Well helloooo everyone.

So it seems that I am addicted to the internet. I was on it in the lounge for four hours yesterday without noticing, and this morning, I woke up early, and I'm back. It's 10:30am, and I have class in a few minutes, but still here I am. I love the lounge. It's this room with huge comfortable old couches and the walls are made of stone so it's like a cave. And you can put your feet on the chairs because it's an American school (Italians do NOT put their feet on chairs...ever) and there is a hot chocolate machine AND a machine that has oreos. What more could you ask for?

I've been in the lounge because 1. I am one of those sad people who does nothing online all day and 2. because I am starting to get reallllly excited about everything. Suddenly, yesterday, like allll of the people I know who are studying abroad emailed me about plans to go places, and now I am just excited about life. This weekend I am actually staying in Perugia, though. We've traveled every weekend so far, and we're all exhausted, and I feel like I should get to know my city a little better so that I can actually write articles for my internship and not sound like a moron in them. Also, I want to go shopping. I think I might try to find the Italian mall, which will probably be interesting/a disaster.

But anyway, I'm getting really excited because after this weekend, the crazy weekends start. Next weekend I am either going to Germany or the UK, which is ridiculous, then there is the Eurochocolate Festival in Perugia (yesssss) the weekend after, then I have my fall break, which I haven't planned yet but will probably be crazy. After that, there are only a few weekends left! But apparently we are going to squeeze Barcelona, Amsterdam and Switzerland in there somehow. It's great. So right now, I am enjoying my last weekend of rest before the craziness starts.

This week has been really good. I went to a wine tasting the other night, run by my school, which for some reason turned into a brandy tasting? But I got to know a lot of the people at my school that I hadn't met before, it was great. Also I learned how to taste wine. You examine the color and the bubbles, swirl it around and see if it leaves a trail on the glass (if it does, it has more sugar). Then you smell it, and she sommelier taught us how to recognize certain smell traces that you'd never notice - cedar in wines that have been in certain types of cellars, tomato and basil, honey, flowers. Then you taste it and think about the persistence of its taste and the intensity of it. We tried wines with all different foods (including REALLY good parmesan, and then I went out and bought a block of it and we've just been EATING it in my apartment).

Tonight my roommate and I are cooking another feast. We try to have a feast once a week. Last week was the American feast, and we made mashed potatoes.

Last weekend was the most amazing weekend since I've been here. We went to Naples, Positano, and Capri. Positano was the most amazing place ever. Our hostel was on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, and all the houses were rainbow colors and were on the side of these giant white cliffs that dropped straight down into the water. The water was like a pool, warm, and there were flowers and palm trees and plants everywhere. We saw the Blue Grotto, which is this cave in the ocean where the light comes in and turns everything neon blue, which was really cool. We also went to the Fish Festival, which was great. The town gave free boat rides and free sangria and brought everyone to this secluded beach where there were bands singing about fish and people cooking giant pots of it and it was so great. There was even a fish parade, and the "captain" stopped and took a picture with us. I'll work on getting the pictures up and send them all to you! Anyway I never wanted to leave. It was amazing.

But I have to go to Italian class. UGHHHH I'm learning nothing anyway because I'm so bad at languages so I don't even know why haha. But I'll write again soon! Miss you guys.