whirl of a blur, my first day...

Another student asked me what I had been doing my first five days here (she arrived a few months ago) and I just looked at her with a blank stare. I had no idea. I really had to stop and think about it.
Since I arrived I hadn’t been able to think straight. Jet lag really got to me going this way and my brain was just fuzzy for days.
When Giovanna (my friend who picked us up from the airport dropped us off at the convent it took a good hour to get all of my stuff up all the steps to the attic where my room is. The first thing I did was open my window and was blown away by my view. I had intended to go out and find lunch and explore my neighborhood a bit but between the physical exhaustion of going up and down my stairs and the enchantment I felt when I looked out my window I some how later realized that hours had past and I was still staring out my window at the roof line and bell towers of my neighborhood. Eventually I dragged myself away from the window and started unpacking. Again I had intended to only look for a change of clothes but once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I rearranged the furniture in my room so that instead of two extra narrow twins, I now had a queen size bed.
In the room across the hall from me is the girl that I happened to fly out with. We had met via facebook a few weeks before when we realized that we were both from Santa Cruz and both going to the same Montessori program and actually even had bought tickets for the same flight.

One of the reasons I choose to live in the convent even though it is a long walk up the hill from the school is that they included in the price a meal plan. I have heard from several people that the program is very very intense and I won’t be having time to even cook my own food while I am here. Plus the idea of living in Italy and getting authentic food cooked by Italians for me was rather appealing. I happened to be lucky enough last year in Ramallah to live next door to two Italians who several times a week were happy to share their dinners with me so I knew that nothing I could ever make was going to be as good as what I hope the sisters might be able to make.
But when I arrived earlier in the day I found out that the sisters wouldn’t start cooking until the following Monday, and until then I would be on my own.
So we decide after several hours that we needed to get some lunch and explore a bit. On the way down we met another teacher that I had only ever met via facebook up to that point, Patricia who was also from the bay area and also living in the convent. She gave us a few clues on how to find food and then told us a bit about her computer problems, where the mall was that had an apple store and all the offices for the internet companies, and rather complicated directions on how to get there.
So we were off enraptured with what we found around each and every corner. I whipped out my camera and started taking pictures. I knew that these photos were not going to be my best photos ever but at least they would capture my first impressions of what I was seeing here. Plus I was so tired and so ready to go to sleep that I knew that I needed these photos just to remember the amazement of that first day.
After walking around and exploring the amazing medieval city where I now live it was time to find some pizza. After the pizza I saw the bus that went down to the mall near the airport. I hadn’t intended to get on the bus or even go to the mall that afternoon but I couldn’t think of a reason not to. I knew I needed to get a sim card for my phone so that I could have Italian phone service, and I needed to buy an internet key so that I could get on line, and I also needed food since the sisters weren’t going to begin cooking for us for another week. All of these places could be found at the mall so I jumped on the bus and we took off.
WE ended up spending hours at the mall running around from store to store. As it turns out, the operating system on my brand new computer wouldn't work with any of the internet systems that cover the area of the city i am living in. so i am going to have to wait for them to up date their hardware. In the mean time I am going to have to borrow internet from the other girls who live in the convent and are in the program with me. They all seem happy enough to share.
Here are a few of my photos:

I have arrived!!!

For years now, I have been telling people that I wanted to go back to school, but I never did. I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I wanted to do or where I would do it. Which is one of the main reasons why for 14 years I put off going to grad school. About a year ago when I was planning to go back for my last year in Palestine, my visa was denied. Obviously, the person in charge of applying for my visa went through the process of appealing Israel's decision but in the mean time I needed to figure out a "plan b". I was literally having a panic attack at my mom's house in Santa Cruz, highly aware that the end of August is not an opportune time to start looking for a fall teaching job. My mom, afraid of where I might end up (literally), suggested that I think about something outside of teaching english in a foreign country. She asked me what I do, if i could do anything? I don't know where exactly in me it came out of, but I remember hearing myself say, "the Montessori school in Bergamo, Italy". She got a huge smile on her face and told me to apply and we could sort out the financial issues when we got to them. So I quickly typed up an e-mail to the program and asked them if there was anyway that I could start this fall and gave them a very brief bio about myself. I was shocked out of my mind when 12 hours later they replied, "Yes but school starts in five days and you would have a lot to get done by then". So with the help of my sister I actually sat down and filled out their application and wrote the essay. (THE ESSAY.... the cause of such stress, it might have been the number 1 reason i had never applied for the program before. When I was a senior in high school, I might have actually chosen the colleges I applied for by who wouldn't make me write an essay)
In the middle of the process of getting this all done, I heard back from the Israeli Embassy that my application for a year long volunteer visa was approved. I quick wrote another email to the Montessori Program and told them that I would send in my application later in the year and that i would like to start in the fall of 2011. And off to Palestine I went.
Somewhere during the fall, I confided in a few close friends that I really wanted to go to grad school the next year but that I was going to have problems actually filling out the application because of some unknown to me fear. And I asked them for their help, Would they please pester me and harass me all year until my application was sent in. this is the point where I need to thank David, Bernadette and Jessica for all their persecution. Thank you for getting me here to Italy.
So here I am!!!
I am living in a convent that rents out rooms and provides meals for women. About half of the people from my program are currently living here and that might change as they find other places to live later on. For now, however it has been a great opportunity to get to know them and have a community right away.
Bergamo where I live is divided up into the upper and lower cities. The center where I will go to school is in the lower part, and the convent is in the upper part. The upper part of the city is the old city and was founded in 49BC!!!! The upper city, surrounded by Venetian walls built in the 17th century, forms the historic centre of Bergamo.

This is really what it looks like and in the top leftish/center of the picture you can see my bedroom window right under and to the right of the fortress.

This is what I can see out my window:

So there are some draw backs to living in the most beautiful place in the world. As I said the school is in lower Bergamo but the convent is in the upper city and the only way up and down in that direction is to walk.... and the sisters make lunch for us too... so twice a day I will be walking from the upper to the lower city. 30 minutes UP HILL!!!! OH MY!
and to have this amazing view also means that I have to climb up a lot of starts to the tip top corner of the convent (about 70 steps) to my bedroom. OH MY!!!!

bY the end of the year I better have buns of steel.

I arrived last Monday night in Milan but it was just two late to drive the hour plus distance to the convent so my friends who picked me up took me to one of their parents house for the night. The next morning, rested and showered I was driven to bergamo with Kendra another student (and now friend) who happened to be also be from Santa Cruz and who happened to be on the same flight as me. There were plenty of squeals of joy and amazement as we drove into the city. And more than once I shouted out that I live a very very charmed life.

In all the times I have arrived to new places since leaving home at 19 to go to Ohio for college, I have never had such a smooth transition. No one has ever met me at the airport with flowers before or taken such good care of me. books and horror movies could be written or made about all the disasters that have happened on my arrive to different places. I think the worst was when i arrived to korea in the middle of the night with not a clue where to go and randomly got into a van that swore it was a taxi and drove me for hours into the night to some strange person's house where i got locked in for three days. but that is a different story.

I have never arrived to somewhere so legit. I had the proper visas, my tuition has already been paid. I had people to meet me at the airport. My housing was previously arraigned. and on and on. I never live life this way, so well organized and prepared but i might be tempted to in the future. How pleasant it makes the beginning an experience in a new country and plus as i keep saying to myself: "this is ITALY!!! I am finally after 16 years, back in EUROPE!!!".

ahhhh happiness!!!