Grocery Store Galore

Tuesday, August 26, 2008. Venice, Italy 7:30 pm

So I am here in Venice and it is STUNNING. I want so badly to blend in with the Europeans, but it is difficult to do so with a CAMERA attached to my face. But I cant help it--I want to remember everything, and I want to show YALL everything too!! None the less, new pictures are up...

Yesterday we got up for an orientation meeting. We met our teachers, I clearly have forgotten all of their names already. Good start. Then we went to the grocery store and...wow. First of all, let me preface this story by telling those of you who do not already know that I LOVE THE GROCERY STORE. I love everything about it. Shopping + food= my fave. I also love the organization and the colorful boxes, the advertisements, EVERYTHING. This is why I do most of the grocery shopping for both my mom and my dad when I am home. So I was looking forward to going to the groc in Italy. We walk to the Billa, the grocery store, and gather outside to get the instructions on how to do the grocery store. I am not someone who needs directions on how to buy food, but I tried to listen anyway. You had to pay for a cart. 1 euro. You got it back when you put the cart back, but clearly I didnt have the correct coins, so I had to borrow. Boo. Then we walk around the most NARROW aisles ever trying to find what we might need. Let me tell you what I bought. Tell me if you are surprised: Ritz crackers, peaches, apples, special K with peaches cereal, soap, shampoo, yogurt, some pita wraps for sandwiches, jelly (I brought my own peanut butter knowing that they wouldnt sell it here), nutella and milk. These last two were especially noteworthy. The nutella had an entire section dedicated to it. Loff, you would LOVE IT!! They had every size bottle ever--5 kg ones (Loff, that would last you about a week... haha) down to little baby travel ones. They were so cute!! The milk just annoyed me because I couldnt figure out which to get. They had about 10 kinds and none of them (shockingly) were in English. So I didnt know if I was getting soy milk, lactose intolerant milk, whole milk, goat milk, freshly mixed from powder milk, old milk etc. I drank it this AM and it seemed fine, so I hope its ok... We came back and just hung out around the house. We then went out because it is one of the girls in the house's birthday. We came back from some square (all of them run together...) and hung out here in the house until late.

This morning we got up early-ish and went to the train station for our next level of orientation. Now I know where the station is and how to get a ticket etc. We then walked around for 4 hours. FOUR. It was intense. I was SO lost. I am directionally challenged enough when I can actually read the signs and speak to the people. Now everything is in Italian. Great. But it was nice! Good exercise and a BEAUTIFUL view! I came back, napped, skyped and am sitting here telling you all about it! I am not thinking I am going out tonight--I havent read for tomorrow yet...oops. Eli and Katie, my friends from Greece, are coming to Venice this weekend so I am excited about that, AND we are going to the opera in Verona Thursday night. We sleep on the streets until our train comes at 5 AM. There will be 20 of us, though, so dont worry. I am just worried because it will be my second all nighter in a week (and in my life... funny how that works out. Thank you, Europe). That cannot be good for me.

Thats all for now.
Miss you all
xoxo
mckin