Leaving in 30 hours.

So this is my blog. Welcome! I've never attempted this whole blogging thing, so my goal for this blog will be to find time to write you all stories, and hopefully try to entertain you while you read them.

I started this blog, as most of you will know, because I am heading to Italy tomorrow on a month long adventure. I got accepted into an intensive immersion program in Siena, Italy where I will be taking three main classes - Italian Signed and spoken langage, and Italian Deaf culture studies. I first thought about applying to this program back on October 17th when I first received an email about the program. I was just going to apply because I felt like I needed to push myself to be more involved, and do more things. I was tired of listening to my inner self telling me that I couldn't or shouldn't take on more challenging things in life. So I figured I'd apply just to see what happened (at that time I never thought I would ACTUALLY go, or even get accepeted to go). I went through the fairly painless application process, and was accepted into the program on March 15th, only four months before the program started. I went to a lot of work to get the program be incorporated into the ITP at GBC so that I would be considered a study abroad student (why the heck not, right?) so by the time I was accepted, how could I not go? It was just a given that when I received that accpetance letter, that I would be going to Italy. Another thing that really motivated me to go was telling my Mom and later my Dad about it before I even got accepted. I remember the exact moment when I first told my Mom that I was applying for this trip. My Mom, Emily and I were driving to Colter and Karmyn's place when I was there for Christmas holidays. I came to sit in the front seat next to my Mom and told her about my plans and she thought it was a ridiculous idea, and thought that my money could be better spent elsewhere (at that time I had NO IDEA how I would pay to go on this trip - Bevan and I are dirt poor - so I'm sitting there listening to my Mom tell me that my money could be better spent elsewhere and I'm not thinking to myself, 'what money?') (I'll get to the funding later). So my Mother is telling me that this is a bad idea, and I shouldn't do it, so you can only imagine what my Dad thinks, right? Of course he thinks its the best idea I've ever had - HA!!! So everytime my parents tell me I can't or shouldn't do something it brings out this stubborn dutch side of me and I immediately set out to prove them wrong. I can freaking go on this trip if I want to!! And that's exactly what I did.

After I got accepted to the program, came the hard part - getting the money to go. I had this great councellor at school in the international studies office who is fantastic and crazy all in one person (a woman who knows how to get things done!) Every time I went to her office she would give me these lectures about getting money to go, and how its very important that I not go into debt for this trip. With her advice I applied for a number of scholarships and busaries, and wrote a sponsorship letter. The scholarships were frustrating, I don't think I got ONE scholarship even with a really good GPA (maybe I just don't know how to apply for scholarships well?) I did get a few busraries through a few organizations which got me quite a bit of money, but still not enough. So I emailed some friends and family and asked for sponsorship and recieved a fantastic response and got enough money to pay for this trip. I know that my explaination of this seems insignificant, but trust me - getting the money to go took a lot of work - and I did it! I'm so proud of myself for pushing past my limits and doing the things that I thought I would never actually do.

So everything I have done since October, all the hard work, and doubt has lead me to today - the day before I actually am going to Italy, and it STILL hasn't hit me yet.

Yes, Bevan and I will be apart for a whole month and that's going to suck. So we decided to go on a nice date yesterday. At first we were going to go to our favorite sushi place, and then Bevan thought of a better idea. He decided that we should find an Italian restaurant in town that has really good reviews online, claims to be authentic, and is a pretty serious about their Italian food. His plan was that we would go there on Friday, and enjoy the food, and see what we thought about it, and then when I get back from Italy we're going to go again and see if I think differently. He picked a restaurant called Terroni and we went to the one on Church and Adelaide. It was kind of interesting reading the reviews about the restaurant because people said that they don't let you remove or substitute any of the ingredients from their dishes because it would compromise the taste. Also, you know when you go to a regular Italian restaurant here the waitor brings your dish and then offers fresh ground pepper and grated parmesan? Well at this place, they only let you have those on certain dishes that they decide on because for some dishes adding pepper or parmesan would not be typical in Italy. I ended up being really curious and excited about this restaurant and I'm so glad we went.

The food was delicious! We started with a meat and cheese appetizer which included prosciutto two or three different cheeses, and some salami stuff. They also brought out some bread, and a dish of olive oil (which they do not put balsamic vinegar in because it woul over power the taste of the delicious oil - and I was glad for it because that olive oil was SO GOOD!)

Next Bevan ordered Wild Boar pappardelle, and I had spaghetti with spinach and lemon. It was SO delicious!! We were actually stuffed at this point and decided to let the food settle as we went home, and then we would make some homemade strawberry rhubarb crumble.

We took a cab home and I walked into our apartment to a room full of friends to send me off. Bevan had secretly planned a party for me before I left for Italy - I had NO IDEA this was happening (Bevan is getting better and better about the surprises! I'm truly impressed) and it was really nice to be able to chat with people and hang out.

Now my bags are pretty much ready to go. I can't believe that I'm actually going to do this. I look forward to keeping you all updated on my experience.

Arrivederci!