Ciao amici,

I have arrived in Venice :). Not without any trouble, but I'm here :).
I had a nice flight (had to pay a nice amount of money for the overweight and when I was actually sitting in the plane they asked me if I was Chantal and they told me I was not on the list of people who had checked in).
And then when we landed at Treviso, we had to take the bus (for the people who were in DC and saw me leave with all my luggage, it looked kind of the same; backpack, suitcase, big laptopbag in front of me and another tiny back with my coats in it)(more than my own weight in total, but that's what tiny girls need to get stronger :)).
After a bus ride of 45 minutes and a ride on the vaporetto (the water taxi) for 25 minutes we arrived at our stop Giardini. But where was our student residence?????? After about 50 minutes we finally found our residence, which was not visible at all!!!!!
But the room is great and really big (I am sharing it with another Dutch girl) and our view is really amazing!!!!! We look out on a small canal and we can see the San Marco from a large distance :).
On Thursday September 13th we had our first introduction which took from 2 pm till 6 pm, and we found out more about the master in human rights and democratisation. It was long and I have to admit sometimes rather boring, but the whole year is going to be great. But there will be so much work which needs to be done. We have first stream courses which we need to take and then we have second stream courses as well. At the moment I have about 10 second stream courses so that's gonna be a lot of fun!!!!!!! And there is even a master class on children's rights so I am really happy :) :) :)
Today, Friday September 14th, we took the vaporetto which rides on the grand canal and acted like real tourists. But it was a nice way to get a quick look at Venice. And the weather is still nice at the moment so that's really great.
Inside scoops: sorry for Italians reading this ;) The Italian women tend to be rather cranky and I won't get started on the men. For those of you who might wonder, I am still blond for the time being :).

Well, I guess that's all for the moment. Next week the reality is gonna kick in with days from 9 am till 6 pm, so don't be too jealous yet ;) I will try to post pictures in a while, but I have to wait till the wireless internet works at the monastery and they are working on it in the Italian pace so don't hold your breath. Hope you are all doing well and hope to hear from you all again soon.

Lots of hugs,


Chantal