Jacky's first day of school

Today marked our first official week of school. My class schedule is actually acceptable. MWF I have Message Development from 9:20 to 10:40 followed by Conversational Italian from 10:40 to 11:45. You may notice we don't have passing periods. Luckily, these classes are just across from each other. Lunch is from noon to 1 and my last class of the day is Ethics from 2:20 to 3:40. My only class TR is Contemporary Media Issues from 10:20 to 11:40. They haven't yet informed us when our required European Professional Seminar Class is, but I'm only taking it for one credit.

The maid cleaned our room today, and it was about time. Our shower curtain doesn't extend to the floor, so water sprays from the corner where our shower is all the way across the bathroom to the toilet. Our bath mat gets sopping wet and it's almost a requirement to wear flip flops to prevent from slipping. In addition to having the bathroom floor mopped, we also received new linens. I'm not exactly a fan of white bed sheets that feel like cardboard, but what options do I have?! At least I have my pillow and pillow case from home :)

My room mate Carolyn and I went to Tabacchi #2 after classes today, and boy, is it way better than Tabacchi #1. To give you an idea of what tabacchis are like, imagine a gas station convenience store with Italian brands. There you go. There's fresh fruit, tons of cracker-like products, chocolates, toiletries, school supples, fresh meats and cheeses for sandwiches and lots of cigarettes. The Italian high school students are big consumers of those! I bought saltine crackers (although this sounds like a depressing purchase, i assure you they taste a little more sophisticated than the ones at home), a bag of chocolates, a jar of pringles and some folders. Luckily they accept debit and credit cards, which I'm relying on until I receive my PIN number (which is completely my fault for not memorizing it in the first place and then losing it in the move from Lawrence back to Kansas City).

I finally got around to taping up pictures in my room and it's way less institutional looking now. While the tape just has to suffice, I do miss picture frames and cute shelving decorations. All I've got are my textbooks and a few novels to spice up my shelves...definitely not the picture frame clutter I'm used to at TriDelt.

Your Italian word of the day is té, which is tea.

Sinks are for more than spitting in.

This morning we took a little hike to Crespano del Grappa for their Sunday morning open market. The city sign informed us it was 1 km away, and it took 20 minutes to get there. It is busier than Paderno, and it was nice to see so many people (although we were very cautious of pick pocketers). The market was more impressive than I expected... there was fresh fish, fruit, clothes, cheap crap, shoes, purses, rugs, etc. The highlight had to be when we were standing by the rugs and the man behind the table asked if we were Americans. We nodded, not sure how much English he knew. He asked where in America, and although we tried to demonstrate a map of the United States with our hands and pointing right in the middle to Kansas, we're not sure he followed. He was from Morocco and when we left he said "Goodbye." It was so cute how he was trying to communicate with us. We may make it a weekly event when we are in town to go to the market because it's nice to get out of Paderno.

We finalized our plans for the first extended weekend that starts Friday. We're headed to Florence, and our train leaves Bassano at 0530...yes, 5:30 am! Which means we have to be up even earlier to travel there. Researching different hostels and trying to coordinate different trains is quite challenging. I guess I hadn't considered the fact I would become a travel agent during my semester abroad.

I washed a few shirts with woolite in my sink last night. Unfortunately, our bathroom isnt't set up like a normal one with a big shower and tub (like the picture on the box demonstrated), so the suction cups of my clothesline didn't have many options to affix to. I was finally able to stick them to our windows.

Our first official day of classes starts tomorrow. It will be nice to have a regular schedule. It's very weird that it's practically February and I am just beginning my semester.

I've decided to keep track of the number of meals I eat that are pasta with red sauce. Calculating that I arrived in Paderno Tuesday in time for dinner, but at out one night, I've had pasta 10 times in less than a week. And this number will only get bigger.

Thank goodness for malls, hair dryers and the flame-broiled Whopper.

After our academic and travel orientations were over today, my room mate Carolyn and I wondered around town with our cameras. We were gone close to two hours and I think we ended up in the next town, Cresspano. I got some beautiful pictures of the mountains and cute Italian homes. Hopefully, I'll master downloading the pictures from my camera to the computer and uploading them to the internet so I can show you all.

Our school field trip to the mall in Castlefranco was from 530 to 9 pm. It was a magical experience and a much needed retreat into civilization. The school chartered big greyhound like buses for the 30 minute drive. We all made a mad dash into IPER, which is like Wal-Mart. I was on a mission and went immediately to find a hairdryer. It's a Revlon and was on sale for 21 euro. I decided to pass on the straightener, since I'd be out 40 euro for a decent one. I also stocked up on notebooks, sticky notes, Woolite (to wash clothes in my sink between trips to the laundry room since its 6 euro to wash and 6 euro to dry your clothes!)

