1st Day Of School!

hey everyone! i hope all is well. So today Daniela and i went to the police station to get my residence permit. the guy was really nice, and i only ended up paying 27 euro instead of 72. but i have to go back on saturday morning for more prints, which is good and bad. i have a reason to skip school on saturday (sorry mom) but we can't leave for the other house until like 9 or 10 on saturday as opposed to friday night. then we went to the school, and met with the director. she put me in year 3, since they have 5 years of school. but all the kids in my class are my age. and instead of switching classes, we all stay in classroom 47 while our teachers switch around us. and we have a different schedule every day, which is nice. So i came to school in time for italian lit. (more about that later), the 15 minute break, history and philosophy. the director decided to have me not take religion because she wants to get me an italian tutor, so i'll use the time my class has religion to learn italian. My class is all girls, there are 20 of us including me. I guess its unusual to have boys in class at my school because its a hard school, so there are not many of them at the school. when i did see them during the break, there were always like atleast 3 girls around them because they are rare i guess. So then i had italian. i picked up some of it, because it was about Dante and the divine comedy. so i knew parts of what she was saying (thank you spanish and cognates!) but i got the jist of the lesson. after the bell rang she came up and talked to me in rapid italian. but this one girl, Ilionara ( i think thats how you spell it??) she spent the summer in the states, so her english is really good. she was translation. but basically the questions were like why are you here? don't buy the book because we'll most likely be taking you out of this class. atleast for italian. so i don't know whats going to go down there. Then we had the break and all the girls introduced themselves to me. im ususally okay with names, but i was so overwhelmed i only know like 5 names. then 2 girls gave me a tour of the school. its very plain, all marble. but ancient looking. when we were walking through all of the hallways we saw a few boys, but there are only like 100 or 200 that go to the school. atleast thats what one of the girls said. but they were all dressed to the 9's (or whatever that saying is... but you get the point). i think it might have taken some of them longer to get ready than it did for me. but thats just a guess. so that was different, but good. and the one girl asked me about boys in the states and i was like (no offense!) they don't dress as well as they do here, for the most part. some boys do, but not all of them. after the break we had history and philosophy with this lady who is very bizarre. she would talk in italiano for like 15 minutes and then translate, so i took notes, but they're very jumbled. i kept telling her that i could just copy someone's notes and translate them, but she insisted on doing itherself. the first hour was philosophy and the second was history. then i walked home with this girl named Sofia. she was very nice, and spoke choppy english, so we talked in italian for a while. but my family's flat is only like 10 minutes from the school. oh and the girl sitting next to me's name was Julia, and next to her was Aurora. (happy aud?!?!) Oh! and the funniest part of the day. a tiny liziard came into the room from the window. it was like brown and about 3 inches long? pretty tiny compared to others i guess? and julia, aurora and i tried to pick it up with a notebook and put it back out the window, but then it ran away to the corner of the room. it passed by this girl's desk and she started to cry. i felt so bad, but we were all laughing, becuase the thing is so tiny. so she had to leave the room. poor girl. Today was Lucia's birthday party, and we went to the pool with like 20 of her closest friends. It was fun, i didn't end up swimming becuase i was so tired from school, but i did lay out and i ended up falling asleep for like an hour or so. The whole older men in speedo's thing is a bit different, it'll take getting used to like the bide. (which hopefully you don't put in dad. fran i still don't understand the whole thing?!?!) i found this really cool spot to write in my journal today, so thats exciting. i can use it until it starts to get really cold, then i might freeze, since its outside. but i have a balcony off my room and there's this like 3 or 4 foot wide ledge that has a pillar throuh the middle of it, so i sit up there. and i have new classes tomorrow, so i'm excited for that. Oh! here's all the classes i'm taking: history, philosophy, gym (we do gymnastics or go to the pool, sweeett), science (not sure which one yet), math, english, spanish (level one, so thats one class i'll hopefully pass!) and french. and the ones we're not sure about are latin, italian lit and religion. but i'm not supposed to buy books yet, so i don't know how thats going to work. I'm really tired so i'm going to sleep, but i'll try and write tomorrow. More differences: they're on military time so ihave to keep subtracting 12; no bugs except ladybugs= amazing; the sausage we got on the pizza today was really a cut up hotdog; movies come out way later here- hancock opens next week and 27 dresses came out on DVD today. Random facts/ answers to email questions: they sang happy birhtday in italiano today, which was super cool. my plug converter isn't working, and i still don't know how to get my camera pics onto the computer. and fav. gelato so far: dark chocolate, which was surprising because i really don't like dark chocolate as a solid, so that was quite a shock to me. And yes Gabe, the notebook i bought actually has 4 holes in the side, instead of 3. that was a good question, i wouldn't have mentioned that if you didnt ask. and dad, i totally wish i was at crocker so i could get that free iphone. and i believed it until you said free iphone, you butt. I'm really pooped, so i'm going to sleep. Goodnight/have a good day!! and mom-- they do do daylight savings, so you guys are always 6 hours behind us. anddd charlie and the chocolate factory in italian is on right now. so funny. and last night lucia and i watched Miss Italia for a bit, soo great. Night!!

Ciao,
Jessica