Welcome to Turin :)

Gooooodnight!

We are tired but made it to Rome! Please let me shower.

Roma

Headed to Torino!

Taxi ride to Hotel Roma.

Beautiful hotel room for 2 nights :)

Porta Nuova- biggest train station in Torino.

Piazza something....?

Spinning on the bull's balls supposedly is good luck and increases fertility.

Another piazza.....I have a bad memory.

Yeehaw! Jessica and I have arrived in Torino! It took us about 24 hours to get here but we did it. I had such a great time in Seattle celebrating my birthday with my family (although I would have liked a Duck victory.) So I arrive at the Seattle airport on Tuesday, January 11 at about 6:45 am and meet up with Jessica. We were just so excited! Got ourselves some breakfast and Starbucks and took off. It was so amazing to fly all the way together. Every flight arrived early and both layovers (stopovers as our new Aussie friend says) were super short. Couldn't have asked for a better trip. The only confusion we had the whole time was arriving in Roma. Where is customs? Where are the B gates? WE ARE LOST. Haha we walked about 2 miles to the other side of the airport to find our gate and luckily a guy ask us if we were on our way to Torino (thankfully in English) because they had just announced in Italian that our gate had changed. Jess and I of course were just taking pictures of ourselves and not paying attention. He was our first USAC friend from California named Nick with flaming red hair. At this point we were straight up delusional and had not showered in a long time. I'm sure Nick thought we were just real gems. Also- at this point no one is even attempting to speak Italian to us and speaking broken English. WE ARE ROOKIES. We arrive in Torino and take a cab that I swear to you is more nerve wracking then taking a cab in New York City. He overcharged us I'm sure but we arrived at Hotel Roma in Torino. I will post pics of this amazing place. Right in downtown and across from the train station. We went and got "paninis" which turned out to be a cold tomato and salt sandwiches. Not a good first impression. We take a nap and shower and are new people :) We headed to meet our group of 62 and are just so excited. We found out we will be living in apartment in midtown Torino, 10 mins from downtown and 15-20 mins away from school. I will live in a 5 man apartment with Jessica and three other awesome girls! Will post more about my roomies after we move in today :) After meeting up with our group we headed to a local pizzeria and ate fantastic bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salad, all the pizza you can handle, and GELATO. Welcome to Italy, I love Gelato more than anything at this point. I love Torino so much so far. Everything is older than I could have ever imagined and it is rich with tradition. Not many English speakers here to we will see how that goes. School starts Monday but all we have next week is Italian classes and I will learn more about my schedule today at Orientation. I promise to post pics and keep my blog updated as soon as I get settled. I miss everyone and will be in touch. CIAO!