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!

Above: A picture that does not at all do justice to the beauty of Monreale
Above: Patee, Colleen, me, Stacey overlooking Palermo
Above: The love locks I was referring to

Above: People who are probably definitely in the Mafia... I was in Sicily, after all

Parigi+Parents

Wow, I thought I waited a long time to write my last post... I have to get better about this! Well since I last updated, I took a trip to Paris to visit Olivia, my parents and sister came to visit, and I took a school trip to Milan/Mantua/Ferrara. This weekend, finally, I am getting some much needed rest and relaxation! The only plans I have are a soccer game on Sunday and some HOMEWORK, because my midterms are coming up! So I will try to keep this update as brief as I possibly can considering all that I have to say...

The weekend before Mardi Gras I flew to Paris to see Olivia. It was soooo great to see one of my best friends in the world, and we both kept expressing our disbelief that we got to visit each other (something that is definitely not a regular occurence) all the way across the ocean! My flight unfortunately kept getting delayed, so I didn't get to her apartment until after 1 AM! So on Friday, after some much needed sleep, we headed out to explore. We had delicious onion soup for lunch and then went to the French Pantheon, which, much to our surprise, is the burial place of tons of famous people. I was most excited about Emile Zola (since I have such a complicated relationship with his book Germinal) and Marie Curie! It was interesting to see the inside of a French church after seeing soooo many Italian cathedrals. After that we went to the Sacre Coeur and sat on the steps for awhile, taking in the view and listening to a cheesy musician- minus the view part, it kind of reminded me of Jackson Square. That night we had a delicious fondue dinner... at a restaurant that serves wine in baby bottles?! That was weirder than I thought it was going to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself nonetheless. The next day, we got lunch with Liv's roommate and Maddie (I can't say enough how cool it is to see my high school friends over here!) and did some shopping. After we left Maddie, we did a pretty extensive tour of Pere Lachaise, the cemetary where all kinds of people, from Oscar Wilde to Chopin to Jim Morrison are buried. That night, Olivia and I ate some delicious rotisserie chicken and potatoes that we had purchased from a street market earlier, and then went out for a little while, first to a place called student bar that serves their cocktails with a marshmellow inside, and then somewhere down the street where we met up with Misa! It was seriously a little Franklin reunion in Paris. The next morning we slept forever (you will see why I was so tired when I recount my family's visit) and then I caught my flight back to Florence that night! My family arrived a few hours before I did, and after a little bit of confusion, made it safely to their hotel, right down the block from my school!



I saw my parents and Emma Monday morning before class and then spent the afternoon walking with them around the Arno- we window-shopped on the Ponte Vecchio and went to the Piazza Michelangiolo so I could show them the great view! That night we had a delicious dinner at Za-Za. The next day, we visited the Accademia and saw the David (it is SO big! And amazing!), then did some shopping and celebrated Mardi Gras with the best dinner I have had yet in Italy- at a place called Il Latini. Five courses, no menu, just a waiter telling you your options. SO delicious. Unfortunately, after Tuesday, the cold I had been fighting for about two weeks took a turn for the worse and Wednesday when I visited the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens with my family I had to leave early because I was having stabbing chest pains. An afternoon of resting in their hotel room definitely helped, but my dad thinks I might have had walking pneumonia and I honestly did not start feeling truly better until maybe yesterday. BUT that didn't stop me from going to Siena with them the next day, where we had a delicious meal at the restaurant I wrote about earlier. We finally tried Bistecca Fiorentina, which was REALLY rare (I could hear my roommate JulieAnn freaking out all the way from Thailand) but very delicious. Friday (my final day with my family, since I had to go on my school trip) my dad bought Emma and me Valentine's Day presents on the Ponte Vecchio and then we ventured to Pisa, and took the required tower pictures (I am going to post my dad's because it cracks me up! He wore a suit the almost the whole time they were here. Definitely not typical tourist in Bermuda shorts!). I was sad to see them go, but glad that they made it back safe (after getting delayed because of the crazy winter storms on the East Coast!), and excited to remember that I still have one family visitor to look forward to- Jacob comes in 26 days! In case my countdown wasn't a clue, I am SO excited to see my brother!!



