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!