I may have been a sell out, but I ate Burger King from the food court at the mall. And get this, you only get ONE ketchup packet for your fries. ONE! If you have ever eaten with me, you may realize this is a significant injustice and quite an inadequate supply of tomato paste for my dining needs. I decided to go entirely without rather that tease myself with just one meager packet. i don't think i have ever looked forward to eating burger king so much. i did make sure to leave a little room for gelado. as you said, ms. cox, it was absolutely delicious. i had strawberry (mostly because i couldn't read the other flavors and it looked like it would taste good).

Everywhere you looked at the mall was a little baby. I smiled at them and made faces, but I don't think they are used to that because they just stared back at me. The babies didn't really giggle, they just sat there. I've also received blank stares when I've smiled or waved at people in the street. I supposed I should just start say "Buongiorno!" even if i'm mispronouncing it.

Sunday is the first day we have absofreakinlutely NOTHING planned and I am very thrilled to sleep in, lay around and tour the campus a little more. Not to mention get started on my homework. Yes, I have classes and homework to attend to in between my travel plans :)

I can't wait to take a shower and dry my hair with my new dryer (and it has an anti-frizz nozzle that i'm super excited about!)

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend and keep me updated on how you're doing!

Vino bianco (aka white wine)

Apparently the computer lab hours are sporadic, so right now its open. Later...who knows. Im just glad I could get my email fix.

Last night our entire school pretty much went to the Orchidea, the local bar-pizzeria. We didnt have directions so we just started walking. For such a small town, it ended up being quite a walk, reinforced by the cold night temperature. The drivers here are crazy and we were almost run over by some dude driving 90 mph, looping around two streets. If I didnt know better, i would guess he was trying to kill us. The Ochidea was packed, and it took forever to order drinks, but it was refreshing to be away from campus, in an open place with music and laughter. Our dorms are so dreary...due to the fact that lights are never on. The hallways are pitch black unless you activate a light (because utilities are more expensive in Europe), but it is still eerie walking up flights of stairs in the dark. The walls are incredibly thin and you can hear the alarms of girls down the hall. The stairway also magnifies and carries sound, so that even if someone isnt on your floor you still hear conversations from three flights down. Quite annoying when youre trying to sleep, but theyve started "quiet hours" at 11 pm. We'll see how that goes.

We just got done with our academic orientation and after lunch well have our travel orientation, followed by the highlight of my day - a trip to the mall!!!!!

I would give my middle toe for a Super Wal-Mart right now.

My Mind Based Management seminar is finally over. If I want to get the certificate I have to complete 3 analyses and a paper. Im not sure if I should..but I dont want these past two days to be worth nothing.

My contemporary media issues class, which I thought would be a blow off, will probably be my hardest class. Group work, a big paper and weekly papers.

Correction to my phone number: dial 011 39 and then 34-0717-0394. Its a lot of numbers, i know.

The highlight of my day was borrowing Regans hairdryer. I havent used one since Monday night and it is a wonderful feeling to have my hair down again. I absolutely can not wait until I have time to go to take a bus to whatever city has a mall and get my own hairdryer. I wish I wouldve brought one, even if it took me 2 hours to dry my hair because the lack of power due to the electric conversions.

Im not sure what my plans are for thing evening, but the Orchidea officially opens tonights. I think quite a few of us are getting Paderno fever and want out of this small town...so hopefully a trip to the mall and maybe clubbing in Asolo will provide a much needed change of scenery.

The computer lab is CLOSED during the weekends, so I wont have access to my email until Monday. I really do miss my laptop and wireless internet!

Would you care for some horse with that pasta?

I spent 8 hours in a small room, listening to a lecture on Mind Based Management and completing case studies in groups. My god...it was a miserable experience. An hour or two would have been fine. And this was only the first half! I have 8 more hours of this mind expanding, critical thinking, problem solving misery left on Friday. I would rather endure four days of physical pain of the DaVinci Challenge than the mind numbing experience of this higher learning CIMBA program stuff we have the "opportunity" of learning as a result of being at CIU.

During my much needed lunch break, I stopped by the tabacci and purchased units for my cell phone. I now have 20 euros. Who knows how long that will last, but my cell phone can now receive calls :) In order to call me, youre best bet is to get an international calling card (like the ones near the registers at wal mart), dial the 800 number, follow the instructions. The country code for italy is 011, and my phone number is 34 0717 0394

My ethics class met today and the 19 of us are all from KU. It actually sounds interesting and Im looking forward to it.

