Sono in Italia!

So, I arrived. The flight was pretty much your standard airplane experience, complete with fatigue, nervousness, and lack of sleep. When I landed in Rome my first mission was to purchase a cell phone, which proved to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm sad to report that the first bit of Italian used was "Parla inglese?" I went to three different electronic stores, all of which spoke of the existence of two other stores that sold what I was looking for (a cell phone and a SIM card). It wasn't until I got to the third that I found out that these two stores were located one level above. After twenty minutes (no exaggeration) of searching for a way to get upstairs, I found the desired store and got my phone. It makes the most irritating noises imaginable, but it'll do.

Then there was the plane to Bologna, which was fine. I especially liked that it was cloudy out so we got to fly through several thick sheets of clouds, which is always enjoyable. Oh, and I have to ask, because it seems that no one else experiences this: whenever I fly to, from, or in Italy, during the decent I always get enormous amounts of pain my ears. Sometimes it's so bad I have to just close my eyes and not move. What's wrong with me? Vincent? (For the record, I'm more curious than concerned.)

So then I landed in Bologna. And let me tell you, carrying all my luggage was really difficult. Luckily, finding a taxi was the easiest thing ever, so I didn't have to suffer long. So I spoke to the taxi driver no problem, told him that I needed to pick up my keys at one place and that he would have to wait for me and then take me to my apartment. Unfortunately though, he decided he wanted to make small talk with me. Now, a) I'm bad at small talking and b) I'm really bad at small talking in Italian, so you can imagine how that went. But whatever, minus the awkward silences, all was fine and I finally arrived at my apartment.

Now, for those of you who don't know, I share my apartment with four other people, two of them are American students that are studying in Bologna for the year and two are Italian students from the university. When I arrived, only the two American students were there, Marc (the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic) and Francesca (the freak without facebook). Both are actually quite nice and speak Italian well. Marc's Italian is really good. Francesca turns out to not be a freak at all (by my standards, of course). Marc showed me to my room, which is pretty nice size, and around the apartment, which doesn't have as much common space as I thought it would. Living here is kind of weird: the shelves in the kitchen all have names on them, where you put the things you bought, the bathroom is really difficult to lock (there's apparently an unwritten rule that says we leave it unlocked and just knock before entering), I have to constantly worry about what I'm going to eat, I have to wash dishes, I cannot find a single napkin or paper towel, and it's really difficult to determine which are common supplies and which are not. But I'm sure I'll get used to it after a while.

Now for a little story: Last night, while I was unpacking, Marc came in and asked me if I wanted to go out with him and Francesca to the mensa (school cafeteria). I was really, really hungry, so I of course agreed. While we were walking, we talked about different things, they showed me around, we stopped at a bookstore (where I saw the new Harry Potter in Italian, I am very tempted to buy it), and I was really enjoying myself. Then we walked into a church. It was a very beautiful church, but I couldn't help wondering "What are we doing in a church?" Now I knew Marc was religious, so I thought maybe he routinely stops in to say prayer. Nope, we were there for the mass. Just when I thought that Francesca had been roped into staying too, she turned to me and said, "I was in the choir last semester." Great. So I'm the freak. Anyway, it was a very nice mass, however it's really hard to pay attention when you're not really understanding everything that's being said, have had only one hour of sleep in the past 27 hours, and are extremely hungry. So when I wasn't almost falling out of my seat from exhaustion, my mind wandered a bit. It was then that I realized that Marc must have said "messa" (mass), not mensa. So after mass I got a pizza. It was quite good. Then I took a shower and went to bed. I ended the day still (trying to be) optimistic, but definitely a little nervous.

Today was much better. Although, it started off terribly. I had a meeting at the Brown Office, which is on the other side of the city, at 10:30. Marc told me it wasn't too far, no more than a 30 minute walk and gave me directions. So I left 45 minutes in advance, just in case, but after getting a little lost (as far as I'm concerned, I did pretty well), I was 15 minutes late. Not the biggest of deals, but was rather embarrassing. Anyway, after filling out a bunch of paperwork, we were given some pizza and then took a tour of the engineering school that Brown has in Bologna. I was really surprised and I'll admit, rather comforted by the fact that everyone in the program was speaking English to each other. A lot of them seem really nice, one looks annoying. I'll keep you updated. Anyway, after that I walked around Bologna for a bit with a few people from the program and then did a little bit of food shopping. Later on, we all met at Piazza Maggiore (which is beautiful, by the way) and went on a little tour (we saw a library, a museum, a few churches, etc.). Then I came back to my apartment, ate something, and here I am.

Final notes:
1. What do you think of the name of this blog? I was going to use "Nico in Italy," but it seemed a little boring.
2. I hope all of you are doing well. I miss you already.
3. I apologize for the length of this post. In the future I won't give summaries of my days here. I just thought it was an appropriate beginning post.