Something a Little Different

I think, after my grousing, whining, moaning and complaining about my eldest daughter's wedding cost, most of you who lived through that concluded I am a complete cheapskate.  While that is mostly true, I have another side of me to demonstrate.  The middle child approached us about spending 6 weeks in Rome as part of an educational opportunity through her college.  To that I said, yes, what a great opportunity for a college kid who is minoring in Italian. And so, Olivia, someone who is as full of life as anyone I have ever met (you probably can get that from reading the below) sent me the below which I am sharing because there was no group ride today and I took the unusual step of running in the rain just to do something.  Anyway, from my daughter on her 1st and 2nd email after arriving in Rome last Saturday:

Bouna Sera!

Good Evening/Good Afternoon! :)

We made it to Rome yesterday around 10:30am. My flight was late taking off due to some mechanical error that was fixed after about an hour. When we arrived I went through customs which took a ridiculously long time but made it through, found my luggage (yay! nobody in our large group had their luggage lost!) and found our professor. There are 8 people in the program from BGSU, 5 of us our in one apartment, the other 3 are in an apartment about 10 minutes walk down the street. There are 2 boys and 6 girls. There is also a girl from another part of Italy that moved in today and will be here for 2 weeks. She seems really nice :). It was beautiful outside yesterday, today it is raining but still fairly nice out. Yesterday my flatmates and I went and got food from this little pizza place. I had pizza with cheese (formaggio) and ham (proscuitto). NO SAUCE! they make pizza here often with no sauce!!!! I was super excited to find that out, and if you want no sauce just spezzo (without) and pomodoro (tomato) and it comes without tomato sauce :). Then gelato which was delicious. Today our professor took us out to lunch and I had a panini with chicken, lettuce, mayo, and asparagus, which was really good also and drank sparkling water which was not good haha. Anyways we are headed into center Rome today (about 20 minutes from out apartment) to explore and see the school! I will keep emailing and updating you on everything! Miss you tons!!!

And then today this came:
Hi Papa!!!
I absolutely love it here! The people are all really nice and helpful, my friend and I walked into a gelato store and the guy stood there and helped us with our italian as we attempted to order our gelato and then afterwards was talking to us for a good 10 minutes, getting us to respond in italian. I already feel like I know more! Me and 3 other people here have gotten really close already which is good and helpful. We go everywhere together pretty much. But us 4 explored center or historical Rome as it is called together after seeing the school on Sunday and it was incredible. I have already taken almost 200 pictures, loaded them up on facebook. Another plus i have internet in my apartment! Which we were told we wouldnt so yay! I can skype you all after Brett's graduation, just give me an estimated time because we are 6 hours ahead here and I have to plan my day :) Today was my first day of classes but it was more orientation, still fun. My Italian class was all in Italian and we cannot respond in english!!! It was nerve wracking having to talk in Italian and feeling silly when I messed up but that is the best way to learn I guess :) anyways I am off to bed to get up at 7am for class tomorrow :) more details to follow in a couple days! All about where I have been, and my classes and stuff! Love you a lot and miss you tons!!! Hope everything stateside is good :)

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