La Vita Italiana: Happy Sunday!

It is week six in Italy today! Wow! I cannot believe there are only two more months left of this semester! It's scary how time flies sometimes. So this past week has been quite eventful. I will start with last Friday when we left for our trip to the Cinque Terre. So, unfortunately it wasn't exactly the trip I had imagined. I was sick with the stomach flu literally the entire time! Starting the moment I stepped onto the bus, to the time we arrived back in Torino. I will spare you the details, but I don't think I have ever been sick so many times in public! We first arrived in Genova for our guided tour around the city, and I tried to enjoy this the best I can and still managed to get some photos, but all I really wanted to do was get into our hotel room and take a nice long, relaxing shower. I spent the rest of that evening feeling sickly, trying my hardest to rest away my sickness. I woke up the next morning with every intention on going on the adventure to the Italian Riviera, but sadly, my nausea was still in existence. Because of this, I was forced to stay cooped up in my hotel room the entire day, while the the rest of the group was out venturing along the famous Cinque Terre. It was a good weekend to miss out on it though, because it was a rainy day and all the hiking trails in each of the five lands were already closed down for the weekend because of the weather. I definitely would like to plan a trip back there someday; the hiking sounds like it'd be wonderful! (Especially after seeing some of the photos the other students captured of this beautiful place.) The last day of our weekend, we had a planned visit to Portofino, a beautiful fishermen's village, a short boat ride away. By this time, I wasn't exactly 100%, but I also wasn't going to miss out on any more of this trip. Here, we walked around the village, traveling up hills to see the town, as well as a castle- the Dolce & Gabbana house, I believe? After a few hours there, we road back on the boat to Santa Margherita (where we have been staying all weekend) to spend the rest of the day relaxing on the beach. This same day, we caught a train back to Torino and about three hours later, we are finally home! No matter where you are in the world, the feeling of coming home after a trip still has the same, "ahhh" effect.
So, Monday morning came fast and early. And only to wake up to stand in line at an immigration office FOR THREE HOURS. Imagine a DMV office. You know how it's just inevitable to see strange people there? Well now I want you to imagine that doubled. Anyways, we were there to finalize our permit of stay for living here in Torino, so it was the fingerprinting stage. Exciting! Now it's official, I'm in the system. The rest of this week went really well. I found out I got a 97% on my second Italian exam! Just one more left and we are finished with the "six week intensive language courses" and progressing onto the next level! There is nothing too crazy going on this weekend. I will just be spending my time here in town exploring my hometown some more. Well, that's enough for now! Ciao! ;)

These photos were taken at the beginning of our walking tour around Genova. The white words in the picture were literally written in one continuous line throughout the city! It was pretty cool. The one on the left says "his wife, his daughter..." not quite sure what they were trying to say. :)

This is the Duomo di Genova

You can't really tell in this picture, but the water of this fountain was actually dyed pink for their breast cancer awareness. It was already being filtered out, so that's why it's very faint.