Viterbo

This is a picture of my room in the Hotel Balletti Palace. I walk about a block from this hotel on my way to school every day. We drove from Rome to Viterbo in the morning. I had to be at the hotel by six I think and we arrived in Viterbo around one or two. We drove around looking for the hotel for quite a while, misreading signs and going the wrong was down one way streets. The town looked gorgeous, with narrow streets and tall stone buildings. We eventually did find the hotel (it was next to the train station) and with a few hours to burn we decided to go get one last gelato. It was good, but not the best. We went to the Ipercoop, shopped for a while and then drove back to the hotel. I collected my backpack, left my drug dealer hat and sunglasses along with a few books I had finished and said goodbye to everyone. The Woomerts gave me a goodbye bag of supplies from the Ipercoop. The contents of which all had a special meaning from the trip. A jar of Nutella. Some shaving cream. A huge glorious stack of paper cups (which are up in my dorm room as we speak (the Nutella is long gone)) and a package of angel babies. Then I was waving goodbye, smiling at their parting words.



The hotel was cool when I walked in. There was an old Italian in a suit behind the desk. It was still a couple hours before I had to meet with the rest of the USAC students so I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do in the mean time. I went up to the man and asked "USAC."

"Ah, Oosack, si si!" he replied and handed me a key. I walked up two floors and found the room. I dumped my one backpack and my one plastic bag in the room and then with nothing else to do, went for a quick walk. I walked around the hotel and along a dirt path behind some appartment buildings (this would become the short cut to Marco's appartment eventually and the fastest path to the University if you went around the outside of the walls). When I got back to the hotel there was a youngish Italian man talking on the phone in the hotel lobby. He saw me and motioned to me to wait until he was finished on the phone. He introduced himself as Marco and said he had tried to call my room, but I was obviously not there. Marco was working for the USAC program and was super nice. He asked where I was living and when I told him I was staying at the dorms he offered to show me where they were (only about a five minute walk from the hotel). When we got back he told me that we were now meeting a bit later in the hotel lobby since the group flight was late so I went back up to my room and read until seven thirty.

When I came back down the lobby was occupied by several people. I sat next to a sick guy named Ricardo. Further down the couch was a guy named Ryan sitting with a couple girls who I couldn't remember the names of. A little later we were joined by a very enthusiatic man named Justin (who kept speaking Italian to the man at the front desk and Marco when he eventually came down). After Justin there were too many people for me to keep track of.

The big group of us followed Marco out of the hotel and through the town to a Pizzaria in the old part of town (I'm actually not entirely sure where this place was now. I haven't seen it since). I sat next to Ricardo and across from Conner (a tall guy I had met during the walk) and the two girls who had sat next to Ryan in the lobby (they turned out to be Jessica and Cara) and they were both sick (they have asked me since if I hated them that first night because they were sick and I keep telling them that being a germiphobe (if that is how you spell that word... man I miss spell check) just means I wash my hands more than normal people and don't like drinking out of the same glass (or Fanta bottle as the case may be). It doesn't mean I'm racist against people with colds). The pizza was really good and there was lots of it. We all ate at one long table underneath a large tent filled with Christmas lights. After dinner Marco took us to see some of the town (the Papal palace and Valley Faul). We also met the program director, Stephano (the emphasis is on the A). He had just gotten back to Viterbo with all the people from the group flight (which had apparently gotten lost). They were just going to the pizzeria to get dinner. I headed back to my hotel room and went to sleep (I met Greg, later that night when I let him into the hotel room after he had got back from dinner. He had been on the group flight). And that was my first day in Viterbo.