Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Viva L'Italia!

So I'm finally in Italy! The flight over was pretty uneventful, other than my flight from Cleveland to Detroit almost being delayed, which would have offset all of my other flights. On the way from Detroit to Amsterdam I sat next to a kid who was probably 19 or 20 and came here by himself all the way from Belgium just to go Cedar Point. He went there 7 days in a row! I thought that was pretty crazy stuff. On that same flight I noticed that two girls from my program, Erica and Emily, were also on the flight. That made me feel a lot better because I wouldn't have to figure out how to get from the airport to my room by myself, which turned out to be an adventure in itself.

After getting off the plane we took a 40 minute train ride to Milan. Once in Milan, we had to take a couple more trains to get to our rooms, which was very uncomfortable because we were carrying around all of our heavy luggage in hot and humid underground stations, occasionally having to squeeze into an even hotter elevator that was way too small to fit all of us. The coolest part was when we were sort of lost and we asked where to go. We were told to carry all of our luggage up two flights of stairs, which didn't sound too appealing, but we decided to take the stairs instead of finding an elevator.This turned out to be an awesome move, because at the top of the stairs we were rewarded with this sight:


Piazza Duomo! If you look closely at the top, there's a huge polychrome statue of the Madonna. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

My room is really nice, I have a back patio that's almost like my own little backyard. Everyone else already has a roommate, but I don't have one yet so that's kind of a bummer. For the next 7 or 8 days though I'll be stuck in Italian class that is 4 or 6 hours everyday, not the funnest thing in the world. The best part about Italy so far though is definitely the people in my program. There are about 12 of us from Ohio State, and they're all really cool, but I didn't really know what to expect as far as who else would be here. It turns out that there are students from all over the US (Wisconsin, USC, NYU, Boston College, etc.) and students from all over the world. I've met people from Germany, Brazil, Istanbul, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, you name the country and there's probably someone here from there. Last night everyone hung out and drank on a huge patio that is in our dorms. By the end of the night, a kid named Bruno from Brazil busted out a guitar and everyone was singing and dancing. At one point we had a group of about 15 of us, from all different countries, in a circle belting out "I Will Survive". It was pretty much amazing. Then the police showed up and started yelling in Italian that none of us could understand, so we all peaced out and went back to individual room's to keep drinking. It's looking like it will turn out to be an awesome trip!

Oh yeah, and through the university we get a trip to Oktoberfest for €125! How awesome is that?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This blog is already great... I would say it's almost as great as the night we jumped into Mirror Lake for the Youngstown State game, or as great as the time we did the two story long pour.

I'm just glad to hear you're alive and kicking. I fully expect a blog update almost every day so I can post meaningless comments on it as I am doing right now. Until next time, enjoy your stay in Italy Mr. Buntain.

CBR said...

Awesome, Buntain! Viva Italia!

And oh yes Brian...I will check back frequently for the meaningless comments as they will mean as much as they did when you made them last year...


Buntain, I will leave you some priceless words of wisdom (WoW) from time to time. Here is the first:

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? 4, just because you call the tail a leg doesn't make it so"

-CBR

Unknown said...

When do we get the live camera shows you promised?


Glad you're enjoying yourself. My personal advice: Stay away from the gypsies and don't drink anything you can't pronounce.