Vulnerable

March 23, 2018 (Age: 17)

Dear Diary,

This is the best way to start a new journal entry: I am currently in Italy. I'm gone for a school trip! I left this morning so today is day one.

I woke up back in my hometown at 4:45am so I could be at school for 5:45am. All went well. I woke up, got ready and headed off to school. Once we were all on the bus, we went to the city airport. From the city, we had to fly to Montreal. That portion of the flight was probably 5.5 hours. Then we sped walked across the airport in 15 minutes to catch our flight to Rome. Now, the flight to Rome took 8.5 hours. So in total, I was on a plane for 13 hours. That is too much and unfortunately, I have to do it all again on the flight home.

Once we arrived in Italy, we met our tour guide for the week and began our journey. Since this whole trip is with my school, it was run nearly identical like when I went to Iceland with my school one year ago. One tour director is with us all of the time then when we sit in the bus in usual silence, she would use a microphone and intercom system through the bus to tell us different histories and stories that we can learn from. 

When we first walked out of the airport, the first thing I did was take a deep breath of the Italian air. The morning was simply sunny and gorgeous. According to our tour guide, she said we brought the sunshine with us.
We loaded our luggage and bags on the bus and me and 3 of my friends all stuck near each other and sat together.

From the airport, we drove to a small village. I believe it was called Ortherio, or something along those lines. We went up a tram cart to go to this little village. There was a cathedral there. Holy moly, it was stunning! It was huge, much bigger than what I saw in Iceland. There were very high ceilings and everything was hand carved and hand painted. There were paintings that covered the walls and ceilings in great detail. I was simply blown away by it all.

Without any warning, a group of people (wearing all black) came in. Except they had a casket on their shoulders. There was a dead body in that casket and they were beginning to perform a funeral. My friend Samantha and I got a weird vibe from that right off the bat, so we walked out of the cathedral.

Once we finished at the church, us four walked around to try and find somewhere to eat. This was our first meal in Italy, so it had to be really good to leave a good impression. We ended up coming across some type of sandwich shop/restaurant and got food there. I ended up trying a "classico panini". Basically it had real cheese, homemade and fresh buns, turkey and lettuce. It was really good! I'd go back and eat there again! After lunch, that lead us to around 11:00am.

After we ate, Samantha told me of a "secret spot" that another girl told her about that is near to where we are. We went down this hill and there was a stunning view! You see valleys, green grass, no snow, vineyards, and trees. The height we had gave us amazing photos.
From there we got to our hotel, and relaxed for the rest of the day. I am starting to fall asleep.

But I will give you an Aiden update. I'll be quick. Long story short, I texted Aiden saying that I would like him to socialize more and that I still like him. From then on, he has been making the occasional pop ups in our conversations. Which makes me happy. Shawn is being a sassy piece of shit by basically being jealous, I think.

I'm falling asleep, I need to go to bed.

(Italy is also 8 hours ahead).

Write tomorrow,

Sarah