today was hectic. 8 hours on the plane from philadelphia and the seats were a little cramped at about hour 3 it became really uncomfortable, but what are you gonna do, flying over the atlantic you cant do much. but the food wasn't to bad and you got to watch movies once it all got worked out.

we arrived in italy at about 8:30 am local time which would be 2:30 am in michigan. the really odd thing was that even though there was the 6 hour time difference, we just started the day and everything was fine. it was about 45 minutes to the school, where our bags were eventually dropped off, and we signed up and got a whole bunch of orientation stuff started. overall not a bad day, just really hectic. the apartment is really nice from what we've gathered by talking to the italians here, and they say we live in one of the best areas in the ancient center of rome.

at about 5:00 pm we got into a taxi knowing absolutly no italian and tried to get to the other housing unit to meet up with the rest of the group for a dinner that was for us, provided by MSU. we told the driver where we need to go and he understood us just fine. We were able to pronounce the name of the place very well. The only problem was that there is a road that is the same name of the place that all the other students are at so he took us to the begining of that road.

after about 45 minutes in the taxi, he found the place and we met with the group.

the way home was much easier and we crashed right when we got here.

so far so good, we'll see what tommorow brings.