Day 4
This sounds dumb but I didn't really think about the studying part of studying abroad until today. Obviously I was vaguely aware of the fact that I'd be taking classes but they were art and history classes and I just thought we'd take a bunch of field trips or something. Today was my first day of real classes because I only have Italian on Mondays and I like Italian. Today I had literature and urban studies and we went over the syllabi. Last night we were planning out spring break (hopefully Pisa, Morocco, and Spain) and found extra cheap flights if we skip our Thursday classes... turns out we have midterms on the Thursday before spring break. That was a wake up call. I sat down with a calendar and planned out exactly how many weekends we have to travel. I've realized that this semester may be one long struggle with the balance between the study and the abroad.
I've also been stuck in the honeymoon phase where the excitement is so pervasive that it doesn't even wear off at night, and it definitely doesn't help that everyone else has been trying to make the most of Italy by going out every night to drink and hang out. The result is that today I couldn't keep my eyes open during our painful 3 hour, block scheduled lectures. I had a 5 hour break between classes and I used every last second of it to sleep. My classes seem not only boring but boring and hard. On top of that, my attention span is not the biggest fan of the block schedule pluuuus the professors all have Italian accents that are cute and all but require my full attention to make any sense. I barely made it out alive.
When I got home, I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of things I'm trying to accomplish in the next 95 days. I consulted my endless to do list and found the easiest, most straightforward thing on it. I finally unpacked! Then I conquered the dilemma of how to make tea without a microwave and emerged victorious. (I made hot water in a pot on the stove- it was rocket science). And then it was time for our free dinner. Our program was having a welcome dinner for us at Palazzo Borghese which is fancy as hell. We were tragically underdressed. 
When the food was ready, we all ran up to the buffet table and loaded up. Half of the stuff there looked like I wouldn't really want it but I was hungry and it was free and I couldn't afford to be picky. It turned out to be really good and I ate until I was pretty sure I'd never eat again. And then they told us those were just the appetizers! I had some more pasta after that and then they brought out the sugar :) I LOVE dessert. I couldn't back down now. I had dessert too. 
We got home and I was planning on going to bed early to fix my sleep schedule. It was probably like 10:30 and my roommate said she was going to the bar alone. My other roommate said she was coming. And I wasn't planning on it but peer pressure happened and also I've never been to a bar despite the fact that I've been 21 for almost 6 months. So I went too. I got a 10€ drink which I will probably never do again because I'm cheap but it was really fun- plus now I can say I've actually been to a bar! 
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