Dinner today was the best least bad of all the meals yet. It was pasta (of course, but a different shape) with red sauce, chicken cordon bleu (which didnt taste too bad dunked in kethcup), a pear, a roll and my staple of strawberry yogurt. Apparently the meat skewers from lunch that I didnt eat were HORSE.

The highlight of my day, by far, was receiving an email from the office that i had a package waiting for me. Of course I already knew it was the one I packed that my mom sent me, but it was so nice to have a few more tshirts and tops, my body wash and lotion, my blanket and pillow, and a couple books. All i need now is a hair dryer...but apparently I have to take a trip to the mall in another town to get that!

Beware of ambiguous stick people

Today was busy, random and very eventful. My team (red) had the DaVinci Challenge today from 845 am until 530 pm. Yes...it really went that long. They warned us of the physical activity and to wear comfortable clothes and now I know why. We started out with a jog from our classroom to the gym where we continued to stretch, balance on top of each other and other various odd forms of movements to that Milan (our Slovanian leader) told us to not worry about embarrassing our mothers.

After that was the pretzel game where you sit down across from some one, interlock arms and pull yourselves up and down three times. Easy enough...but Milan make us add a person after successfully completing each round. My group made it to 12 but not without falling on eachother a few times.

My favorite part of the day involved the 45 people in red team forming two lines. We each took turns leaning back and being hoisted arms length above everyone and got passed to the end of the line...which we exited by doing a backflip. Controlled crowd surfing if you will. We ended up grabbing more butts than I can count, and definitely got groped while being passed but, like Milan said, we learned a valuable exercise in trust.

We also did the trust fall. It was totally not a big deal after being passed up and down by peoples fingertips. The most challenging part was climbing a 12 foot wall. We busted out some cheerleading elevators... and I ended up scaling the wall at least 3 times. The four guys in our group who served as the bases were spent by the end of the exercise, but were definite muscle men troopers. We did almost drop people a lot, and one guy almost hit is head, but we certainly had a good laugh.

Ive had some traumatic experiences with bathrooms today. I went to the bathroom in the computer lab, not paying attention to the stick figures next to "toilette" and didnt realize until i exited that it was the boys room. it was gross, and they were the toilets a few inches off the ground with foot prints to stand it. i was afraid i would pee on myself. alas, i did not. the more traumatic bathroom experience was after the DaVinci challenge when i was headed to Conversational Italian. I went to the correct restroom this time, and when I was done, couldnt get out. I tried turning the lock so many times but nothing happened. Finally I banged on my door and another girl started screaming she was locked in too!!! She ended up busting out of her door (breaking it I think) and tried to free me. This attempt failed and she went for backup. Some guy tried picking the lock and throwing his body into the door too but stopped because he was breaking the door. The original girl again went for backup...but in the meantime a teacher came to help. She had been locked in early and said to push the button on the top in while turning the lock. Who knew!! I was finally free...but late 10 minutes to class.

Chicken fingers...anyone???

The food in the dorm absolutely sucks. For dinner the first night we had pasta with red sauce, croissants, mystery meat (the lunch ladies said turkey, but i still wouldnt eat it), and yogurt. odd colored, steamed vegetables were also available for my decline.

breakfast today was meager (meager always reminds me of the game Oregon Trail when you had to buy food, stay healthy and travel across america). pots of coffee, tea and chocolate (hot or milk...i still do not know) were available for you to pour in the same bowls used for cereal. croissants...of course...were served. im already sick of them. the cereal was depressing. i went in hoping for rice krispie treats and tasted bland cardboard.

lunch today was even worse. some sort of soup that most likely is a delicacy in a food kitchen, a roll (quite repetitive but tasty in comparison), a roll with salami in it (gross...no mayo, mustard or anyone of the toppings...which, by the way, are called salad in london). i was all excited for the bag of chips, but immediately had my bubble burst when i realized it was AGAIN just a croissant (this time filled with cherry but still not enjoyable). the highlight of my lunch...and i seriously kid you not...were the two packages of saltine crackers.

A few girls decided we could not stand the cafeteria food for the day (after one full day in the program were already sicked out, how promising) and ventured into a restaurant in paderno, just outside the gates of campus. They were already sold out of the sandwiches i wanted so i settled on pizza. not fulfilling but tasty nonetheless. i also got water (a liter bottle, which i brought home with me since i didnt finish it). lindsey and i made it back before the end of dinner at 8 pm to grab some yogurt and a roll.

It wouldnt be so bad if the Italian food they served was good. But it is questionable at best.

i still have not had a chance to walk around campus in daylight. When we were in the soccer field during our DaVinci Challenge, we had the Grappa Mountains in the background and it was absolutely beautiful. Such a gorgeus view! It is really cold here. Our rooms arent too bad, but its chilly at night.

