italian couple came to sit next to me.  I think they argued for about 5 minutes who was going to sit next to the weird American girl. The husband didn't win the argument, so I got to enjoy a long flight next to strangers who didn't speak a lick of English! I'm pretty sure about 25% of the people on that flight were not Italian. There was even a nun on my flight, so I knew I was okay :) 

I finally arrived in Rome, well really a half-hour outside of Rome. I got my bag just fine, and passport control wasn't as near bad as I thought it would be.  After that I was walking to the exit and saw the most beautiful thing, an OU in Arezzo staff member holding an OU sign. It was the most relieving thing yet. Since I was 1 of 5 early arrivals I didn't have to wait at all to make the drive to Arezzo! Around 2 hours later we arrived in my new home. Getting there was interesting, but that's for another story. 

The rest of the day consisted of finding wifi, finding an ATM, and finding food.  All of which I did on the street I live on, Corso Italia! 

Tuesday

In the morning a staff member came to our apartment to basically teach us how things work, nothing much different then normal apartments.  Afterwards a couple of my roommates and I walked around town and ran into someone in our program! We found a grocery store (the wrong one and more expensive one) and we loved it when they started playing Bruno Mars and Coldplay music! 

Later that afternoon we met up with our group to do a walking tour of Arezzo.  Kaydee, the Resident Advisor, showed us all around the town and we went to see the most amazing view of the city. I'll post pictures later :) The tour ended in our study center, where all of our classes are held.  The place is so pretty and it's just for us! For dinner, Lucio, one of the staff members cooked us his famous ragu dishes! Then we were off for our very first gelato! I didn't buy any myself, but one of the girls couldn't finish hers so free gelato for me! It was pistachio :)

Wednesday/Thursday

These days were full of orientations/filling out paperwork/more orientation sessions/more filling out paperwork 

But on Wednesday we had our welcome dinner at Antica Fonte Restaurant. It. was. delicious. Seriously one of the best meals ever. I could go back there and have a full meal with just the bruschetta.

Friday

This brings us up to today! In the morning we had our first Getting to Know Arezzo class where we went around the town to find places to buy meat, cheese, bread, chocolate, and then finally to the grocery store. We learned that you have to wear a plastic glove to handle the fruit, you cannot touch the fruit in the grocery store with bare hands! Afterwards we toured around the UNISI campus which is the local college in Arezzo. We can use their library to study in and eat in their cafeteria :)

Tonight we are doing a Faculty-in-Residence Progressive Dinner! 

I hope to post more then just once a week since there's so much going on! Stay tuned for pictures of my apartment/town!

Ciao! 

Is this really happening?!??

I cannot believe it. I only have less then four days left in the States until May! All of my deadlines, applications, reservations will finally be put into use.

Everyone keeps asking me how I feel, and honestly I think I'm feeling every single emotion possible at the same exact time.  Whenever I look at pictures of my apartment or of my town I get excited.  Whenever I start to think of packing I get flustered.  Whenever I have to say goodbye to friends I get extremely sad. Everything is just so overwhelming, but fantastic at the same time.  So far I've gotten so much out of this experience and I'm not even there yet!

These next few days bring more frustrating attempts at packing (or just looking at my suitcase), some of the hardest goodbyes, and every single appointment I could squeeze in. This will probably be my last post until I'm in Italy (unless I get bored at my layover in Philly).

Please please please send thoughts and prayers for my safe travels!!!

In One Month...

In one month I'll be in Italy
In one month I'll be settling into my apartment
In one month I'll be getting to know by future family
In one month it all starts

Everything is coming so quickly, I found out my class schedule last week and today I found out where I'll be living next semester! I couldn't be more excited about my apartment. It's big, it's close, and I have my own room :)

The biggest thing to get used to will be having no dryer for my clothes. But I'm sure I will get used to it in no time. Every time I see pictures of Italy I get more and more excited to be there. I really won't believe any of the pictures until I see it myself, and trust me there will be plenty of pictures to see, so get ready :)

Until then,

Ciao!

I get by with a little help from my friends

I think big life changes bring people together and makes people nicer.

I have gotten so much encouragement and help from people I haven't talked to in years, which I appreciate, but it makes me think "why now?" They weren't excited for whenever I made a good grade or an amazing craft on pinterest, so why do they want to be involved with my life now? Because people live vicariously through others.  I probably do it also, we just want to be involved in people's life whenever it's great!

I'm not complaining at all, I've gotten great advice from past study abroad people that I probably couldn't get from anyone else!

I just hope these same people will be there to support me even if times get tough.


Food for thought.

#mylifeisaverage

It might seem like I have this perfect fantasy life, well nobody does and I certainly don't.

Even though I have great things that happen to make me enjoy myself, my life is pretty average:

I wake up and go to sleep in this bed everyday.

I get ready in this bathroom everyday

I get try and make myself presentable to the world

I chose the best shoes to take me along the journey

And I pack up and leave.

Some Highlights

Now I will hit on some highlights, both relating to my journey and others not so much.

Enjoy!

This was a big day: the day that I sent all of my paperwork off so I could get approved for a visa!

And last week my passport came back, with my visa in it!

The big reveal! I love my sorority family :) 

My crazy section during saxeT week 

When Gameday attacked my campus

The day autumn hit Norman, I took about 150 pictures of the trees on my neighborhood and ended up printing a 16"x24" of one.   

Who couldn't love this state? 

And the most recent event I got to put on a dress to attend.  With my two favorite boys. 

That's basically what happened this semester! Add in a lot of class, and some exciting football games and you have my life! 

People that I will miss

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate EVERYBODY.

I don't think people consider other people when they move away like this, at least not like I do. Because I have a such a great support system, I wanted to highlight the people that have helped me so much this semester.

Here are just a few people I will miss terribly

Nicole: My little/roommate. She was the first non-family member I had to tell, mainly because I had to fill out my passport application and I couldn't figure out what color my hair was.  I know deep down, and sometimes not so deep, she doesn't want me to leave, but I know she will be fine!

Rachael: My big. Basically she has been my go to person for advice since she had studied abroad last year.  She helped me make my final decision of places, and is always supporting me.

The three greatest friends God gave me at this point in my life: Paige, David, and Jacob

Paige is my little in one of my other organizations.

Here we are at big/little reveal last year!

She has been my best friend this semester and we have shared some great times, this will be a hard goodbye 

David: He has been the best freshmen, ever.  And that's saying a lot. But no really, he has.  From teaching me a little bit of Italian (most of which I don't remember), to being the most ridiculous person so I can laugh at him.  I'm really sad that I won't get to see you next semester. 

Jacob: Him and I have been through the biggest obstacles together this semester that I don't know how we are still alive and how we made it through that class. 

And to my family. I'm not going to go into detail or individually, because that would take up way to much time.  But they are the hugest support systems I can have (I'm even tearing up a little). That's why I can't go into much detail, because I will just start crying in the middle of my dinning room.  I just can't wait to see my sister and mom in Italy with me!