La Prima Settimana

Ciao Belli!
It has taken some time to finally have access to the internet, so sorry for the wait! This week has been rather busy with registering for classes and filling out paperwork, getting cell phones etc. But things should be settling down shortly.
Yesterday was the most exciting day of all as Imet my new host family! My mother's name is Carla and she has two sons: Frederico (39) and Yacobo (37) who live at home with her. I'm truly barely 5 minutes from school which is wonderful! Everything seems to be going well in my new home. I have a roommate from Syracuse who is in the more advanced italian program (option II) named Lauren, but we seem to be at the same level, which makes conversation easy. My mother has been hosting for more than 14 years, every semester and spends the summer in between in the county in Umbria. She's very sweet, and Lauren and I have an enormous bedroom to ourselves, which is rare and wonderful!
As a gift for my new family, I brought them a deck of playing cards that had been used in the Bellagio, which they went ecstatic over. :) It was a great reaction, actually because it led to a topic of conversation in which were finally able to sit together and converse in mostly italian.
I feel like there are a million things going on right now, but I'm just ecstatic to be here! I miss you all and, of course, I wish you could experience this with me, but I am slowly adjusting to my new surroundings, and soon it will be second nature to go strolling through the city.
I now have my address for mail which you can ask me for since I don't want to post it blatantly on the internet, and I'd appreciate it if you wanted to send email, you'd send it to ashlee.welday@gmail.com so my usc inbox doesn't become full and start rejecting mail!

Tutto il mio amore!
ashlee

PS: the food is AMAZING.
PSS: pictures to come as I'm using a school computer rather than my lap top :) ( no internet at home)