It was our first weekend in Italy and it was very busy! Friday morning we had our first exam over chapter 1 and then during our lunch break, we were able to go to the beach and enjoy the beautiful day. Right after class on Friday, a few of us got to attend an Italian birthday party. It was for Abbey's 10 year old host sister. The party was at her fathers restaurant about 10-15 min away from Grado. For the most part it was very similar to a birthday party that you would attend at home. They played games (including bobbing for apples which I was talked into participating in) and there was a magic show for the kids. They also sang happy birthday in both Italian and english which I was not expecting. The next day we took a trip with the entire group to see Castles and the wine country. It was absolutely beautiful and I will add a picture of the view we had from dinner that night. On Sunday, about 15 of us took a day trip to Venice and it was definitely a learning experience. We planned out our transportation the night before but apparently not carefully enough. We had the wrong train time and had to wait 2 hours for the next on to arrive. This put us in Venice a few hours later than planned. But while we were there, we were able to walk around all of Venice, take a Gondola ride, and have dinner. It was so amazing there and luckily I will get to go back for another day after the program ends with Abbey, her mom, and aunt. This week we have our next test and we are planning on doing some more traveling next weekend so there will be more updates later to come this week!