So, we (supposedly) got my visa taken care of. The Italians are being really careful about letting anybody into the country without really good reasons, so I had to show them essentially everything about me, AND prove that I was going to get out of the country when they wanted me to.

Dad showed me his really awesome journal from when he went to Italy with my sister’s middle school trip- he essentially pasted everything he thought was cool from Italy into it, newspaper clippings, photos he had taken, neat tags from stuff, etc. I wonder if I have the discipline to accomplish something like that. We’ll have to see…

Faxed off the return flight form yesterday. The plan is to come back June 24th, flying out from Rome.

Tentative Schedule:
January 7-10: Fly into London for orientation and time change adaptation
January 11-Feb 2: Fly to Florence for 3 weeks of intensive language training. I’ll be taking Intermediate Italian II… I hope I’m up to it.
Feb 3-April 30 (with trips in between): Rome, where I take my actual classes and such.
April 30 - May 21st or so: Travel around Europe with whoever in the program wants to do so. Hit up whichever countries people speak the languages of (so, I can probably take us to France and Belgium, and I’m sure there will be a couple of German or Spanish speaking people there). This is the standard “poor college student running around europe with nothing but a backpack to his name” phase.
May 22-May 31: Stay with my good friend Jenny in Paris, where she is also studying abroad. Visit the Louvre while she’s at class, have her teach me about french wine and cheese. Relax.
June 1-June 7: Parents & sisters come up to visit. Travel with them, allow them to make travel arrangements.
June 8-June 23: My old middle school does an annual trip to Italy with the 8th grade Latin class. My youngest sister Hannah will be on this trip, and my good friend Dane should be one of the chaperones with me. Myself speaking Italian by this point, hopefully I’ll be a decent help to the trip. Much trouble is gotten in by myself and Dane being “chaperones”.
??? June 23-July 1: Steve might fly to Europe from his program in New Zealand and tour around with me some more. Me being exhausted at this point and my plane flight being set for the 24th, this may or may not happen.
Rest of Summer: Come back home and do the Scribe Program at NW Hospital, where I follow doctors around and do what they tell me to, learning muchly about what it really is like to be a doctor, and deciding whether or not I actually want to apply to med school. KT will be in town at this point studying for MCATs, Joyful Reunion occurs.
E basta! Come back to CMU August 15th or so to being RA training (I hope… maybe they don’t like me though).

So, apparently we mailed off my application fee today. I’m pretty committed now, eh? Now I just have to find a subletter… or is it lettor? Because I assume a subletter would be, say, a letter underneath something else. So, sublettor. Anybody know of someone who wants to move into 5302 Beeler?

Oh and I might be changing this to a LiveJournal site so that everyone can post comments, because I know a couple of people that are upset that they can’t post without a Xanga site.

*Edit* Nicole has kindly informed me that I can get a tagboard or something like that, allowing anybody to just post. Xanga it is. On a side note, Shakespeare Rules. Long live the bard.

Weell, here goes nothing. My very own ONLINE JOURNAL SITE so that every one of you can keep track of my zany adventures in Europe. I’m going to get a digicam, and a laptop, and do my best to post all kinds of photos from all kinds of places. Knowing me there’s a very good chance nothing will happen after about a week… but there’s always hope.

Of course, you should all feel free to post comments and such about ZAC’S CRAZY ADVENTURES… but keep ‘em wholesome because I’m sending this site to my teachers, parents, and sisters too.