Merry Christmas!!!

Buon Natale a tutti!

I am here in Italy wishing I could spend the holiday with my family and friends.  But it really is not that bad.  Right now, I am in Carassai, Italy in the region of Le Marche staying with my roommate Enrico.  I LOVE IT.  It is so nice to be surrounded by family and my three new brothers.  I have yet to meet someone who is not one of the most friendly people in the world.  The town itself is absolutely adorable. There are just a little over 1,000 people who live here and every single person knows everyone.  It is unbelievably adorable.  Everyone says hi to everyone and knows who is related to who and who dated/is dating who.  I love it.  I am starting to get familiar with the faces of everyone too.  I mean, there is not that many!  Enrico took me to see another small town close by called Fermo the other day.  It was where he went to high school.  It was a little bigger then Carassai and just as adorable.  That is where his mom works, at the hospital and we went to go visit her when we were there.

I really have so much to say and so many pictures to show all of you but I am extremely tired from being here.  I never imagined how hard it would be to be 100% completely immersed into a culture.  In Bologna, I have my friends who I speak English with almost every day but here its Italian all the time. I really could not have asked for a better Christmas gift that that though. I have probably learned more in the past 4 days being here than I did in a month of Italian grammar class.  I am also learning a lot of dialect that they speak here. Basically every single town has a dialect of their own.  I picked up a few things from my roommates talking to each other in our house but now I am learning a lot.  I cannot really use it myself yet but when everyone is talking I am starting to understand it more and more.  On another note, I have ate more meat in the last few days then I have in the past 10 years of my life.  Well, most of you do not consider fish actual meat but I have had baby clams, tuna, octupus, tuna, crayfish, tuna, shrimp and did I mention tuna.  You all would be so proud of me.

I wish everyone the best Christmas!  I am sending everyone my love and I hope you all eat well and anjoy being together on this holiday.  I really miss you all!  Merry Christmas!