Day 4 and 5- January 9th and 10th

So yesterday was the first day of classes at the Universidad della Svizzerra Italiana. We had consumer research for three hours from 9:30-12:30. It wasn't too bad of a class but the topic just seem home from classs kind of pointless. On our way home from the university (which is by the way about a 30 minute hike down and up a gigantic hill) we stopped at Manor, which is like a Macy's but it also has a grocery store in it. Food here is just ridiculously expensive, but we have to get food for breakfast or lunch since I don't want to be eating out for all my meals. Manor even had some American brands but they were of course three times the price of the other stuff. I'm working on that list for my mom to send me a care package (I can't wait for some honey bunches of oats). I then went back to the Montarina and attempted to do some of my homework reading, but everyone has already started freaking out and planning all of their trips already. There were like herds of people in the common room already booking all of their flights for months ahead of time. I didn't want to just commit to traveling with 40 people and be on their schedule. I think it's better to travel with smaller groups as well, and at least people that I like. So we decided that our first 10 day break, we'd fly to Scottland, then London, then possibly Copenhagen or Amsterdam.We have the first two flights booked even though I'm a little sketched out about flying here it's relatively inexpensive and the euro rail isn't an option for some countries over bodies of water. There are so many cities I would absolutely love to visit, I just have to plan accordingly and take one thing at a time. I'm just trying not to be absolutely glued into doing something that might not be the best option. The jet lag really hit me last night; I could not fall asleep for the life of me. So waking up this morning at 7:45 for class was not too fun considering I probably only got 4 hours of a good sleep. Today we had Italian in the morning from 9-12 then consumer research from 1-4. They do give us some breaks, but it's just really hard to sit for that long when I'm used to the longest class being 1 hour and 15 minutes. Oh well, that's just another thing to get used to. I actually thought I'd enjoy Italian so that I could actually not look like a retard half the time in this country, but I didn't like the way the teacher taught at all. First of all it was most of ours first day of Italian ever, and she barely spoke any English. We were expected to read things out loud without learning their letters and sounds. I just need how to pronounce something drilled in my head, and we didn't really do any repeated things. So I have a feeling I'm going to be teaching myself a lot of Italian. Here goes nothing. We have quizzes everyday in consumer research on the readings for homework. It was beautiful out today, reached 59 degrees! Heard it snowed back home. So I'm gonna go for another run here in a little bit. Abby and I went on one yesterday around the lake and it was really pretty. Can't wait for dinner (lol last night we had french fries and everyone was so excited when they saw ketchup on the table). We truly are Americans.