Pompeii Photojournal: 11/23 - 11/25

Isa, Gretchen, Jessika, and I took a trip down South with the intent of seeing ruins, drinking fresh orange juice, and seeing more of this big world we live in. I think it's safe to say we succeeded on all three counts.

Hanging out in Sorrento, on the dock.

My first picture with Santa! 

In front of the Christmas tree in Sorrento.

Isa and me, post-shopping.

And then this happened. POMPEII.

And I was ALL OVER the ruins. Literally.

The Thinker comes to Pompeii.

Epic pose for an epic place.

Frescoes in the House of Mysteries. So cool!

The statuary garden -- meaning statues of dead people. Formed by lava. Dang nature.

Temple of Isis.

Tell me this isn't one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen.
We spent 6.5 hours here and I didn't want to leave.

But then we did this the next morning! Mount Vesuvius!
They call these the "foothills."

The crater!

Yes, that's some smoke. (And some clouds.)

This is as far as we could see.

Made it!

All in all, super fun weekend in Sorrento, Pompeii, and on the mountain (volcano). Woo!

11/19 - 11/22: Papers and Thanksgiving

Monday, November 19:
If you have ever tried to explain interpretative dance to someone totally unfamiliar with the concept, you will understand how weird today was. If have NOT ever tried to explain interpretative dance to someone totally unfamiliar with the concept, you should probably keep it that way. It's weird. The day started with an extra long class with Gail at Santa Maria Novella -- after months of walking past the church, I finally got to go inside! However I was slightly distracted by the thought of the papers we have due in the next couple of days, so I feel like I didn't appreciate it like I should have. Kebabs for lunch fixed that though. (Students: there's a kebab place on Via Faenza and another on the way to the Immigration Office -- seek them out.) After Italian, where we tried to explain interpretative dance to our teacher, I grabbed gelato and headed back to the house. My afternoon and evening were consumed with a paper for Jodie, interrupted only by dinner (rice with chicory, spinach frittatas, salad, and apples). Bonus: I held my own in some relatively successful dinner conversation, asking questions and making (get this--) meaningful contributions. Score.

Tuesday, November 20:
Gender class was at the Uffizi Gallery this morning, where we looked at more work by the female artists we've been discussing: Lavinia Fontana and Artemisia Gentileschi. I also found my favorite Judith and Holofernes yet (Artemisia's; I've included it below).

Artemisia Gentileschi's appropriately bloody Judith and Holofernes.

A few of us then had a nice coffee break, since we headed straight from the Uffizi to Santa Trinita, where we had class with Jodi. We got there early, owing to the fact that the two sites were much closer than we thought. A nice, unexpected break. After class, I splurged on peanut butter to go with my apples and bread (and discovered that I was much more tired of sandwiches than I had thought), before doing some researching, academic and recreational. After proof-reading, doing homework, and generally being more productive than normal, I decided that I deserved a break and read the rest of a play called The Deceived, that we'd been introduced to in Gender. It is hilarious. I don't remember if I've talked about it before, but everyone should read it. After dinner (pasta, salmon, cauliflower, and grapes), I spent the rest of the evening killing mosquitos. A matter of survival, really.

Wednesday, November 21:
What a lovely pseudo-day off. I had nothing except Italian, so I slept in, took care of some postcards, ate a pint of gelato, checked out more books (I'm up to 8 now), and bought train tickets to Naples for this weekend. Gretchen, Isa, Jessika, and I are headed to Pompeii! When I headed back to the house, there was a guy painting the entryway to the building, so I stopped and chatted with him for a little while. I might have tricked him into thinking I spoke Italian? It was surprising. Dinner was soup, chicken, salad, and grapes. And Nonna brought down my excitement over thinking I may have successfully had a conversation with the painter man by asking what language I was speaking -- while I was speaking Italian. Face palm.

