Arrival

I arrived at the villa this afternoon (after a slightly scary taxi ride) and am all settled into the villa. I am sharing a huge room with three other girls - Catherine, Judith, and Ashley. I'm really happy that we were able to share a room. Our room has really high ceilings (at least 15 or 20 feet) with decorative moldings on it, and our room leads out to a balcony that has amazing views of the city. The villa has a really nice library and studio space, and we have our own garden area off of the studio. I'll try to post pictures later.

After we arrived and got settled into our rooms, a group of us went out to explore the city. We walked all the way down to the port and got drinks in a cute little cafe. The worst part was when we had to trek back to the villa. Genoa is a city built into massive hills. The stairs and hills are a killer. I love the city so far though. It sort of reminds me of a European San Francisco.

We ate dinner here in the villa tonight and even though its only 9:00 at night, everyone is pretty mellow and getting ready to go to bed. Everyone is exhausted. With the exception of a few hours of sleep on plane rides, I haven't gotten any sleep since I was home on Sunday morning. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We are supposed to start intensive Italian classes and hopefully I'll be a little more rested and will get to see more of the city.