Waking up in Milan

Nothing quite like waking up and looking at the tv screen in the airplane and seeing the little airplane icon making it's way across the Atlantic :)  Unfortunately we didn't get much of a view of Milan on our descent because there was a lot of fog but we were able to catch a pretty sunrise a few hours before we landed.  I kind of slept for a few hours but I can feel the jet lag kicking in.  I met two little old Italian ladies on my journey which was amusing. Neither of them spoke any English so our exchanges were limited to whatever Italian I could understand and respond with but they were really sweet. 

My whole trip here went so well!  I have learned two things thus far: tight pants are EVERYWHERE and customs is 7 letter word in Italy... I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have known we went through customs if there weren't two "attendees" standing there talking to each other.  On my flight there were 5 other students in my program so it was nice to meet them and have people to travel with!  Once we cleared "customs" we boarded a train and then took cabs to our apartments.  My apartment is beautiful! And so big! Although it took me a good 10 minutes to find the elevator and another 5 to figure out how to flush the toilet aha.  But I have 6 roommates and we have 3 double bedrooms, a single bedroom for the Italian assistant, a kitchen, music room, large living room, and a huge balcony which my roommate and I can walk onto from our bedroom!  Everything inside is brighly decorated which is fun and the elevator in our apartment complex opens up into our apartment.  The architecture here is beautiful, definitely not what I'm used to but I love it. 

We have a welcome dinner tonight with my program and then orientation for a few days.  We're all kind of in a zombie-like state right now, each of us took a nap sometime throughout the day but hopefully we'll snap out of it soon.  Italian classes start Friday and the rest of my classes don't begin until Feb!  It's so exciting and I keep forgetting I'm halfway around the world :)

"if you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it; if you don't ask, the answer is always no; if you don't step forward, you're always in the same place" - Nora Roberts