First Day in Italy

After my 13 hours of flying I arrived in Rome to find people from my program waiting for the bus to Arezzo. I soon found out that instead of 100 people being in this program there were only about 30. I'm sure it will be a very different experience; very individualized. Many of the people on the programn are seasoned travelers through Europe, which is strange for me because, well, I have not traveled much at all. It's also weird because I am one of the three people from the west coast. Most people are from different places, but not the coast. The drive to the villa was awe-inspiring. It was a two hour drive where I thought my bladder would explode and the only thing that kept me sane was the view. The beautiful marigolds, deep forest greens, and coral reds were stupendous. All you saw for miles was sunflowers and grape vines; not a costco or target in sight. When we finally arrived we ate some wonderful food under the stars. Afterward we went to the city because of the joust today. Arezzo was divided into four different territories who were to compete in the match. Our side was the carpitici side (I hope I wrote that right) and our colors were red and green. We found our territory after a twenty minute walk through the duomo. The duomo is also amazing. It was right where they shot the movie "Life is Beautiful". When we arrived it was one gigantic Italian party. Free wine and dancing. So for our first night I got trashed and rocked out to Italian music. And then at some point they began to play American music like La Bamba and the YMCA. I suddenly had this random surge of American pride and danced hardcore on the dance floor. At some point one of the girls in our group got sick because she drank too much. Poor girl was throwing up all through the streets and no taxi would take her, but luckily a former student took her in for the night. Afterwards we walked home and crashed at about 3.... sadly my insomnia kept me up until about 5. Today was a few random orientations and then we went to the joust. It was like medievil times brought to life. There were three processionals.