When you can't remember the last time you took a shower, It's been too long!

With rehearsals intensifying and performances happening just around the corner, stress levels have begun to increase! Thankfully all this week the weather has been rainy and cool. Such a nice change from molting hot! It seems that we have finally settled into our lives here quite nicely. For some of us it is so hard to be away from our families but with the distractions that we need it's easy, most days, to forget how much we miss them.
We comfort ourselves with a nice dose of ridiculousness, as our Maestro would put it. Sometimes it just takes staying up late to help a friend run music and lines that turns into a laughing spout because there is a huge bug near by that we can't kill for the life of us...you probably had to be there. Gelato is always a nice outlet & substitute for everything as well. It is very difficult to not go down to the shop everyday and eat one, and most of us do that anyway. The Gelatteria gelato people know the crazy Americans very well. :)
Everyone appreciates a beautiful language. But I discovered not as much when everyone around you is speakin on a fast track in Italian and all you want to do is find someone who speaks English. It also does get easier to pick up words you hear from people on the street when you take 3 1/2 hours of Italian everyday. Even then it's only about, "My name is...." and "How are you?" Everything else is a swoosh woosh and away from Iknownothingdum. It's all about not only pronouncing the letters together correctly, but where you put the emphasis. Oy! stupido! Anyway...:)

Pics of week due (doo*aye)

Rum and tonic concoction that the doctor gave me for bronchitis  

The Witch Festival. This is the fountain covered in sage brush and fire.

Our BEAUTIFUL Italian teacher Denice

We found an LDS church last Sunday! Hallelujah!

Once of our walking views

The roomies LuanaLei, Me and Krystal out on a walk

Our justification for going on a walk :)

Oh just walking by....

uhhhhh.....it looked like a climbing wall

Fun in the rain

WEEKEND FUN!

Week one down! It feels like we have been here for ages already when in all actuality it's only been a week. BUT no complaints. We are learning sooo much and it's not just from Italian language classes. We have all had to learn how play nice and get along, as is such when random people are thrown together very quickly.We are all getting along very well in, and in a totally biased way, I think our house is the best. We all laugh and joke and now it's not difficult to be ourselves. So the messing together has been a success! 

So as hectic as our schedules are 6 days out of the week, not including concerts and masterclasses, my roommates, LuanaLei, Rachel and I decided that a well earned church service was well deserved and need. So instead of going with La Musica Lirica group we went to church on Sunday in Rimini. Our plan was to get on a bus and walk a little ways to find the church house we had previously routed out. We were going to attend meeting, get to know the ward a little bit and go the beach afterwords. Well....lets just say that we are lucky we made it to sacrament meeting. We hoped on a late bus, because of a crazy previous night till 4:35am, at 9:15ish, Rode for about 40 mins to a stop that the bus driver "told us" was were we needed to go. Now it really was where we needed to go but after waiting for 20 mins for our next bus it hadn't come. We decided to trek the "not so long walk we thought" on foot. Left, really long, pretty and small road, right at a round-about onto a busy highway with no side walks....ummm okay I guess we will walk along the road with the scary drivers that run past you so fast and close it feels like you've actually been hit. Running for our lives across this scary high and screaming "I'm soooorrrrry, IT'S OKAY WE'RE AMERICANS" then crossing what felt like the bay bridge to get to a road that lead us to a church building where we collapsed in our seats and tried to pay attention to fast and incomprehensible Italian, all the while trying not to fall asleep because of the long trek and late night. Thankfully 2 lady missionaries from Utah, SLC & Spanish Fork were there....what a relief to be understood. :) One of the members offered to take us to the bus stop so that we wouldn't have to walk the 2 miles back. Traveling by bus again and completely ruling out the beach at this point, we got back to Novafeltria and zonked out till dinner! :)

I think that Novafeltria is one of the most interesting towns! They have a monday shopping market every week and this last Sunday was something called "The Witch Festival". None of us know what the story behind the witch night is or why the heck it was such a big deal but it was fun. They put a a zip line for a fake witch to fly across, which is a tradition. They also had barrels of hay for decorations and fire and big Sage bushes on the fountain. I think they also had a couple of haunted houses...there was no way in Heck that i was going inside one of those. The US ones are bad enough! but we got gelato, a few gifts, walked around,took pictures and watched the live music and dancers do their thing. Such an interesting night. I'm comparing it to what would be the 4th of July for Italy....cept creepier. :)
Pic's to Come....

Homemade Italy

            Classes, Lessons, Rehearsals, Italian Italian Italian, classes, lessons, rehearsals, Italian italian italian!! Time to eat, time to sleep....what's that? Classes in Italian everyday for 3 1/2 hours, lessons in the afternoon, and rehearsals in the evening till 10:30pm. Walking all over town up hills gives us a a great excuse to grab gelato's, although by the time we start eating them they are half gone because it is so molting hot it becomes soup. :) And might I just add...Italian food is the bomb dot com! I am not just talking about restaurant food because some cheap places here are not that great. I am talking about eating how the actual Italians eat. Every Monday there is a giant market that happens in the Piazza. It's basically a giant out door mall with stands for fresh meat, cheese, veggies and fruit. Our budgets are becoming happier by the day because of how inexpensive most everything is. We planned our meals and went shopping for everything we needed and lets just say that we are most likely the only apartment making our own food everyday and eating like true Italian kings!

 Potato and squash soup. AMAZING! Plus a green chicken salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Yummy! 

Lucia rehearsal in the Cinema

My very first Italian Gelato! Mine is the strawberry chocolate one!

Most of the cast goes for pastries and gelato's here. Teatro Caffe.

The official meeting house for La Musica Lirica

The School. Dahn Dahn daaaaaaahn!

Just a few Pics

Just off the plane to Rome..I was deranged!

French fries, kielbasi, sausage and mozzarella, surprisingly delicious  

This was the Hostel we stayed at in Rome

We got the best place ever!!

View from our kitchen

View from our Balcolony

If you were wondering...yes that is a stiletto through my bag. :)

NYC centeral park fountain

Novafeltria town square...the Piazza 

Our Welcoming party. Fed us food with mayor speeches and everything! 

Homemade meal out of nothing at Kimo's place in Brooklyn.
Pretty huh?!

Central Park has got to be my favorite park of all time. Gorgeous! This is one of the beautiful bridges. 

For my Husband. Since I couldn't actually kiss you on the
 most romantic bridge in New York, I blew you one instead. 

This is where they filmed the maid in Manhattan scene. I LOVE IT!