What? School? Oh, right.

A very lazy Sunday prepared me and my roommate Julia for our first week of school. Our other roommates had taken off to Pisa for the day, and since it was the first rainy day we'd had in Florence, we decided to take it easy for the day.

Let it just be said, that even when it was rainy and cold, Florence is STILL beautiful!

Julia and I went grocery shopping and got terribly lost. The streets are so confusing here, but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of navigating my way around here. On the way, we started to get hungry, so we stopped and got a waffle at a cafe. O. M. G. SOOOOO good.

On our way home, we were excited to find a Nine T Nine (I suppose this would be the European equivalent of a Dollar Tree, as everything is 99 Eurocents).

Then we headed to the internet cafe, and I got to Skype with my dad for a little while, which was really good as I hadn't really talked to him much since I left.

Shannon and Marla got home a little after Julia and I, and we all watched a movie before heading to bed. Unfortunately, between my seasonal change cold, (which was inevitable with the shift to a much warmer climate) and our extremely rude, extremely loud upstairs neighbors, I did NOT sleep well. But with the help of a couple Tylenol PM, I finally got to sleep.

Unfortunately, it was rainy again for the first day of classes, as it was for most of the week. It still wasn't COLD, though, and the rain is different than at home. Here, it doesn't really downpour like in Illinois, so it's more of a light sprinkle/drizzle. But making my way through the obstacle course of umbrellas was definitely an experience. (Literally, it was like duck that umbrella, lean to the left, raise umbrella, try not to hit the protruding window, RIDICULOUS)

First class of the day was Italian. I was a little unsure at first because my teacher was speaking primarily in Italian from the start, and for a while I was concerned that I was in the wrong class, but it got better, and we learned the alphabet & pronunciation differences, and some basic introductory phrases. Which really made my day when I was able to go to Giovanni's after class, introduce myself, tell him I was a student and that I was studying art, ballet, italian, and the history of the mafia (which he thought was really funny lol)
After some internet time in the afternoon, I had my world religions class, which was admittedly, a little boring, and then my history of the mafia class. Mafia was the first actual syllabus day class that I had. Classes here are "immersion", so in Italian, and Religion, we just jumped right in and started class, but Mafia made me feel more at home because Mr. Stefano went through the syllabus, walked us to go buy our books, and that was class! (yay syllabus day! :)

Later, the school threw us a party/dinner at the Palazzo Borghese, which was a really nice hotel a couple streets over from our apartment. The food was INCREDIBLE and we had a great time hanging out with all of the new friends we had made here.

Tuesday- rainy again. I started the day with Renaissance Art, which seemed a little boring, until I walked out on the street and saw examples of different artistic/architechtural elements that my teacher had talked about in class simply EVERYWHERE. That was admittedly pretty cool. And it will be nice to be able to appreciate the artwork in Florence on a deeper level than "Ooooo. Pretty!" :)

Ballet was probably the class I was most looking forward to. Unfortunately, day one was a disaster. Apparently, I missed the memo about coming in studio attire, ready to begin barre exercises on day one, so everyone else was in their leotards, tights, and slippers ready to dance, while I was the idiot in jeans and a sweater. Oh well. The first class was a little frustrating because the teacher was trying to gauge our level, so she just started right in. I was able to keep up pretty well, but some of the more experienced members of the class were a little patronizing the rest of us. But, regardless, after class, I rushed to the dance supply store to buy my clothes for the next class. :) I was in a bit of a bad mood after that, but I went back to Student Point and got to blog with mom, so that made me happy.:)

Wednesday was a REALLY slow day. After breakfast of bread and Nutella (For those who are not familiar with Nutella, it's this chocolate/hazelnut/vanilla deliciousness. Nutella will be the death of me) It was sunny on the way to school, so, I photographed my entire walk to school. I felt like a dummy, but I'm over it- it was worth it to show everyone what I see on my way to school. I went to my only class of the day- Italian. We learned numbers, which went well, especially considering we had a substitute teacher! I made myself lunch- bowtie pasta with zucchini, mozzarella and parmesan (which was AMAZING. I didn't know I had that kind of cooking in me! lol)

The rest of the day, I spent at the apartment cleaning my room, doing laundry, and reading my Cosa Nostra book (which is REALLY good). My roommates were really tired when they got home, so they decided to stay in and watch a movie, but having spent the whole day in our apartment, I decided to go visit my new friends Brent and Brian. Brent and I ate some ice cream and watched Heroes and Youtube videos. It was an uneventful evening, but at least I was out of the apartment! :)

Thursday I had to go to Student Point to complete my Permit of Stay, which took a whole 3-4 minutes, so I spent the rest of the morning on the internet. After that, I went and picked up my mail (a card from mom and dad! :) and went to ballet. The snobby overqualified-for-introductory-ballet girls had moved up to a higher level class, so there were only 5 girls left. The class was very really fun. I know enough ballet terms to be able to keep up pretty easily (still, I have never been happier to hear the phrase "pas-de-chat" in my life) :). The teacher is really sweet- she told me that I have very good lines for a beginning student, which made my day. :)

After class, I met up with Marla and Shannon, and we went to Giovanni's for lunch. We all had ciambettones, which turns out, are Franco's specialty. (Franco is the other guy that works in Giovanni's shop. He looks like he's straight out of the Godfather or the Sopranos or something, but he's very nice. But I'll admit, when I was reading my Cosa Nostra book, I looked over my shoulder a few times LOL!)
Later that evening, the girls of Giraldi 8 went to go see Vicky Cristina Barcelona at a theatre off the Piazza della Republica. The movie was pretty good, but the theatre we went to blew me away! I don't think the pictures do it justice! After the movie, we went to the Lion's Fountain for awhile, and then called it a night.

Today, we got kind of a late start. Shannon made us eggs, toast, and bacon for breakfast. Well, "bacon". We're not entirely sure what it was. It looked like bacon until she cooked it. It was......interesting. It was really thick, unsalted, and slightly brick-like after cooking. Hmmmmmm....

No big plans for the rest of the day. We are going to go try to buy tickets to the soccer game here in Florence on Sunday. Yes, I'm going to a soccer game. I can't even begin to tell you how wrong it feels to be going to a soccer game after missing the Superbowl. It pretty much goes against all that I stand for, but oh well. When in Rome (or Florence lol), I guess.

Pictures of my journey to school and our night at the movies should be up on my Picasa albums soon!

Ciao! :)