The Hills are Alive with the Sound of OPERA SINGERS!

Yesterday was one of the best days so far. A few days ago I heard that some of my friends in the program were going to go hiking into the hills outside of Urbania to watch the sunset…I was all for it! So yesterday after class I took a nap (or tried I should say, I was too excited about the hike), then packed a backpack full of hiking essentials (a camera, water, and cookies…duh), and made my way to the boys house that’s on the outskirts of the town where we would start our hike. Casa Fiori is the name of the boys house (Bill, Alex, and Jacob stay there, we are all spread out over the city, living wise, I live about 15 minutes from them), and its pretty big, that’s where we’ve had our dance parties! Anyway, as soon as I got there, around 6:20pm, the two boys who had done the hike before (Josh and Jacob) led our group out onto the path that would lead us into the hills (about 10 of us went). Now, I was informed that the hike was about 2 hours long, but I was NOT prepared for the intensity of it! I was wheezing the whole way haha! But boy was it worth it. About an hour into the hike we reached the top of the first big hill…I thought we were done...NOPE. we practically had to climb another MOUNTAIN. Yikes. I luckily didn’t get too scared of the height we were at (I get a little freaked out over heights), but Jacob just dragged me up anyway (literally) haha. I regained my strength and energy after recording myself singing a little bit of “The Hills Are Alive” from my mom’s favorite movie, the Sound Of Music, I did that just for her, but we had to pause for a while cause my good friend Molly started having a major asthma attack, AH! We finally got to the top of this massive hill and the view was out of this world. God is truly an artist. I mean Im talkin’ Lord of the Rings breathtaking here folks (which I definitely listened to the soundtrack the whole way up, haha). Anyway, we sat down on the top and watched the sun dip low over the valleys and mountains which we could see clearly from miles and MILES around us. I might have felt like i couldn’t make it 20 minutes ago, but at that moment I felt like I could do it all over again. We snacked on prosciutto and bananas and wine (a weird combo, thanks to Jacob). Then played, yes played, on the hill for a good hour. There was a human pyramid built, a game of leap-frog, lots of carrying each other around, LOTS of laughter, videos of the boys doing YMCA and a video of the girls doing Dancing Queen, and lots and lots of pictures. We headed down so we could be in time for dinner back at the Casa Fiori, Carly and Bill were cooking us a feast, couldn’t be late for THAT! On the way down I hung out with a new friend, Josh, and we shared my ipod and listened to some fabulous epic-movie-soundtrack music to go with our view. I think the best part was getting to know everyone better, I LOVE the group of people in the program, we all get along so well, have so much in common, and they are all so talented! We finally got back, and after a piano-jam-session with Josh and April (haha) we enjoyed our feast. It was perfect, all of us sitting around enjoying delicious food and laughing hard. Afterwards, we took blankets out back to lay out and look at the stars and play games under the sparkling canopy the midnight sky provided…sigh. Yes, it was DEF one of the best days yet.

Tomorrow is our first concert, its in a castle!! More about that later!
I love you all, and miss you!
Maren