Thursday, November 22:
Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving Day in Italy feels like just another day... mostly because it is. Sarah, Gretchen, and I took the bus in to the train station, where we met up with the whole group and bussed out to Poggio a Caiano to see the old Medici country villa. After a short stop here,  we continued to a very old, very famous vineyard for a tour of the oil making facilities plus the winery. Then lunch - a delicious, traditional Italian harvest feast. Crostini with spinach and white beans, pasta with vegetables, strip steak and MASHED POTATOES. I got seconds. Of everything. We visited the giftshop, got group pictures, and took the bus back to Florence, where my host mom had dinner all ready for us (noodle soup, roast beef, squash, clementines, and walnuts). After everything at lunch, I almost wasn't hungry. Afterwards, I packed. Pompeii tomorrow!

Poggio a Caiano

The group, listening to Jodie.

Olive oil in the making! Yes, it's green.

Grapes in the middle of their drying process.

All the special reserve wine. Actually, this is just one shelf full!

Gretchen, Isa, and myself, goofing off with the olive oil.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello all!

This is just a quick update: first, Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers. Thanksgiving in Italy feels like just another day, though Jodie arranged a really fun day for us all (including an oil and wine tasting harvest lunch!). But more about that later. Second, blog updates are coming. I promise. Expect the first one Sunday night or Monday afternoon (Florence time)! Tons of stuff has been happening, meaning I've been traveling as much as possible, meaning I haven't had time to blog because I'm never around. But I'm going to fix that. Soon.

Until then,

Anna

P.S. only 23 more days left in Italy! Wow! 

11/12 - 11/18: Oh yeah, and then I went to Rome

Monday, November 12:
So it was definitely tough to get up this morning. Not only was I no longer in Paris, but I was also feeling sick. But I dragged my butt out of bed anyway and went about my day. (Look at me, being an adult and all that.) Today seemed to be rough for everyone though, so after class at Santa Croce, Gail took us to a bar, where she treated us to cappuccino or hot chocolate (our choice) and gave our midterms back. Now, a quick word on hot chocolate. Here in Italy, hot chocolate is cioccolata calda. It is very thick, very creamy, and very good. Some people serve it with cream, but I just think that's unnecessary. It's amazing stuff, you don't really need the cream, and you pretty much have to eat it with a spoon. If you try to just drink it, it's like drinking a chocolate puree (or stew, whichever) it's that thick. Needless to say, I love it. Made my day much better. After that, Caitlin, Gretchen, and I grabbed sandwiches for lunch and headed back to Linguaviva for Italian (where, I'm not ashamed to admit, I struggled to pay attention). Then I was done with class for the day, so I started doing some reading that I'd brought along with me, but ended up leaving because there was enough going on around me that I couldn't concentrate. So I got gelato and went back to the house. Dinner was squash and star pasta soup, frittatas, broccoli, kiwi and apples. I managed to tell my host mom that Frittata Night was always a good night. She enjoyed that. The rest of my night consisted of missing Paris and being largely unmotivated.

Tuesday, November 13:
Today can be summed up in one sentence: I walked two miles to school today, what did you do? It was a nice walk though, so I guess that's good. I had my Gender class in Palazzo Pitti (the Galleria Palatina -- worth it, everyone should go) and I had a lot of fun. Sarah (professor, not roommate) came up with a list of paintings and then turned us loose on the gallery, telling us it was a scavenger hunt and that she wanted us to write our thoughts/impressions/whatever about the paintings on the sheet. It was very freeing, getting to come up with my own thoughts on a painting rather than being told what it all represents. It's nice to have professors who can tell you every single detail about a piece of art, but it was also nice to have a break from that and be able to form my own opinions and attribute my own meaning. After class, I walked back to Linguaviva for class with Jodie (Florence and Rome, anticipating this weekend's trip), lunch, reading, emails, more reading, sitting in on Jodie's other class (by invitation), and then having Rome Orientation. After bus-ing back to the apartment, more reading (darn article summary), and then a late dinner (pasta, chicken burgers, stewed kale, apples, and some nut bar things that almost broke my teeth). Once dinner was over, I skyped with friends from home and then churned out 80% of my article summary for tomorrow afternoon. Woohoo.