My field trip to Milan/Mantua/Ferrara was fairly uneventful. The waking up early part was a lot less painful than Venice since it was not nearly as cold and we had a lot more time to rest. It was Fashion Week in Milan, but unfortunately we didn't really see many indicators because we were only there for a few hours during the day. It was also the last day of Carnivale (but only for Milan! Everywhere else in Italy finishes on Mardi Gras like we do), so of course there were lots of crowds and confetti. We visited a palace in Milan and then the Duomo, which is really beautiful- lots of stained glass. Some friends and I enjoyed a long lunch before our bus took us to Mantua, which is a really quaint little town. That night we had a DELICIOUS dinner there that included a quiche with peas, pumpkin ravioli, and some amazing chicken salad! The next day we toured Mantua's palace before heading to Ferrara to tour- guess what? Its palace! We arrived back in Florence to some gross weather that didn't stop until yesterday- which is super ironic because some friends and I cancelled a bike/wine tour for yesterday because of the weather! But we still have plenty of time to do that in April, when the weather will be even better. And I got to go on a great hike with my roommate Stacey yesterday in Fiesole- on the hill where Leonardo da Vinci did his first flight thing.


I am still totally in love with Florence and my friends here, but I have definitely been missing all of y'all at home a lot recently- I really missed everyone in New Orleans because it was Mardi Gras (although Jenna, Mimi, Isha and Charlotte took some precious pictures pretending I was there... which was seriously SUCH a sweet gesture!), and after almost two months of being away, the vacation feeling is wearing off and I'm realizing that I won't get to have one of my mandatory weekend trips home this semester and that I'm not going to see my friends in Chapel Hill until AUGUST. But I have so much to look forward to- tons of trips, Jake's visit, and beautiful weather to experience in Florence in the next two months and then my final summer as a college kid... so bizarre! Until next time, ciao ciao! I love all of y'all!

Roma and Venezia

So this is going to be a super-long entry because it will cover my trips to Rome AND Venice.  I meant to update sometime during this last week about Rome, and I wish I could use schoolwork as my excuse, but I can't!  I've just been constantly on the go doing one thing or another, especially because it was two of my good friends in the program's birthday on Thursday.

Rome was the first big trip that  I took- we left last Thursday afternoon and came back Sunday evening.  I had already been, back when I went to Europe with my family in 8th grade, but I wanted to experience it again with a better background in history and more of my Italian bearings about me.  I'm glad I did it, but it was extremely overwhelming and I was so happy to get back to precious Florence.   But as for what I actually did...

Thursday night we went out to a great dinner, where I had Amatriciana, a pasta dish that Rome is famous for.  It was the best Roman meal I have ever had, including during my 8th grade trip.  Afterwards, we walked around in a huge CIRCLE for an hour, no thanks to my map reading skills (which I redeemed the next day!), and so most people ended up going to sleep after that, but Marielle, Stacey and I went out for a little while across the Tiber and sang some karaoke!  The next morning we split up, which I ended up regretting somewhat because it sounds like Formia, where some of my friends went, was really beautiful, but I got to see the Catacombs, which I have been waiting for pretty much since the last time I went to Rome.  They were amazing, and I got goosebumps thinking about the very earliest Christians in Europe- just such a cool concept!   Especially because the Catacombs are on the Appian Way, which is just about the oldest/coolest thing ever.  The picture of the cross  above is on the Via Appia right across from the San Sebastian Catacombs.  Anyway, before the Catacombs we walked around the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain, which each seemed so much less huge and mysterious than they did when I was 13-  which made me feel like maybe I am developing some European traveling skills!  And also made me feel like I am pretty old.  Then that night we went out to dinner at a restaurant that apparently American study abroad students frequent, because there were big posters all over the walls with lists of colleges.  And we got free "sexy wine", whatever that means (literally, it was sparkling red wine... but the menu referred to it as sexy wine).  Then we walked around near the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona, which has Bernigni's Four Rivers fountains, before calling it an early night for our big day the next day.

