As of today, I have officially used the Florentine bus system on my own, without the aid of a professor. And it was a success. It's actually really easy, Sarah and I just had to figure out the real names of the stops we needed going to and coming from Linguaviva.
Italian class went well once more and Gretchen, Isa, Ian, Stacy, and I spent our lunch break at the open market, eating anything that looked good and getting free fruit from our new friend the fruit vendor, Maria. Maria seems to love us (and is totally charmed by the fact that we attempt to use Italian when speaking with her); she is always pushing more fruit into our hands, giving us slices of fresh figs and the biggest grapes I've ever seen.
Back at Linguaviva, we begin our afternoon with a celebration of Gretchen's birthday. Jodi brought in a cookie platter full of traditional Italian cookies for all 29 of us and we sang "happy birthday" before our lecture for the day. While we were eating, Jodi gave a presentation on Florence's history (abridged), which was pretty cool.
Afterwards, Ian, Isa, Gretchen, and I walked over to the travel agency that has worked with ACM students before, to pick up train tickets for a trip to the beach in Cecina on Sunday. We decided we wanted to visit the Mediterranean, so by golly we're going to do it. Random shopping follows our travel agency excursion - mostly we just walk around exploring. (Note: the € .99 store is amazing.) I had my daily gelato (chocolate and banana this time) and then Ian, Isa, and I walked over to a small park and just sat on a bench in the sun, enjoying the breeze and talking. We sat there for almost an hour, planning our imaginary radio show (titled "daily gelato time with Isa, Anna, and Ian") and having a grand old time.
Eventually we all went our separate ways, since it was time to head back to our respective host families and get ready for dinner. My host mom made us butterfly pasta with tomato sauce, baked fish, steamed zucchini (which I'm trying to get the recipe for), and fresh fruit in syrup. Our dinner conversation was trilingual - one of Anna's previous foreign exchange students came over for dinner (Janet, from Mexico City). Janet was really sweet - and a Linguaviva student! - and so we had Spanish, English, and Italian going at dinner. It was pretty fun to see how we all could still manage to communicate, despite not really speaking each other's languages. We cobbled together a language of our own that served us quite well. It was cool to be reminded that there are certain things that transcend language, like smiles, laughter, and food.
Later on after dinner, I finished up my Italian homework (conjugating verbs - woo!) and had an unexpected facebook chat session with my parents. It was really good to talk with them... and we set up a skype date! I think that's what I miss most right now, talking with my parents whenever I want. While I'm at Coe, I text my parents pretty often, telling them about random happenings in my day, jokes from class, and more. Here, I can't really do that. We still talk, but it's very different. I'm having fun with new people and new places, but I do miss the closeness that I have with my parents when I'm at college in the States (even though I'm five hours away in Iowa!). Oh well. Skyping will be nice.
Italian class went well once more and Gretchen, Isa, Ian, Stacy, and I spent our lunch break at the open market, eating anything that looked good and getting free fruit from our new friend the fruit vendor, Maria. Maria seems to love us (and is totally charmed by the fact that we attempt to use Italian when speaking with her); she is always pushing more fruit into our hands, giving us slices of fresh figs and the biggest grapes I've ever seen.
Back at Linguaviva, we begin our afternoon with a celebration of Gretchen's birthday. Jodi brought in a cookie platter full of traditional Italian cookies for all 29 of us and we sang "happy birthday" before our lecture for the day. While we were eating, Jodi gave a presentation on Florence's history (abridged), which was pretty cool.
Afterwards, Ian, Isa, Gretchen, and I walked over to the travel agency that has worked with ACM students before, to pick up train tickets for a trip to the beach in Cecina on Sunday. We decided we wanted to visit the Mediterranean, so by golly we're going to do it. Random shopping follows our travel agency excursion - mostly we just walk around exploring. (Note: the € .99 store is amazing.) I had my daily gelato (chocolate and banana this time) and then Ian, Isa, and I walked over to a small park and just sat on a bench in the sun, enjoying the breeze and talking. We sat there for almost an hour, planning our imaginary radio show (titled "daily gelato time with Isa, Anna, and Ian") and having a grand old time.
Eventually we all went our separate ways, since it was time to head back to our respective host families and get ready for dinner. My host mom made us butterfly pasta with tomato sauce, baked fish, steamed zucchini (which I'm trying to get the recipe for), and fresh fruit in syrup. Our dinner conversation was trilingual - one of Anna's previous foreign exchange students came over for dinner (Janet, from Mexico City). Janet was really sweet - and a Linguaviva student! - and so we had Spanish, English, and Italian going at dinner. It was pretty fun to see how we all could still manage to communicate, despite not really speaking each other's languages. We cobbled together a language of our own that served us quite well. It was cool to be reminded that there are certain things that transcend language, like smiles, laughter, and food.
Later on after dinner, I finished up my Italian homework (conjugating verbs - woo!) and had an unexpected facebook chat session with my parents. It was really good to talk with them... and we set up a skype date! I think that's what I miss most right now, talking with my parents whenever I want. While I'm at Coe, I text my parents pretty often, telling them about random happenings in my day, jokes from class, and more. Here, I can't really do that. We still talk, but it's very different. I'm having fun with new people and new places, but I do miss the closeness that I have with my parents when I'm at college in the States (even though I'm five hours away in Iowa!). Oh well. Skyping will be nice.
Yay for Skype, yay for the universal languages of smiles, laughter, and food, and yay for the little things that make life fun.
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Dad