Wednesday, November 14:
It's a sad day when I call sleeping until 8:45am "sleeping in." This is what my life has become. I finished that last little bit of my article summary and then went in to Linguaviva, where I did normal school things (like Italian, where we worked on the imperative). After that, I had class at Santa Croce again, where I made my little brother's day by taking a picture of Machiavelli's tomb and emailing it to him. Also, I was super productive between class (and gelato time) and dinner. I typed a header, title, and single sentence of one of my papers. I am an achiever. Dinner was this amazing squash soup, rabbit stuffed with egg, prosciutto, and vegetables, salad, and pears. Pears are apparently in season right now (along with oranges) and boy are they good. After dinner, I packed for Rome, since we leave pretty early tomorrow morning. Productivity!

Thursday, November 15:
Sarah and I left for the train station at 6:50 this morning, our group was on the train by 7:20, and we arrived in Rome at 9:20. What a whirlwind. After checking into the hotel, we walk to the Colosseum and I proceed to geek out for the rest of the morning/most of the afternoon. For a classics student, this is gold. Our guide, Angela, takes us to the basement level of the Colosseum and then to the upper level where tourists are not allowed, all the while talking about gladiators and ancient Rome, and emperors, and the controversies and scandals that accompany such things. I was in heaven. We broke for lunch (which was a bag lunch from my host mom) and then met up with Angela again to walk the Capitoline Hill and ancient Forum. SO MANY RUINS. Afterwards, Jodie and Gail took us on a short walking tour (optional, so some people went back to the hotel) which included gelato at Giolitti's (chocolate and red currant for me), Santa maria sopra Minerva, the Pantheon, and the Piazza with the four rivers fountain. Then Isa, Gretchen, Ian, and I looked around for dinner. We ended up in Campo dei Fiori, where there are a million restaurants and a million more waiters, trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. We ended up scoring some free prosecco simply because we chatted with the lady hawking food in front of the restaurant we ended up eating at. After dinner, Isa, Ian, and I walked to the Trevi Fountain (which was actually a bit of a hike), which was beautiful and worth it. Also, going late at night seemed to be the thing to do... there were still people around, but much fewer than there are during the day (as we found out later). We made wishes, threw in coins, and took pictures.

Friday, November 16:
It's Vatican day! We were up early again for breakfast in the hotel (which was much heartier than normal Italian breakfast), where I had pastries, and cereal, and fruit, and some of the best orange juice ever. We walked as a group over to Castel Sant'Angelo (and our first view of the Tiber) before entering Vatican City. We went through security (yes, there's a security checkpoint) then walked through St. Peter's Basilica, which is gorgeous and huge and unbelievably extravagant and oh my gosh Bernini. We came back outside to find the square was closed for a special VIP (no one was allowed in, so we were lucky we made it before the VIP). We found out later it was the President of the Ivory Coast. Cool! We walked around the piazza to get to the super secret back entrance of St. Peter's for our tour of the Necropolis. AHHHH. There were Swiss guards and security checkpoints and a guided tour of the Necropolis. Holy crap. We were split into three groups for the tour, since there was no way all of us could get through all at once. There are too many of us. My group's guide happened to be a graduate student from Texas. Small world. We looked at ancient tombs, St. Peter's memorial (built by Constantine), and then saw Peter's bones in a very small box in the heart of the Necropolis. It was surreal. Our guide read from Matthew 16:13-20 (Peter's confession of faith) while we were standing there, looking at the bones, and I seriously got goosebumps. It was one of those moments when I could hardly believe that this was real life. Wow. After our tour, we had some time to kill, so Megan and I went back into the Basilica to marvel at Bernini and take pictures. We also almost snuck back into the crypt, but decided that might be a poor decision. On our to the next group meeting point I grabbed some loaded veggie pizza (which was delicious, but strangely salty) and then we met up with Jodie at the Vatican Museum. We divide into two groups this time and I went with Gail for a highlight tour of the museum. We saw the Laocoon statue and a bunch of other ancient stuff before going through the rooms of Raphael and the Sistine Chapel. Now here's the kicker: we got kicked out of the Sistine Chapel. The guards determined that out of all the tourists who were in there and were talking, we were the most threatening, so we were told we had to leave. They got a little mean about it too. That ended our tour, so Isa, Gretchen, Ian, and I went back to look at more ancient art. We hit up the Egyptian collection (because I probably would have pitched a fit if we hadn't) and I... get this... found a mistake. Two of the items were incorrectly labeled, which is easy to fix, but the fact that there was a mistake at all kind of upset me. We met up with Megan as the museum was closing and headed back to Giolitti's for more gelato (pear, cinnamon, and chocolate this time). Dinner happened, but we were all so tired that we didn't really do much. I did have really good tiramisu though.

