Well I have officially made it a week in Italy! It was both an exhilarating and scary experience with it being my first time out of the country, with people I had just met. As soon as I arrived in the Naples airport, I knew I was going to make life-long friends, as we all instantly clicked on the bus ride to our apartment. Although, the drive to our apartment was a little nerve- racking at first, since here the roads are so narrow and the cars dive much closer to each other.

My friends and I

Nevertheless, we made it to our apartment safe and sound!. We soon made our way to the local supermarket to purchase groceries, to find out that the setup is much different than America. Most of the fruits and veggies are not at the supermarket, but rather at small stores throughout town. In Italy, it is also required that you either bring your own bags for your groceries or buy them. After a few more trips to the supermarket,  my roommates and I quickly became comfortable with it.

Amici!

We typically make daily or every other day trips to the supermarket, since we have to walk everywhere and it makes it more difficult to buy a lot of things at one time. As we quickly found out here in Sorrento, it is often easier to walk places then to drive due to both the traffic and the size of the roads. Besides walking, the other forms of transportation are buses and trains, which was a big change for me.  To get to other small towns outside of Sorrento, the buses are the best options, although those tend to be pretty crowded. Otherwise to get to bigger cities such as Naples, there is a train that runs back and forth. Where I’m from, we don’t use either of those forms of transportation, so having to use them often was a big change for me. Although I have had to adapt to this new culture I am loving every minute of it and can’t wait to see what else Sorrento has in store for me!  Ciao!

My new friends

— Mariah is a summer 2007 SAI Sorrento student from Carroll University.