After a long day of travelling I arrived in Palermo . The weather was like in Holland ; rain, rain and more rain. So I didn't see much of the city but I could see that it was surrounded by beautiful mountains. We went to the university residence where me and the other volunteer, Tugce, live right now. The room is so small and we have no kitchen or living room. But already the next day and also today we visited appartments. This is so different from, say, finding an appartment in Utrecht! You call someone who has an appartment, you visit the place half an hour later and then you decide. Most people want someone to rent the room for a full year and they don't want 'foreigners' so it was difficult to find a nice place. One place was good and clean but the rooms had no windows! But finally today we found a really nice place. It is in Via Christoforo 25, in the city centre. It has a window and even a balcony but it needs a lot of cleaning, nice furniture and decorating. So it will take a few days of work before we can move in.

The people in the office are so nice and the work seems great. Right now I'm desiging an Euro-Med exchange program for the summer in 2007. And my Italian is improving, because almost nobody speaks English! Just the people in the office and even they speak Italian to each other.

The first days were difficult because of the transition; it is a busy city and it all the new impressions were quite overwhelming. Plus it is tiring to try to understand the Italian all day. But today it got better; nice work at the office and finding the appartment. I hope to see the beach today or tomorrow because we have been so busy so far that I didn't have time.

Will write more soon but for now it's time for pizza e insalata...

Ciao ciao!

PS I have a new phone number: (+39) 320 2284177 here so if you want to call or send a message, please use this number!