As the Alitalia plane came to a fast and bumpy stop on the Sardinia runway, I look out the window wondering what I've gotten myself into. At first glance, Sardinia doesn't look like much of an exciting city--all that the eye can see is industrial buildings and hills. Flash forward three days, and I am in love with the beautiful island of Sardinia. 

The bus driver takes us from the airport to the city of Cagliari, and I start to see the Italian charm reflected in the buildings as we drive through the city. We then drive up to this unassuming building, and our told that it will be our home for the next 5 weeks. Everyone wants to crash and go to bed, but to avoid time changing difficulties, we all rally and head down for dinner. We go to the main square, and find the Italian dinner customs much different from our American customs. Firstly, Italians don't eat till 8:30 pm at the earliest. Secondly, the waiters don't work for tips. You have to be loud and aggressive to even place your order! Once finished, we wander around the city for a little longer before going to bed.

The next morning, we all wander down to this adorable little café were we have meal coupons. We clear out all their fruit and yogurt, and have delicious cappuccinos. We then went to University of Cagliari and met students from the University of Padua and University of Cagliari. After this, we have a massive 13 course dinner featuring all of Sardinia's finest: seafood, bread and wine. The flatten fish eggs was by far the strangest thing I had--oddly chewy and fishy. However, the rest was excellent. 

The next day, we visited the students from University of Padua at their beach house. All of the students on the dialogue ran straight into the ocean, and the University of Padua gave us weird looks, as the water was cold for them! However, we all had a great time bobbing up and down in the water with the waves. We then went back to the beach house, and had the most amazing feast. There was cheese, salami, prosciutto, vegetables, different types of bread, steak, sausage, and more! Never had I been so full. 

Today, we took a tour bus to the Ancient ruins of Sardinia further north. These ruins are from 1500 BC, and contain some of the biggest mysterious of today. While the homes are fairly easy to tell, no one knows if the biggest structure was for military purposes or just a community center. Irregardless, the ruins were very interesting to visit, despite how short the doorways were!

  
We then go up the hills to look for the only wild horses in Europe. We hike around for a while until we find a single male, who has probably lost a female during mating time. 

We continue on, and then find several horses. These horses are smaller then the american horses people ride on. However, they seemed fairly comfortable with human presence as they did not run away when we approached them. 

We end our day by visiting the old shepherd's houses, and then continue back to Cagliari. I can't wait to see where the rest of this month takes me!