1. I got really sick in class
2. I rested and felt a ton better
3. I had a great dinner with the VCU crew and then went to listed to some music. Umbria Jazz started last night and we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning sitting on the steps of the main church in Perugia listening to wonderful music and drinking vino with some new friends we made this week. 

This is such a great city!!!!

1.       

CLASS IS SOOOO HARD!  That pretty much sums up my week.  I was placed in B2 and did not think I would have a problem at all.  I could not have been more wrong!  Apparently the school got rid of C2 so all of the students trickled down into lower levels and the teachers kicked the classes up a notch. Needless to say (I am sure that if you have traveled out of the US you will understand this ), Americans were the most unintelligent people in the group which made an already hard class even harder.  I left class the first day and wanted to cry.  The good thing was that I was not the only one.  Everyone in the VCU group felt the same was so after much effort and paperwork we all moved down a level.  I start my new class on Monday and am hoping that it will be better.  Fingers crossed! 

I have been here a week already and it really does feel like home.  There is something extraordinarily captivating about this city that is so steeped in history.  So I was walking along and found this little church just up the street from my house  that had people sun bathing on the grass just inside the gate.  It was so interesting to see that…only in Italy!  When went in the church I was underwhelmed until I started looking around in all of the little nooks and crannies and seeing how much this church has been through over the years.  It got even better when 2 people dressed to the 9s came in and started playing music.  I sat, listened, and just tried to soak it all it.  I can say without hesitation that it was one of the most special moments in my life (I will try to post the video I took but it might be too large to load).  Upon leaving I found out that the only reason the church was open was for a wedding that was about to start.  The bride, who was from Sweden, and the groom who was Italian invited us to stay and watch the ceremony which was too cool for words!!!!

Getting to Perugia and Siena!!

Okay so I made it to Perugia in one piece and am so very glad to be here!  I am not going to lie...getting here was a bit insane! Lets see...I got on the wrong Metro (which was going the complete opposite direction I needed to be going in), broke my shoes while trying to catch the correct Metro and then got caught in a massive rain storm.  So to sum it up, it was AWESOME! However, I made it to the bus and met up with 3 others that are a part of the VCU group.  We made it to Perugia in a couple of hours and then went out for dinner as a group.  The next day we went to Siena, toured a bit then saw the Palio which is by far one of the most exciting things in the world! 

We started classes today and have just been spending free time cooking, drinking vino and getting lost in this beautiful city.  Let me tell you...it does not suck waking up to this view every morning!