The wasp death count is up to 35. There were probably 50-60 bees in our room and some escaped with their lives. Others? Well let's just say they over stayed their welcome. The carnage was great but it is all cleaned up now and our lives have returned to normal. Yesterday was an art day. We basically learned about different ways to map which was kinda bad because we had been mapping constantly for the last week so we were pretty much done with mapping. At lunch we drove to the waterfall where the water is like 50 degrees and it was amazing. For the last few days the temperature has not gone below 80...ever. It was awesome to be able to say that we were cold. The best part was the jumping off the falls. Mom, don't worry it was only like 8 feet and no one got hurt. Today is supposed to be just as hot and it is mainly a lecture day so today may be very hard to stay awake all day.

Well, Assisi was a bust. We got off at the wrong stop and the next train heading the right way didn't leave early enough for us to have time there. So, we hung out in Fabriano for a while and came back early. Luckily, since it is hot we are going to go to the reservoir which will make for a nice afternoon. On a different note, when we came back our room had about 50 wasps in it. We are hoping that they will leave on their own when it cools off so we don't have to spray inside but you never know. Time to go cool off!

It is a beautiful morning. Although today is Wednesday it is basically my Sunday. Yesterday a few of us went to the local water park- El Dorado- and went down the longest water slide in Europe. It was awesome. The slide went down the side of one of the hills and the view was awesome. You could see all of the surrounding towns in the foreground with the mountains as the background. If I could have I would have taken a picture but cameras and water generally don't mix. This morning I woke up early and was wide awake so I decided to get up and watch the sun rise over the mountains that surround us. The sky has been beautiful shades of pinks oranges and purples. Today some of us are taking a day trip to Assisi which is a medieval town about a 2 hour train ride away. It is basically a walk around town. From what I can tell, there isn't a whole lot to do there but it is very beautiful and worth the trip. I am so glad I decided to do this trip. It has been hard work but so much fun. I hope everyone reading this is doing well and I will write again later :D Have an awesome day!!

Ok so I wrote this yesterday but the internet sucks sometimes so here is another post. Hope you enjoy it!
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So I realized last night that I have been posting about what I am doing and not about our lives here. This post will change that.

We live in a little village called Coldigioco. It is basically a bunch of houses owned by a group of geologists. It has beautiful views any way you look because it is positioned in the mountainous region of Italy. There is a nice piazza where we meet every morning before we head out for our 8 hours in the field. A “pub” lies between the piazza and the apartments where the males are sleeping. I say “pub” because there is a physical bar (serving whatever cheap wine we buy) but it is mainly a hang out spot with lots of cribbage and foosball happening.

Now on to the people. Sandro is our commander/ main teacher and his wife, Paula is our art teacher. Their son hangs out with us sometimes but he is much more of an artist than a geologist and enjoys putting scorpions in containers and then blowing pot smoke into the container and seeing what happens. Then we have Laura, our other teacher who teaches at Luther, and her husband Rolf, who is doing the cooking oh so well, and their son Nils who is 2. We also have a TA named Kate but, unfortunately she has been really sick ever since we got here. At first it was just a fever but yesterday she started throwing up so they took her to the ER to get some fluids and shot antibiotics because she was so dehydrated and her other antibiotics were not working.

My peers/friends ( a quick intro)! ---Rachel is a Jewish Colombian from Macalaster who has a cough that she thinks she got from her brother who has whooping cough so that could be an interesting story. Anderson and Josh are the boys from Carleton. They both play football and baseball. We joke about how they are in a relationship because they basically have a bromance happening even if they won't admit it. Lauren is the girl from Carleton and is the youngest of all of us. She is a sophomore but seems to know enough. Carly is probably the one with the most experience. She is from Lawrence and was here doing a very similar program last summer but it was only the first two weeks of what we are doing. Then we have Ellen who is my roommate and the other female from Luther. She is the only bio major here but is picking up everything very quickly. Now on to the Luther boys. We have two cross-country runners, David and Sam (aka Moxy and Frenzy). Jordan is the only ex- RA in our group but is super chill. Phil is our hunter who is wishing to be back for the start of the seasons. He also has some great stories. Joe is our frisbee guy (along with Jordan) and Neto is our local East Timor-ian.

Our days start with breakfast and packing lunch, usually at 7 or 8, and we leave for the field an hour later. Then we do some hiking, looking at rocks and lunch eating. Usually by 3:30-4:00 we are back in the vans ready for our naps on the trip back. When we get back we have some free time before an hour of Italian, which is at 6, and then dinner is at 8. After dinner we usually head to the pub or if it has been a long day (like today) we pretty much head to our rooms around 9-9:30.

