Benvenuto

One car, two planes, three airports, two trains, three train stations, and one extremely harrowing cab ride later, I finally made it to Villa Godiola in Arezzo, Italia on Tuesday afternoon. And just...wow. If anything is worth a 24-hour sleepless journey, it's this view. I'll hopefully be able to post some pictures soon, but I promise you, I'm living in a postcard. The town has a sort of medieval charm to it, and there are vineyards everywhere you turn. I was surprisingly among the first group of students to make it to the villa, so I had a little bit of time to just settle in and start unpacking (and to stop smelling like an airplane) before dinner time. We eat every meal in the Mensa, and the food so far has certainly lived up to expectations. After dinner, Genevieve (an ADA alum who now works at the villa) dragged our jet-lagged behinds down many hilly and windy cobblestone roads (and a few escalators) to show us the town and the night life, and also (primarily) to prevent us from going to sleep too early and being overtired the following day as a result. Also, after depositing us at Mr. Bloom's, a bar that was at least a half an hour by foot from the villa, Genevieve had to return early to help one student who was just arriving because her flight had been delayed, which meant that we were all entrusted with the task of finding our way home in the dark, which seemed daunting, but ended up being fairly straightforward. We eventually did trek all the way back up the hill, where I don't think I've ever been more thrilled to see a bed waiting for me.

This morning, when asked how I slept, I replied, "I slept like a person who hadn't slept for a long time and then slept very well." Which was true. Today was orientation day, so we were introduced to the theatre and music faculty, the program schedule, a local grocery store called Pam, and to the villa itself. Hearing everything today just made me very excited about what's to come. After dinner tonight, a few of us wandered back into town to get some gelato (when in Rome, right?) and it was quite lovely. Classes start tomorrow! We in theatre group B have a voice class followed by a movement class, and then Monica (the director of student life) will be taking us on a tour of Arezzo.

Time for bed now. Sleepy, sleepy Kristen. Everything has been glorious so far, and I'm really looking forward to whatever tomorrow has in store for me. A presto!