Mi scusi, dov'é...

"Excuse me, where is...?"  is pretty much the most fluent Italian phrase I know at this point! Verona has been fantastic so far and I am absolutely in love with it!  Yay!  The first weekend consisted of two things I love dearly: eating and walking :) mostly eating.  The first night we went to a great restaurant called "Casa Vino" and had a fantastic 5 course meal plus about 12 bottles of red wine (there are ten of us what do you expect?).  We met Claudio's (the program director) wife, Rita, and son Pedro.  Pedro is probably the smartest child in the world, because he is 8 and speaks fluent Italian and Spanish and can understand English.  He will also be in our painting class. I'm not sure if that means our painting class is a very low level or he's just a really good painter...  Rita is from Costa Rica and speaks three languages and is super stylish, she took us shopping on Saturday and is going to the outlet mall with us next weekend.  Oh and how did Claudio and Rita meet when he is from Italy and she is from Costa Rica?  At the University of Illinois Union Hotel in Urbana-Champaign :).  

On Saturday we registered for classes, and did paperwork for our Visa registration that we have to do on Wednesday.  Then had a 4 course lunch!  Then took a walking tour of the entire city!  Plus a little shopping.  Unfortunately it was about 95° but we toughened up once we stopped for some drinks.  Then we got freshened up and went and had a huge pizza dinner.  Oh yes, our pizza had truffles on it! 

On Sunday me and my roommate went grocery shopping which was quite an adventure.  Then we had a 6 course lunch.  No meal here has lasted less then 2/2.5 hours, maxing out at 4 :)    In the afternoon we had a scavenger hunt throughout the city.  My team won!  Whoo!  We won 30euro to a local coffee place!  That evening we went to the Opera in the amphitheater in town and saw Aida.  Even though we didn't know what they were saying, it was still pretty beautiful, especially because we were in an amphitheater. 

Yesterday was our first day of class.  We just had one Italian class in the morning, because school hasn't officially started yet.  The rest of the students won't arrive until September, we are just doing crash courses in Italian to figure out what is going on.  After that some of us decided to walk around the town more to get a better idea of our location.  We stopped to get lunch at this little deli/pizzaria and ended up talking to the owner for 20 minutes, because his brother now lives in Chicago and was coming to visit him this week. 

In conclusion, we've mostly been eating, but since my roommate and I live about 20/25 minutes away from everything, it's balancing out.  Tiramisu twice in the past 3 days? I'm not complaining!  Hope everyone is doing well!  

love and miss you!