My Adventures :): Italia e molta bella!

So, since it's exam week, it's also PRIME time for me to be on top of this blog. Last week I wrote just before I went to a Fiorentina soccer game. We lost, unfortunately, but it was a cool experience nonetheless. The weather has been BEAUTIFUL lately, knock on wood, and I have been falling even more in love with this city than I already was. I feel like I don't usually write that much about Florence, so I have been trying to think of things to share in this post. One thing that jumps to mind is this crazy substitute teacher I had last week. He brought a boombox to class and played techno background music the ENTIRE class. No exaggeration. The next day, I told my teacher Ornella that "non mi piace, perche ho avuto una malatesta dopo clase"... aka, I didn't like it because I had a headache after class! I also spend a large amount of my time being extremely amused by my literature teacher, Stefano. It's impossible to completely convey how funny he is without doing a live imitation, but suffice it to say that he gave us a walking tour of "Dante's Florence" last Thursday and spent about 90% of the time on his cell phone. Today in class, we had a "mock quiz," and he told us that we were not allowed to write "odd little things" on our paper. My classes here are less challenging than Carolina, to say the least, but I realized how much I appreciate them when I was studying for my art history exam and I could remember the works with much more ease than I did when I took art at UNC because I have actually SEEN so many of them. One last thing from the past week that I want to remember about Florence is this amazing church that is near my house called the Santissima Annunziata... it houses this painting called "The Miraculous Image," because it was supposedly painted partially by the hand of God, and I was in awe the entire time we were in the church. It was amazing. Like so many other things in Florence, it was largely constructed through patronage from the Medicis. I am very much amazed by how influential they were in the city where I live today. I am giving a presentation tomorrow on Botticelli's Primavera, also a Medici commission.

After what felt like a very long week in Florence, I flew off to Trapani, Sicily this weekend! I seriously had NO idea what to expect... Sicily was not somewhere I investigated very much at all. The minute we landed, my breath was taken away by the AMAZING countryside. I have never seen anything like it and I don't even know how to describe it, I just hope my pictures will suffice. We arrived at our hotel Friday afternoon, which was located on top of what seemed to me like the busiest cafe/bar in Trapani, and immediately went walking along Trapani's coastline. We had read about this supposedly beautiful little islands called the Egadi islands, so we decided to try to go to one called Favignana. Unfortunately, we did not realize that during the off season it would be absolutely DEAD, so instead of walking along the beaches like we thought we would, we took some great sunset pictures and drank some wine before heading back to Trapani. We ate dinner and then had a pretty early night. The next day, we ventured to Palermo, because we'd heard/read that there was more to do there than in Trapani. The two hour bus ride there was the MOST beautiful ride I have ever taken in my LIFE. It felt like it flew by because I was so enthralled by the scenery. Palermo was a beautiful town and we spent most of our time there outside of the city at this gorgeous gold cathedral called Monreale. After we took a substantial amount of scenery pictures at this beautiful overlook (where there were TONS of the love locks that are all over Italy- you put a padlock on somewhere you go with your love so that it stays there forever), we ate at a cafe looking out on the cathedral and I FINALLY got a waffle with nutella similar to the ones I smell in Florence every day when I go running. I was not disappointed, although my waiter was not very kind. He yelled at me for having my shoelaces untied. After a stressful misunderstanding with bus tickets, we got back on the bus to Trapani, had a delicious dinner recommended by the proprietor of our hotel (quite literally- he got someone to walk us there!) and collapsed into bed. The next day we walked around the Trapani coastline a little more before and ate some delicious pastries (Trapani had the best I have tasted in Italy! SOOO amazing and there were like 3 shops within a block of each other) we caught our flight back to Pisa/Florence. It was a beautiful, relaxing weekend, and now I just have to get through 3 more days of class/exams until SPRING BREAK, when I will travel to Dublin and London. Then Jacob comes and we are off to Prague and Cinque Terre, with a little touring around Florence in the midst of that. I can't wait!

above: My friend Colleen and I on Favignana

above and below: scenery from the bus ride to Palermo

I am also getting excited for this summer, even though I don't want this semester to end. I can't believe it is going to be my last summer at camp... it has been 12 years since my cute boy hair cut self fell in love with Hardtner and I am so excited to make this last summer my best one! But until then, I am LOVING life in Florence! I wish I could share it with all of y'all!