What's New Ascoli Piceno?

I know, I know.  Basic SLU girl goes abroad and starts a blog.  But I have a Grandma, damn it, and she deserves to know what I am up to!  (Sorry for saying "damn it", Grandma).

For the Italian-challenged, "sono Maria Rosa" means "I am Mary Rose".  I'm pretty excited to be able to introduce myself as Maria Rosa.  Props to my parents for giving me an easily translated name.  It's pretty cute that the flowing river of beauty that is "Maria Rosa" gets to be abruptly stopped by the guttural Berlin wall that is "Hefner".  "Maria Rosa...Hefner."  That's a wannabe Italian for you.

 Two days of travel and I finally arrived in Italia!  An 8:00 AM flight to DC, then a layover in DC until 5:00.  That flight brought me to Italy at 7:35 AM… and the bus to Ascoli left at 7:30, with the next bus not until 2:10 PM.  It was quite disheartening.  Eventually 6 out of the 8 of us got together in the airport, ate some food (Mozerella è Pomodoro per io) and we boarded our quick 3 hour bus ride to Ascoli… or so we thought.  Long story short, the bus ride took probably 6 hours due to traffic and a snow storm, but we chatted with a bizarre Italian man, I ate some pizza, and there was a dog on board.  Oh, and we eventually got to Ascoli!! So it was all worth it.

The three of us SLUdents (Meredith, Jessica, and I) and our lone UConn-er (Kelsey) have the cutest apartment ever.  Like, House Hunters International cute.  Complete with a ton of Ikea furniture, a terrace, and three bedrooms with beautiful views.  Missing a bickering yuppie couple.  Our apartment is only a minute away from the Piazza and about 5 from the school, which would be a great plus if I didn’t have the directional skills of a blind fish out of water. 

I’m still sort of tired, but I’m excited to get into a schedule.  The two days of travel were insane, but I already love Ascoli.  I’m trying to make Simone e Alida, my two Italian professors, proud by speaking to Italians in Italian (Edit: I put English here before. I'm tired and losing my mind a bit. My bad.) !  It’s worked out pretty well so far.  Big thanks to Fabri Fibra, the Italian Rapper on that front too. 

Ciao for now, tonight we are going out to dinner with our teacher and I will continue my lifestyle choice to eat pizza for every meal possible.