Ciao! One week in Reggio Emilia

Today, I have been in Italy for exactly one week. The trip has been a blast so far. Our group flew out of Atlanta's airport at midnight on Sunday May 9th. We had several delays. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave at 5:45, then it was pushed back further and further due to ash from volcanoes, plane repairs, then the need for pilots who had not been awake too many hours. Finally we left at midnight. Then arrived in Italy around 3:00 that Monday afternoon.

For the trip at least two students are assigned to a host family. My roommate is Kirbi Johnson, a rising senior and elementary education major at Clemson University. We are living with Familglia Buccino Fava. They have a home very close to the center of the city and we share a flat with their daughter, Marcella, who is 22. The family also has a son, Farro, who is 16. The mother and father, Dina and Antonio, are both extremely kind and cook delicious food! Every night Kirbi and I eat dinner with the family. Dinner usually consists of pasta and then meat and salad or another type of side. Then we usually have fruit for desert. Dina makes olive oil and Balsamic vinegar which are from traditional recipes of her hometown in Southern Italy. They are both amazing! Dinner lat night was so delicious! Dina made lasagna from scratch. We also had salad, bread with a tomato spread, and prosciutto (a meat similar to ham). Dinner last night was also very interesting. Antonio is a director of plays at Universities around the world so two of his actors are in town and had dinner with us. The two men were from Paris and London so dinner consisted of three languages; Italian, English, and French! It was so hard to keep up with the conversations but I enjoyed the experience!

Kirbi and I have really enjoyed having Marcella to show us around time and help us settle in! She even took us out with her friends one night. It was so funny hearing about other exchange students that her family has hosted and Marcella is so comical! Her friend, Matte, has a great personality and speaks English very well. Its so crazy to think that when I get home I will have friends from half way across the world!

More news to update later, but for now the weather is nice and Kirbi and I are going to enjoy it since its finally not raining!