The next day five of us did a guided tour of the Vatican museums, which was so worth it because I probably would have done my usual museum routine of speeding through without paying any attention.  I still vividly remember sitting in the Louvre with Emma and Jacob begging to leave/coming up with the name for our dog (Which I  naturally railroaded them into choosing and then promptly gave up any claim of actually owning her!  Sorry guys!)   The Sistine Chapel was amazing, but sort of frustrating because the guards completely lost control of the crowd and EVERYONE was taking flash photography.  I'm not a huge art preservationist or anything, and I understood why people wanted to take pictures, but it certainly ruined the serenity of the chapel to have a flashbulb in my face every five minutes.   And I really enjoyed the Basilica, which I'm not even sure I went to the last time I was there.   I loved this one statue that showed someone stepping on England because of the way that country had abandoned the Vatican/papacy (pictured below)... I like to be reminded that Episcopalianism exists in this extremely Catholic country.  However, I was really glad that three of my friends are Catholic, because we went into a quiet prayer chapel in the Basilica at their request and it was probably one of the best parts of my trip.   Later that day we tried to go to the Colloseum, but it was closed, which was actually quite a blessing in disguise because when we went Sunday it was beautiful.   So instead, Stacey and I went to the Pantheon, which was perfect for the amount of time we had.  And on the way we saw a left wing Italian political protest, which you know I was super excited about.   That night we tried to go out to this bar that's copmletely made of ice, but it didn't really work out...

Sunday was a beautiful day, perfect for the outdoor stuff we had left to do!  We had a guide for the Coliseum and the Palatine Hill, and I was suuuuper excited about the Palatine hill and the Forum obviously, because I am a history nerd like that.  It's just so cool that there are remnants of such an ancient city RIGHT THERE.  Anyway, after that we took the train back and I was so glad to see Florence again!

This weekend, I stayed in Florence for Thursday and Friday to celebrate Stacey and Samantha's birthdays, and then got up at FOUR IN THE MORNING to go on a school trip to Venice.   We stopped first on Burano, a cute little island with really pretty colored houses that reminded me of the French Quarter, and then we went to Murano, the glass-blowing island, where we saw a great glassblowing demonstration (a picture of the factory where we went is below).  And I got souvenirs for Mom, Dad and Nannie!  Finally it was on to Venice, where it was the opening weekend of Carnivale, which was nuts, and totally reminded me of home- there were Mardi Gras masks everywhere and people in costumes who looked like they belonged on floats.   I was definitely feeling some homesickness this weekend because I'm sick, which always makes me miss my parents, and because I felt like if I closed my eyes in Venice I could have basically been at a parade- at one point a band even played that sounded like any high school marching band.  But anyway, Venice and the other islands are just so neat- even though I knew that the only transportation was  by foot or by boat, to see it was just surreal.  

 

 After a day of walking around in the hectic Carnivale crowds, we were treated to a five course meal which was in some random suburb of Venice (thirty minutes away from our hotel which was definitely a... special hotel... it had all of these crazy Valentine's Day decorations and there were hourly room rates.  Thank you LDM.)- not the best meal I have had in Italy, and I was extremely exhausted.   But it was a neat experience nonetheless.  Thankfully, I have great friends with the same traveling mindset as me, because as we got back on the bus I heard my friend Patee talking about taking an early train back on Sunday rather than the bus at 5 pm.  I practically screamed with agreement, since my 

 was really taking a toll on me by that point, and so we took the early boat to Venice with the program the next morning but wandered off by ourselves and had a great morning looking around the island before the crowds swarmed in!  I bought some more souvenirs and we rode a gondola for only 20 Euros each... which is a great deal, from everything I've heard.  I also bought some more souvenirs... something for Emma, JulieAnn, Sydney and Becky!   As well as some things for me... :).  As we got to the train station, we saw HERDS of people getting off to celebrate the opening day of Carnivale.  We took the Eurostar back to Florence (my first fast train experience here!  And it was well worth it!  Probably some of the best "emergency" money I have spent since I've been here) and I have been trying to recover from my sickness ever since.  Venice was so beautiful, but I definitely wish I would have been less under the weather while I was there.

