Vorrei...

I'll try to use Italian in my titles. Vorrei (pronounced "vor-ray") means, "I would like." They taught us a song titled "Vorrei," which is a sappy love song (those apparently are universal). "Vorrei" is an important word because it is how we order food or express interest in an item when shopping.

That being said let me speak a little about the trip over here. We loaded up on a little puddle-jumper from Little Rock to Atlanta, and then got on a Boeing 747 (the biggest plane in the delta fleet) to fly to Rome. Because of the nature of flying against the rotation of the Earth. Night went from being a 12+ hour activity to a 7 hour one which was severely disorienting. Couple with this that I had only screwed 2 hours of sleep since Monday and the result was a ridiculous level of exhaustion going into an entire day in Italy, beginning with a 4 hour bus ride.

The pains of travel aside I have loved it here. Today I went into Scandicci (a suburb of Florence near the village) and we got to walk around and explore for a few hours, then we went to this pizza place that was incredible. I loved it. Though there was a... well let's call it a "technical difficulty" at one point.

To be honest though I'm not sure about fitting in with the other people here. No offense to any of them that read this (this is a me issue), but as usually happens a few small groups have formed and I don't really belong to any of them. Some of them are people from the periphery of my friend groups from back home and others are entirely strangers. In big group settings it's never a problem to find a few people I can talk to or walk with but even then I feel kind of like a new fish in a tank. In defense of those here I don't think that this is at all their doing; truthfully I think the problem is

That concern actually seems like a mole hill compared to the other hill I have to climb. This isn't some cliche metaphor...it's an actual hill. It's a long uphill walk that in my last two attempts has kicked my butt. I'm hoping that will get better over time, but right now I can't say the outlook is optimistic.

Well to all of you reading this thank you and I hope you will continue to read as this semester continues.

With the Love of the Father
-matt