Welcome Abroad - My First Days

I made it! I'll admit I'm rather proud of myself for making it this far without any major disaster. My flights went well, and I spent a great first night in Paris.

Though it was later when I got in, I did get to go the Eiffel Tower which was AH-MAZING lit up at night! It was absolutely gorgeous, and it was the perfect chance for me to check out the metro system there.

It was a challenge to fit a person and the tower in the same pic - with everything properly lit - that's for sure!

Besides this, I didn't have time for much else and hung out at my hostel, befriending some other international travelers. That is definitely one of my favorite parts of traveling. You get to meet SO many people from really cool places.

At one point, I found myself hanging out with a guy from Colombia, and another guy and girl from Brazil. I got to speak in Spanish with the Colombian, and the Brazilian couple could understand enough given how similar Portuguese is. And when the Portuguese was confusing, the Brazilian guy would explain it to me in English so that I could then translate to Spanish. It was quite the adventure, but really cool to see how we could work out our own little system of communicating.

I didn't sleep well that night - or at all if I'm being honest. At about 3am I looked at my phone very angrily, knowing I had to be up at 5am and mad that my body was awake feeling like it was 9pm (the time difference with back home).

But at 5am, off I was to catch the Paris metro over to the shuttle to the airport taking me to Rome. I had a pretty bangin' French breakfast at the airport. I think I could live off of French pastries!

I think they call this Pain au Chocolat cause it looks like "pain" in English and will scare foreigners away from this flaky chocolate heaven and let the French hide it all for themselves

The only hitch came in Rome when I realized my train ticket was leaving from Rome Fiumicino Airport while I had flown in to Ciampino. After this shocking news delivered by the poor guy at the info counter who wasn't fluent in English, I bit the bullet to pay for a taxi to get me back on track. From there, everything was smooth sailing again, and I'm getting ready to settle in to my apartment at Viterbo!

For the time being, my whirlwind of transportation is over, and next up I have orientation and then classes starting tomorrow. I'm really excited to see the university later on and start getting a bit on a schedule here. Luckily, I've gotten by with my lack of Italian so far, but I think it's time to kick in the podcasts and Duolingo app more hard core.

That sums it all up for now, but before I go - take a look at my first Italian meal from last night. The antipasti alone was to die for!!!

And of course, it wouldn't be Italy without pizza!!! This was my first slice of authentic Italian pizza and it was fabulous! The crust was SO thin and crunchy. Absolutely delicious.

All right, that's all for now! Ciao from Viterbo ;)!