These past two weekends have made me really appreciate Florence.  I'm excited to show my family around here and also excited for the two weekends after this one, because I will be in Florence for both of them except for one Saturday/Sunday when I have a school trip to Milan (but since weekends are so long here, that's only really 1/2 of my weekend!).  And despite my homesickness for Mardi Gras, I actually miss home far less right now than I often do when I'm at school- probably because I'm having such amazing adventures, but also because it is really nice to live in a bustling city again.   The size and atmosphere of this place definitely remind me of New Orleans a LOT.

Next weekend I am off to Paris to visit Olivia.   I cannot wait!  I'm so lucky that I get to see one of my best friends while I'm here, and in Paris to boot!  Then the day I get back Mom, Dad and Emma arrive in Florence and I am going to be their personal Tuscan tour guide all week.  I can't wait for that either!  It will be nice to be around so many people from home around this time of year, for various reasons, but particularly because I will be so envious of everyone enjoying the best free show on Earth at home!  Time is absolutely flying by, I have been here for a month now!   I am just still in awe that I get to experience all of this.  However, I do miss all of y'all a great deal!  I think of something that I want to share with someone from home at least once a day.  Probably you should all just drop everything and come stay with me!   I will probably not update again until after my family leaves, so until MARCH, ciao ciao!

Siena, More Firenze, Perugia, Assisi

It feels like it's been so long since I wrote my first post, but really it has only been a little over a week! There is just so much going on here all the time that every day feels like it's at least two or three days in one. So let's see what has happened...

The day after I wrote my first post I went on my first trip outside of Florence, to Siena. It was a really rainy and cold, but still so exciting to finally be doing TRAVELING, since the minute you get to Europe everyone wants to know if you've been 8000 places in the one week that you've been there. And Siena was precious, so that also helped ease the pain of the rain and cold. About 30 of us went, but we ended up splitting off into smaller groups to make exploring easier, and the group I was with went to this really delicious little restaurant that my friend Stacey had been to a few years ago when she was traveling with her family in Italy. I had pici, which is a past dish that I think originated in Siena (I recognize that I am still a stupid American traveller so I always question myself about these things...) and it was sooo good. I am putting up a picture of it, in fact! Anyway, aside from consuming great food in Siena, I saw their huge brick Piazza del Campo, which was sadly completely empty because of the weather, and toured the Duomo, the Cripta (which is actually not a crypt but an old part of the Duomo that was just excavated about 10 years ago), a church where St. Catherine's HEAD is kept, the place where St. Catherine was supposedly pushed down the steps by the devil, and this outdoor stadium thing whose purpose I'm still not quite sure of (Cary? Care to explain? It is near the soccer stadium) but I heard some jazz music practice coming out of the building adjacent to it so that was pretty cool.
After Siena I went to my first discotecca, which was quite the experience! The next day was the first pretty day I’d seen since I’d been in Florence, and some friends and I went and took really great sunset pictures at the place I talked about last time Piazza de Michelangiolo. Then this past week was a blur of the final week of our pre-session. I finally got to go to the top of the Duomo in Florence, which was absolutely breathtaking, and on Thursday I had my first Italian pizza, and even better, free tiramisu for dessert. Then this weekend I went on my first real weekend trip, to Perugia and Assisi. It was such a good time!
We arrived in Perugia around 4:30 and discovered that our hotel (not a lot of hostels in the area) was RIGHT in the center of everything, so we dropped our bags and ran to take some pictures before the sun went down. We walked around and saw some really beautiful churches, although it was right around Mass time, so we didn’t get to go into the Duomo that night because we didn’t want to interrupt the service. We got a little bit lost a few times, but since the area is so small, it didn’t really matter, and probably the most exciting thing we saw was a street that had spikes in some of the walls that were supposedly used to hang the heads of criminals. That night, we had an AMAZING five-course meal (for only 13 euros each, which included everything except wine!) at this restaurant our tour book told us about, and boy were they right! We were probably really obnoxious by the end of the meal, but we were so excited because we could tell we were the only tourists in the place.
