I am praying that Thursday will allow me time to go to a Tabacci (tuh-bock-e) in town to get phone cards and minutes for my cell phone. Stores close so early and weve been in meetings alllll day. Not to mention it might be nice to have some snacks around so i dont whither away.

missing normal food and familiar faces,

jacky

Sorry its taken me so long to post since Ive arrived in Italy. Our stay in Venice Monday night was fun. We were really tired but managed to have some authentic Italian food along with some red and white wine. Our neverending travel dilemmas began Tuesday morning as we headed to school. To give you an overview, Lindsey, Kyle, Lauren and I left our hotel at noon, but didnt arrive in Paderno until 530 pm...and Ill remind you its only located 1.5 hours north of Venice!

We took a watertaxi from our hotel to the Mestre train station. Unfortunately, we couldnt make it off the boat fast enough and missed our stop. We had ALL of our luggage with us. After getting off at the next stop we backtracked. Sounds simple enough, but the streets of Venice were crowded and our bags were heavy. Not to mention there were little peaks we had to go up and then go back down...the worst being a huge bridging connecting the left and right sides of the canal. I am still sore from my 43 pound backpack. I did not make smart choices with my packing.

After an 1.5 long train ride (in which we had trouble finding our train, figuring out where we were supposed to put our luggage, and issues locating the ticket validator) we made it to Bassano. From Bassano we purchased train tickets to Paderno. We had to lug all of our luggage 200 meters (or maybe it was yards or feet. whatever it was, it was far with our bags) to the bus stop. Then we waited an hour for the bus to arrive.

There were a lot of CIU students on the bus, and thankfully a random girl on the bus gave us directions to campus...otherwise we would have wandered the streets of Paderno lost, sad and tired. I am staying in SGP...which weve all renamed GSP (shout out to 1West!!!). Its a coed dorm, but i never see any one anyways so it doesnt matter. SGP is the good dorm...larger rooms, a private bathroom. Whats weird is that the halls are dark alllll the time unless you push these little buttons located all throughout the halls which light it up for a few minutes. It is quite eerie at night and could be the setting for a horror movie. Lindsey is located across the hall from me (originally she was in La Salle dorm but hated her room and was able to switch).

The food absolutely sucks. Dinner is pasta with sauce, a sick nasty form of meat, rolls and cressants, yogurt (my favorite of the meal), sometimes fruit. The cereal was not rice crispies like i was expecting but a bland and nasty form of cardboard. We have 2 liter bottles of water on every table because no one drinks tap water.

Words are the best.

Gilmore Girls:
Rory: Why aren't you dancing?
Jess: I'm dancing on the inside.

Luke: Shouldn't we give thanks first?
Jess: Thanks for what?
Luke: Well, that we're not Native Americans who got their land stolen in exchange for smallpox infested blankets.
Lorelai: Amen.

Lorelai: Someday, when you're a little older, you'll be introduced to something that is extremely seductive but fickle. A fair weather friend who seems benighned but packs a whallop like a donkey kick, and that is the Long Island Ice Tea. The Long Island Ice Tea makes you do things you normally wouldn't do, like lifting your skirt in public or calling someone you normally wouldn't call at really weird times.

FELICITY
Sally Reardon: The hardest part about moving forward is not looking back.
Sally Reardon: I guess when your heart gets broken, you sort of start to see the cracks in everything. I'm convinced that tragedy wants to harden us, and that our mission is to never let it.
Sally Reardon: I guess I'm learning, little by little, that we decide what our lives are going to be. Things happen to us, but it is our reactions that matter.

Sometimes it was easier to swim with the current rather than fight against it. There was always a shallow pool somewhere ahead. Memories are like battles, and battles can go one way or the other. You can stand and fight, no matter what pains run from you wounds; or you can turn tail and run, knowing then that the enemy will follow and without mercy hunt you down. We had so many dreams as children. Where do they all go when we grow? Are they swallowed up by the mundane things of everyday life? Or do we lose them, leave them behind us in the dust, for new children to find and take up? Helen Hollick – The Kingmaking

True science discovers God waiting behind every door. Pope Pius XII, Angels & Demons

My friends, as you can see, the choas of the world has an underlying order. DaVinci Code

Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love, or have babies, or be who we are. After all, seasons change. So do cities. People come into your life and people go. But it's comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you're very lucky, a plane ride away. Carrie, Sex & the city

"Music is a safe type of high.....it's just rythym and motion." Jimi Hendrix

Leaving on a jet plane

I have 5400 cubic inches of space to pack everything I need for the semester in Italy. And in case you're wondering, it's not nearly enough room, even with everything air-compressed in zip lock baggies.