Italia, sono pazza di te

I can't even begin to express my longings and desire to come to this beautiful country, and here I am. It is so unreal. God is good guys. God is good. 

It all began with a plane ride. A very long plane ride. But honestly I think my favorite part of the trip so far has been waking up from the worlds shortest sleep and lifting up the shade. Immediately bright intense rays of sunshine filled the plane and as my eyes adjusted I saw something I won't ever forget, Italy. 

This picture really doesn't do what I saw justice, but I had never seen anything like this in my entire life. So much beauty and so much to see. The mountains literally looked like someone had pushed fields and fields together in such a unique way for each one. It was breathtaking. 
I've have also been learning so much not only in class, but about myself and how I can adapt and learn about a different culture. I may not be perfect, but I am taking these experiences and hopefully they will begin to shape me into a more cultured individual. One thing that I would really like to point out that I found out today was how difficult it is to find a church to go to! Seems crazy right? My thoughts exactly. I am in one of the biggest Catholic countries in the world, and all the times I tried to go to mass today, all the doors to the churches were locked! Even some store owners didn't know where a working church was. This made me rather sad. But thankfully by the end of the day we figured out somewhere to go for next week, so expect an update with that from me!



So like I was saying, here I am in Italy, living a dream come true. We have all officially been in Castiglion Fiorentino for a little over a week! That's so crazy to think. It still hasn't sunk in that I am here. I absolutely love it though, and couldn't have asked for a better group to go on this adventure with. We are all so diverse, but have found where we all fit in with each other and get along so well. I have a feeling we will all be very sad to have to leave our little family when July hits. 

A little bit about my adventures thus far, we have taken several tours of the town, visited Cortona, Florence, and Arezzo. Also, since we have been here we 
have toured a garden in town and learned about different types of local plants. Being a Horticulture major, it is cool to be able to see the things we are learning about in class  and be able to eat them too since the kitchen here uses all local produce. Also, on Friday we took a trip to the local farmers market to practice our Italian and try the local produce, it was a lot of fun and I really enjoy using my italian skills to talk to locals. A few of  us have been taking the language for the past year, and so far it has been so rewarding to be able to talk to people in a language I knew nothing about a little under a year ago! 


I can't wait to continue writing down my adventures, so stay tuned! :) 

Ciao, 
-Katrina Zekulin