We had planned to spend the night in Perugia because it’s a college town and we’d heard the nightlife was great, and as we were leaving the restaurant some students (and one American study abroad advisor?) took us under their wing and showed us around to some of the bars. It was about 11:30, which is early in Europe in general but apparently EXTREMELY early in Perugia, so even though there was a huge crowd outside in the piazza (near some steps where we’d heard everyone hangs out), nothing was really getting started yet. In Perugia, you can’t drink out of bottles outside, but plastic cups are okay, and my friends were all tickled to see people milling around with drinks outside. Considering that thanks to my hometown, I still don’t believe that open container laws are for real, I wasn’t quite as delighted, but it was still a really cool experience. We eventually found a pub but had a pretty early night since we knew we had tons of sight-seeing to do.

The next morning we finished our tour of Perugia. After the Duomo, we walked to a beautiful circular church that we couldn’t go inside of, but we could climb the tower next to it and we got a great view of the city. We also stumbled upon this cute little wine/chocolate/bread/jam shop and I bought some chocolate for myself, (because Perugia used to have a HUGE chocolate factory that Nestle bought out) and a souvenir for my parents! Then it was on to Assisi. We got to Assisi and waited in the cold for a few minutes to catch the bus before we decided a taxi would probably be not much more expensive. Boy, was that the best move we ever made because my friend Colleen has a fractured food, and Assisi isn’t quite as easily walkable as other Italian towns, so our driver offered to give us a grand tour of the city and gave us time to stop at every location. He even took pictures for us! The best part about that was that we got to go to this place called Ermeo delle Carceri, which is a beautiful wooded hermitage high up in mountains, as well as a place called the Rocca di Maggiore, the first of which we never could have gotten to by foot, especially fractured foot, and the second of which we wouldn’t have had time to walk to. Assisi is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, I can’t even begin to pick my favorite church although obviously seeing St. Francis’ basilica was amazing, and it reminded me of the St. Francis prayer that I know a lot of people I worked with this summer love. We didn’t get to go into the top of the Basilica because it closed early on Saturday, but the bottom was good enough for me! I think if I did have to pick my favorite church, it would be the San Rufino, where St. Francis was baptized, because it is a church so old that it was built on top of Roman ruins, which you can see through glass floors!







Now I am just relaxing until my real classes start tomorrow, including a wine tasting one! Wines of Tuscany! Miss and love everyone! Oh, and just a little shout out to Becky Wood because she LOVES blogs. Also, to my family/friends who are Catholic- please tell me if you have a confirmation saint or just one who is special to you because I would love to say a prayer for you if there is ever the opportunity in one of the millions of churches I go to. Not that everyone is not in my prayers always, but you know! Love and miss everyone!

First Week in Florence

Okay, so I caved and made a blog after swearing I wouldn't.   I still feel a little self-absorbed for making one, since I have friends in crazy countries like Cuba and Thailand, and since my family is probably the least internet-savvy on the planet, so I can't even swear that I made it for them.   But I have realized that when I write in my journal here, I go off on tangents and have to force myself to make bullet points of actual things I've done or places I've been that I want to remember for posterity.  So I'm hoping this will help.    

I've been here for a week and a day, and it is just insane to me that I'm going to live here for four months.  Like do I seriously live in Florence?!  The place I have learned about in countless art history and history classes since way back in European with Gonz?  I feel like I should pinch myself when, for instance, I turn the corner out of my school and I run into the Duomo.  My apartment is BEAUTIFUL, with really high ceilings (Mom, I always think of you and your refusal to live in a house without high ceilings) and very updated appliances and furniture.  No dishwasher or dryer, but so far living without a dishwasher hasn't been a problem and as for the dryer... we'll see.  I'm going to feel so skinny by the end of this trip because my jeans will be falling off... which will be a totally false feeling, I'm sure, what with all of the delicious food here!  Almost everything in the apartment is from Ikea, which apparently just came to Florence and is a HUGE deal, I've heard that it's completely insane with people inside.  I begged off of that adventure because I was exhausted.  And I mean, I can go to Ikea in Houston.

