Andrew Lichty in Italy

Hey everyone,

Just thought I would post something on Aunt Pat's site which is coming along very nicely I must add. I'm here in Perugia, Italy right now studying abroad which I'm sure you all know or hopefully know. After around 20 hours of flights and waiting in airports, I finally arrived in the Rome airport to find that one of my bags was missing. I got a great taste of what Italy was like trying to report to one of the ladies that my bag was missing. After realizing that I would literally need to push my way to the front of the line I found myself trying to describe to this lady what my bag looked like along with trying to describe other bags that some girls had lost because I was being a nice guy and helping some fellow travelers out ;). After a three hours bus ride from the airport to Perugia where I found out, ITALIANS ARE CRAZY DRIVERS!, they had us stay in a hotel for the first night were they had dinner for us as well as a nice breakfast in the morning. The next day we moved into our apartment which we were soon moved into a different one since they put us in the wrong apartment. After we got everything figured out we finally settled in and were able to relax a little bit. Our apartment is a decent size. I share a room with this guy named Josh from Elon and we share the apartment with this other guy from Elon named Kevin. It's not too bad but after having my own room last semester I realize I don't enjoy sharing a room as much. Another thing about our apartment that I am still getting used to is the fact that we are not allowed to use heat at night. We get 8 hours of heating a day if we go over a certain limit we have to pay a big bill as well as the fact that it is illegal to use the heat at night, and I don't know why. The first weekend we were here my friends and I took a day trip to Assisi, Italy which is about a 45 minute trip away. It was a beautiful town on the side of a big hill. The best part about it was that at the top of the hill on top of a fort that we were able to get into you could see for miles and miles in almost every direction. The following weekend we all took a trip to Florence, Italy(Firenze), were almost all of us stayed in our first hostel for the weekend. I'm sure most of you know, but a hostel is like a motel in the United States but just a a little different in that sometimes you have to share a room with random people which fourtunatley I have not had to do yet. Florence was a nice town but a little to americanized since a lot of the people that lived there spoke both English and Italian. In Perugia people mainly speak Italian which is nice because it forces you to get by and you don't feel like you're in the United States as much. We are planning other trips for the upcoming weekends including Sicily which we will go to the weekend of Feb. 17th. I am also taking a trip up to see Jenni on March 9th were I will meet my parents and spend the weekend. This weekend we are planning a day trip to Pisa to see the leaning tower since we all figure that is something we need to see before we leave Italy. But other than that, things are going well so far. I start regular classes Feb. 1st were I will be taking Italian, International Marketing, Abnormal Psychology, and Food Cultures. The first month we were here we took Italian at an Italian institute which was hard because the professors really only spoke Italian to us. The point of this was to give us a feel for what Italian Institutes are like and how Italians go to school everyday. My new classes will be taught in English except for Italian which will be taught in mainly Italian of course. The food here is great, I eat a lot of pizza and pasta all the time. I pretty much cook almost every night which consists of pasta and bread. I haven't got sick of it yet which I'm sure I won't until I leave here. Well I think I pretty much covered everything but if anyone wants to send me an email feel free to email me at alichty@elon.edu. I will try and respond as quickly as possible but might be a little busy in the upcoming weeks. Love you all. Ciao from Italy. Love, Andrew Lichty