In Bolzano

Hey everyone! After 5 weeks of travel I have finally arrived at my new home in Bolzano! I don't have internet in my room yet, so I'm posting this from an internet cafe, which is why it is going to be a bit short.

My room is pretty nice, it's a good size and it has a private little kitchen that I share with another American guy named Lamar. So far I've meet about 5 other people, all doing the Erasmus or Erasmus Mundus programs (first is for EU students, second is for non). We have an orientation meeting for the university tomorrow at 3pm so hopefully after that I'll have my student ID and be able to activate the internet in my room, which for a big nerd and addict like me is very important! Then I will be able to call you all and say hi and post a blog with a ton of pictures like I know you have all been waiting for.

The building that I'm staying in is pretty interesting, I'm still working on figuring it all out. It's run by some kind of church organization and most of the staff seems to be priests... Their english isn't the best, so it's hard to tell sometimes. There is also an elementary school in the building, so there were about 50 little kids running around downstairs this morning! (And by morning, I mean 1pm when I got up.) The only disappointing thing is that it looks like they have a pretty strict "no over-night guest" policy, so all my friends that I offered a place to crash if they wanted to come visit might get screwed. Ah well, I'm sure I can work something out or figure out another place for them to stay.

So far I've just been exploring the city center a bit and getting some basic food and soap/tissues/sponges kinda stuff. I still need to go get some linens for my bed since they don't provide them for me, so that's my next adventure!

I'm really excited to be here and am especially looking forward to learning Italian and German! It turns out that all the street signs are written in both Italian and German and it's much higher than the 30% German speaking population than my research had said! It's pretty intense to be shoved into these 2 languages, but I really want to learn. I feel like a bad American when I expect everyone to know English, so I'm trying to use as much Italian as I can, even if it's only 5 words.

Okay, with that, I'm off to find some linens for my bed! I hope everyone back home is doing well, and I miss you all! I can't wait to see many of you for the holidays.

Love you all!