we have got to learn Italian y'all.

Are those plane tickets and passports i see?  Why, yes it is!  Bon voyage y'all!

On the plane!  Ann Burgwin likes to keep things real by not actually getting to the gate until just before take off.  So, we were all very glad she arrive, as out of breath as she was.

And we are here!  10 hours in the air and we have arrived!  Glad to have my feet firmly plated back on the ground again.

So a very successful first day in the beautiful country of Italy.  Breathtaking doesn’t even describe the feeling I had when I first laid eyes on this country.  Tears may or may not have welled up in my eyes at my first glance. 

We arrived in Rome safe and sound…barely.  10 hours on a cramped airplane is enough to about do a girl in, but regardless we have arrived.  Customs was a bit disappointing, only because they fell a few fries short of a happy meal complete with a grunt and not even a stamp in my passport.  I almost ran back to get him to stamp it, and would have had I known the language.  Italy is a fascinating country.  I am going to have to get used to long, lingering stares and feeling like a complete and totally idiot.  I have got to learn Italian, y’all!

Sunrise over the ocean.  Hands down best wake up call I have ever had!

Fun fact: If you so chose to mot walk around on the plane during your flight, you must endure the unavoidable prospect that you will have kankles.  I mean, our ankles had rolls.

Welcome to Rome!  Delirium and all!

So.  Our first venture out, of course, had to be an adventure.  We were trying to fill the time by not going to sleep even though it was about 3am our time but about noon in Italy.  So we walked a little ways down the road across the bridge into the small sleepy town of Ariccia.  It was a scene straight form a movie.  A scene complete with window boxes, kids playing Barbie in the fountains, dogs patiently waiting for their friends to finish lunch outside the café, and friendly Italian greetings from the locals.  So we continued on in the illusion of this being an easy task of finding a simple cup of coffee.  But, we may as well have been wearing an American flag cape around town.  We stuck out like a boy in a sorority chapter meeting.  Struggle.  Im sure lots of people in Rome know English, but there is not a soul in tis small town who knows a lick of English…and somehow I thought I could make it by with one word, ‘ciao’.  Oops.

Because we were such over achievers, we got to Rome a day early.  But never fear, we just had to stay in tis cute little thing for a night.

Well, as you can probably tell, it is about 3am our bodies time.  But this was our first look at our new home in Ariccia.

Ciao Italy!  I will be gracing you with my presence this entire summer!

We wondered into the small café where we thought we had struck gold.  Keep in mind, this is the first time we had really tried to communicate with the people.  Trying to be as friendly and as non American as possible, we ordered 3 lattes.  Lattes, right?  Pretty standard.  False.  Big difference between a latte and a café latte.  The woman working spoke literally no English so it was kind of like ordering coffee from my dog, but no big deal.  She looked kinda confused when we said we wanted a latte and then asked if we wanted it hot or cold.  I assumed this was some weird Italian thing because I have never had a cold latte.  So naturally we said hot would be fabulous.  She begins to prepare the dinks.  All we see her add is milk.  She steams the milk, then proceeds to add the nice touch of some chocolate syrup on top.  Wha La!  A latte!  What we really ended up getting was some warm milk.  If you have ever been really tired, so tired that you could curl up in the middle of the road and take a serious power nap, you will understand when I tell you that warm milk was less than conducive to our current, delierious state.  We laughed at our mistake later and mentally noted that next time, in order to get come caffeine in our system, we must order a ‘café latte’.  We paid for our milk, gave up on trying to stay awake, and drug our tired little booties back to the hotel.  A nap was just bound to happen.  We stopped trying to fight it.

The day continued in regular fashion as we ventured out later that day to get some dinner.  I’m pretty sure the entire city knows the Americans from Auburn have arrived.  It took about 10 Italian-speaking men to help us find a “pizza store” as they called it.  As valiant as their efforts were, we were yet again a few fries short.  We ended up at this hole in the wall restaurant and we were pumped that it was at least open.  We waltzed our way in and tried to explain to the woman up front with a nice little game of charades that we were hungry by rubbing our stomachs and just looking excessively pitiful.  We realized later on that the restaurant was probably not open, but who could refuse 3 cute American girls playing charades with you?  They probably just wanted to see what other dumb things we could do.  Adds a bit of comic relief to your hum drum working day, and so we accepted where our meal was about to come from.  Note, no one speaks English.  And we do not speak Italian.  Problem.  Comical…no…hilarious.  We sit down and before we knew it, so Guido looking dude yells for us to come upstairs and starts showing us all these kinds of meats and cheeses.  We thought we asked for a menu, but whatever.  The actual kitchen works too.  So we point to the things we like/ just nod to the things he is holding up because we have not clue what he is saying.  For all we know, he was probably holding cow tongue but we just rubbed our belies and said yummy to anything he held up.  When in Rome, right? We were just going with it.  We go back outside and sit down.  The food just starts coming, and the wine keeps being poured.  In the back of my head in thinking that this is going to cost a fortune, but on some level I was hoping they just waned to clean out their refrigerator on us.  Hey, I am not above charity people.  They were loving us and we were about to puke.  If there is one thing I am going to come away with I this summer is the ability to fake an entire conversation when I have no idea what the other party is saying.  So, before we knew it, we had taken over two entire tables with plates of food.  They even gave us an on the house bottle of red wine.  I was beginning to grow more and more concerned about how much this meal was about to cost me.  But what could I do?  We had already eaten it and I didn’t know how I was going to explain the check to him.  We sat and tried to chomp our way thought all the great cheeses, meats, pastries, breads, wine, and some unmentionables that I don’t really want to find out what it was.  At one point we are sitting there eating and we hear Neos’- ‘Baby Let Me Love You’ almost as an anthem playing over head.  We were dying of laughter and also thought I may die of over eating.  You see, it is rude to leave food on your plate.  So mom, you would have been so proud!  On some level I think we may have offended them because we left a lot of food, but you could have fed 2 medium sized families with the amount of garb covering our table.

The check was brought to the grand totally of 50 euros.  Umm, nope.  So, I worked my mad, blond skills with the Italian waiter and got it lowered to 32 euros.  Much better.  We paid and were on our way.  I’m pretty sure the entire city of Ariccia is well aware of the arrival of Auburn University students.  We have made our mark, but needless to say, we have got to learn Italian, y'all!