anyway here is some more news from italia. Last week i went on the school trip with my class, to Umbria, about 5 hours by bus. We arrived in Perugia in the rain and my feet got wet immediately which caused great discomfort for the rest of the afternoon as they slowly froze as we trudged around the city centre. Perugia is a gorgeous city and it has the Universita per Stranieri as well as a normal Italian univeristy, so there are lots cool different types of people there. The old medieval centre is gorgeous, and theres an amazing underground system of roman tunnels which are now used for pedestrian thoroughfare. We also saw the Duomo which was pretty, although the highlight there was a very good heating system which everyone was huddled around. We went back to the hotel for dinner which was a concrete monstrosity in a town out of Perugia called Deruta. The dinner was predictably school campish, as was the whole night, with very little sleeping going on and lots of angry teachers in pyjamas. Anyway i made the most of my last school camp and got about 3 hours sleep, probabaly not the best idea given my cold was just setting in at this point. Anyway, the next morning after the most pathetic attempt at 'breakfast' (its just not the done thing here) we went to the national gallery of Perugia, where we met our guide, a very serious woman who endeadvoured to inform us of every detail of many of the endless Madonnas. The gallery has an amazing, if not exactly diverse, collection of biblical art. Some of the works are gorgeous and i understood enough to be interested in the development of human form which the guide talked about, but the lack of sleep and dense italian made for lots of yawns. We had lunch at a restaurant, yummy pizza and then met back up with the bus and drove to a little town called Spello near Perugia. It was soooo pretty. its a medieval kind of hill town with steep cobbled streets and old houses, and some fantastic terrace views. anyway we went to the church there. The weather had by this time turned into perfect sunshine and i had a nice walk aorund the town. unfortunately i didnt have my camera on me because it was the prettiest place we went. However Michele told me that Groppo, a town where his grandparents own a house that we going to visit i think at easter is exactly like Spello, so im looking forward to that. We had another dinner at the hotel and then went out to a disco with the teachers and everyone which was fun, had a bit of a dance etc, then back to the hotel for another night of no sleep. I had good talks to the girsl in my room. i think my italian is improving alot at the moment and im starting to talk abit more, although in groups its still really hard because trying to understand keeps me occupied without even beginning to participate in the conversation. The next day we went to another old town Gubbio where we climbed this massive hill and then got an amazing view at the top, saw another church and i had yummy carbonara spaghetti for lunch. My cold was at its peak here so i probabaly didnt fully appreciate the yummyness unfprtunately but oh well. Then we got back on the bus and arrived home about 8 o clock on saturday night. I slept for 14 hours on saturday night and 12 hours on sunday night and my codl hasnt really budged which is kind of depressing but anyway... today is the first day of spring and although yesterday it was sunny and nice, today predictably its been rainy, grey and cold so i havent really done anything. anyway so that was the school trip. other than that everythings going fine me and michele are currently discussing going to London in the first week of the school holidays and i might stay another week after he goes im sure, its all specualtion at the moment but we just looked at flights on the web and we should be able to do it for 60euro there and back. I have to speak to Lorraine to see if she'll be in town but yeah im excited. Other than that i dont have much news, everythings going fine and i always love to get emails form you guys so keep them coming. i cant believe i turn 18 in 2 weeks and ive now been here almost 2 months!!!