So far my only class has been four hours of Italian a day.  It's actually not too hard to sit through, which surprises me, but my teacher is hilarious and always taking pictures of us, and it feels good to work hard on the language of the country in which I live.  Hopefully I make it through this pre-session with a good grade so I place into the level of Italian I'm supposed to be in!    (By the way, apparently no one in my life besides my parents and friends at UNC know that I have taken Italian for three semester.  So FYI, I have)  Right now, it's only people from the UNC program at the school, which is really great for getting to know everyone and easing into life here.  Everyone in the program seems super nice, so that's great!

As for things that I have done... I still haven't gone inside the Duomo and I don't want to talk about it, because I get mad at myself every time I think about it!  But I really want to climb to the top, like I am just absolutely dying to, and the January/February weather here is just gross so I am waiting for a prettier day to do that!  Obviously I will go inside the Duomo before I climb it if I wait for nice weather though, so maybe I will stop by an English-language mass one Saturday if I am not traveling.   All of the other days it is in Italian, although I could probably even understand that since Catholic mass is so similar to Episcopal eucharist and I

 could probably say Rite II in my sleep.  Anyway, what I HAVE done is walked across the Ponte Vecchio, and I can't believe that no one who has been to Florence mentioned to me that I would probably never want to leave the bridge again once I got on it.  Honestly, a bridge of only jewelry stores!?!  I am probably going to go pick out a new thing I am in love with at least once a week.  And across the Ponte Vecchio, up a hill, is this amazing place called the Piazza del Michelangelo where you can just see ALL of Florence, and it is absolutely beautiful.   Last weekend, I walked (in the pouring rain) to the Piazza della Signoria, which has a copy of the David, but it was under construction, so that was a disappointment!  But soon after I went inside the Orsanmichele, which was just AMAZING and had one of the Madonna and Child pictures from Art History (Kelsey, I thought of you.  And Kelsi, if you are still taking 152 its the Daddi one).  I just LOVE the thought that people have been living (and making beautiful art) in this country for so long.  Before America even had any Europeans in it!  I guess I chose the right major, because the history just wows me every time I even think about it!

The other really cool place I have been is the fresh food market that is  just a few steps from my school.  It is teeming with meat, bread, cheese, vegetable and fruit vendors.  Everyone is really grossed out by the raw meat (I'm not really, which I guess shows my deep Southern-ness.  Jacob van Hoof, if you are reading this, I know you are weeping with pride), but it's just so cheap and delicious to buy food there and it makes me actually want to cook, which I know makes my roommates from Chapel Hill fall down with shock.  But I guess when I have the right ingredients, I don't mind taking the time.  Also, I have much more free time than when I was in relationships with Obama, Shakespeare, and Milton. 

Speaking of Obama, I watched the inauguration at a bar here and it was just INCREDIBLE!!!  I cried when Rick Warren gave the invocation (I decided not to have an opinion about him because I could never tell what to really think, so it has nothing to do with being a personal fan or enemy of his) and I just had goosebumps the whole night.   Yes, I know, I drank the Kool-Aid, but I just have so much hope right now.  Jacob Veith, if I don't hear from you soon about it, I am divorcing you as my brother.

Oh by the way, I forgot that I went to a chocolate festival yesterday. SO COOL!  And delicious.

Anyway, this post is long and I have to get ready to go out to dinner (at apparently the best restaurant in Florence, called Za Za) and then out on the town (and yes I have been doing that too, just nothing I wanted to bore people by talking about)!  Tomorrow I am going to Siena, and I will of course be thinking about Cary who was there last semester.  It is supposed to rain, but I think I will still be able to appreciate it, and I want to get the easier trips done as soon as I can.  Plus, like my entire program is going!   I miss and love everyone dearly!   I will be shocked if anyone reads this the whole way through!  Curse of my other major to be so verbose.