Safe and Sound

Ciao!
This is my first post from Ilbono, Italy. I arrived to my host family last night.

Right now, everything is still so new, and I understand about 5% of what people say to me, but other than that, everything is good. It's beautiful here. I am not using my computer right now, but I will post pictures as soon as I can use mine. Also, I am not used to this computer, so I apologize in advance for my errors.

It is still so surreal that I'm here, and not going to lie, I am more homesick than I ever have been. I can't help but think ''what am I doing here?'' but things will get better. So now for what I did for that last few days.

New York: I am not going to tell you day by day what I did in New York, but it was amazing. But, I decided that I couldn't live in <Manhattan. too many people. But I still loved it. Times Square-beautiful. We went there almost every day, and I canàt even tell you how much fun it was. We ended up going to Chicago. On Broadway. Which was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done.. and it was on my best friend's birthday, which was a plus. I slept through my NYU tour.. oops, but to justify it, if I hadn't have slept I would have been awfully cynical anyways.

Orientations: New York was well... pretty boring. But I met some really great people. Everyone who was at the Rome orientation was Italy, Spain, France, Egypt, South Africa, Ghana, Bosnia, and I think there are more, but at this point I really don't remember. (Sorry). We ate kind of gross food the first night, and curfew was 10:30(what the heck! Half of us didn't even sleep that night.) And we weren't allowed to use the pool. The next day was just as boring and resulted in us playing musical chairs. We needed a distraction. We left the Hilton at 6:00pm that day with all of our luggage.

Flights: You'd think that a 7 hour flight and a 2 hour flight with 47 teenagers would be fun, huh? But no, I got almost 0 sleep, and I was acting like a crazy person by the end. Literally. Plus, we almost missed our flight to Rome from Zurich because of customs and what not. But we made it.

Roma: I love foreigners. So much. And all I can say is I'm not sure if they are actually this attractive or if they are just foreign. It was really boring, but really fun at the same time. Does that make any sense? During the day we pretty much sat in the same place, but at night we got to talk to everyone and it was so fun. We played games, and the brazilians played songs on the guitar while everyone sang along, cool right? And I think the most sleep I got in those four days was about four hours a night. So I am exhausted.

Current: I got to Ilbono last night, and I am exhausted. I have a hard time speaking with them, and I am having a hard time with being away from home. Which is weird, because I never really get homesick. Things are hard, just like everyone told me it would be. I'm not going to sugar coat it, I have cried a few times, and today is only my second day here. But I am overall excited for my experience and excited to learn a new language and new things. I'm going to stay positive. I just needed a little bit of familiarity, so I am on my computer.

I love it here, and I can already feel my Italian getting better. Next orientation camp is in 5ish weeks:) Can't wait to see all the Sardinian AFSers again.

Stay lovely,
Arrivederci,
Rachael.