Well that is my life in general now. Today (Friday) we did some more mapping and came back and worked on a cross section of the mapping area. Tomorrow we are staying in Coldigioco to finish rough drafts of our maps and cross sections. Basically we are doing our homework during class time. Although I have no idea when we would have time if we actually had real homework.....

Until next time....... Love ya!

Good morning!!! Yesterday was just another awesome day in Italy. We started out the day doing some mapping. Basically we looked at rocks and determined the direction and angle that the bed was laying at and we had to figure out what kind of rock it was. We are doing this all week for an area that we have a map for and then at the end we will have a colorful map and we will be able to draw a cross section of the area. Exciting to you? Prob not. Is it going to look awesome? Hells yeah!
On to another subject. The local town has been having an international folk dance festival and last night was the finale so all of the groups did short routines. We decided that,  even though we had to get up early this morning, we should go and check it out. It was pretty darn awesome. It didn't hurt that we grabbed gelato before hand either.
Well, I guess I will have to post about my weekend adventure later because it is time for breakfast!!

Another day, another adventure. Today we went to Ancona which is right on the coast of the Adriatic sea. In the morning we did our usual looking at rocks but in the afternoon we went to the beach!! In order to get to the beach you have to take a path that goes basically down a cliff (30-40 degree incline, yes I did measure). Going down was fun. We easily passed a bunch of german high school kids who were swearing the whole way down and at the bottom we stopped for lunch at the little beach side restaurant. There, we had pasta with mussels and mussels and snails on their own. I tried one of everything (when will I ever get a chance to have seafood that fresh again?). Some were good, others not so much but the worst part was just pulling the meat out of the shells (not too bad but still kinda nasty when the who thing kinda spirals out). Then we headed toward the end of the beach to check out some more rock formations before we jumped in the sea. It was awesome. There were huge waves and the sea was amazingly salty, like way saltier than the ocean. This made it nice for floating on but really sucky when it ended up in your nose or mouth. The guys decided that they wanted to skinny dip so while they were in the water (it wasn't very clear water) they all took off their trunks. It was hilarious to see how excited some of them were. The day ended with a trip through the local art gallery to see what we would be doing in art class.

Hey, 

Uno. One. I haven't been able to get a phone card yet. Rolf (professor's husband) said that he would pick one up for me but I have't gotten it yet. We are always going here. Class goes from 9 to 7 and then by the time dinner and a shower are done I get on the computer for, maybe, 30 min. I am only on now because I woke up 30 min early so I could write here. Actually, though I kinda like getting up early so I may do this more often.

Due. Two. The food has been great. However, the bread here is really hard. It is like they baked it one day and then left it out to dry for another day before we eat it. Yesterday was great, though, because Rolf made bread in the wood-fired pizza oven and it was nice and soft and the flavor was great. Luckily, he made 4 loaves which left 2 for this morning. 

Tre. Three. Yesterday we went to Gubbio and look and learned about the K/T boundary which is the moment in history, seen in a rock layer, when the astroid hit the earth and ended up killing the dinos and practically everything else. Sandro's (our main professor and the one who lives here) lecture ended up being 3 hours long so we got back almost two hours late which meant that we were 55 minutes late for an Italian class that lasts usually slightly less than an hour. We still had the class but dinner was pushed back.

Cuarto. Four. It is beautiful here and I am really glad I decided to do this.

Hope all is well. 

Hannah

Well, I am here. The flight to Philly was a little rough but over all went well. However, the flight from Philly was just about to take off when it started pouring. We ended up sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours before we took off. Luckily, I had the entire row of four seats to myself to sleep on. In the end we missed the train that we were planning on taking but ended up on the next. It was really awesome to have 6 other people to travel with, though. It made it much more relaxing and fun. Today was the first day of class and other than almost falling asleep during lecture it was pretty awesome. We spent the morning listening to a lecture and then after lunch we were able to take some time for a much needed nap and then went out into the field where we got to see the boundary between the age of the dinos and just after them. Basically we got to see the exact time (in the rocks) of the impact that killed the dinos. We came back to an Italian lesson and an awesome dinner. Tomorrow is another day and another adventure but for now it is late and time to fall asleep to the band that is doing some recording in a studio below us. CIAO!

Well, today is the day when I start my adventure. Am I terrified? Yeah. Am I excited? Hell, yeah. The next 24 hours are going to be long and it will be hot but I know I have friends traveling with me. I am trusting in myself. I know that I know how to travel. I know my way around a train station. I am ready for this. I am excited. Here is to a great semester and I will write again when I am in ITALY!!