Saturday, November 17:
Today was our free day. Most people used it as a chance to do homework, but I took Jodie up on her offer of optional walking tours. We started at Villa Farnesina, which was a "pleasure house" in it's time, which is exactly what it sounds like. After exploring the garden and looking through all the frescoed rooms, we were free to do as we pleased. I ended up grabbing lunch at a bakery near the hotel and going to the Four Rivers fountain to watch the others draw. Most everyone in the program is in the drawing class and their weekly homework is to draw certain buildings, statues, fountains, etc. around Florence. However, since their teachers knew we were going to Rome, they assigned a certain part of the Four Rivers fountain. Hence, people were drawing. I ended up doing a drawing of my own too (the only one I'll do this semester) but it wasn't too fancy. The next walking tour was supposed to be to St. Peter in the Chains to see Michelangelo's tomb of Julius II, but they were prepping for a concert and had closed the church without notice. So that was kind of a bust. However, we segued to San Clemente, which was cool. San Clemente is a church built on top of a church built on top of a church built on top of a temple. So that's pretty exciting. They've opened up the basement (crypt level) so that people can view the remains of the other buildings. Awesome. The mosaics inside were incredible but then going downstairs and seeing the ancient sarcophagi was even better. Jeez. After San Clemente, a small group of us walked to the Trevi fountain again and then to the Spanish steps. Both crowded. We then walked the street in front of the Spanish steps, which is like Designer Way. Think a combination of Champs Elysees and 5th Ave in New York. That was this street. I felt out of place but thankfully was well dressed enough that I could go into these big designer stores (boutiques?) and act snooty and not be totally looked down upon. So that was fun.

Sunday, November 18:
Since we were leaving in the afternoon, our morning was spent rushing around getting packed up again and taking our bags to the hotel's storage room. We then took another optional tour of the Capitoline Museum. It was super exciting for me because it was, again, dream world for a classics student. However, I had trouble keeping up with the group because I kept stopping to look at everything (and in my mind, give things the attention they deserved); at one point Jessika, Caitlin, and I got completely separated from the group and spent 20 minutes trying to figure out where they had gone. When we got back together with them someone asked if we had gotten lost, to which I replied "oh no we weren't lost. We knew exactly where we were, we just had no clue where you were" which was exactly the case. We grabbed lunch quickly (but at a sit down place, so it was all good) before getting on our bus back to Florence. We had a stop at the Villa Borghese, where we toured the Galleria Borghese and  I had another "Holy Crap Bernini" moment. Rather, moments. There's a lot of Bernini in there. We then took the bus back to Florence, ate dinner (meal -the grain- with vegetables, sauteed liver, veggies burgers, raw carrots, delicious green beans, and pears), skyped with my parents, uploaded photos, and told myself that I should blog.

So there... another week!

Paris Photojournal: 11/9 - 11/11

That's right: Paris. The city I love. Gretchen, Isa, and I decided on a whim a few weeks ago that we wanted to go to Pairs, so we did! That's the beauty of study abroad - you can travel wherever you want, for the weekend. How amazing to be able to say, "Oh yes, I went to Paris for the weekend." I felt much fancier than I really am.

So without further ado, here's the photojournal of my weekend. There was lots of walking, lots of sight-seeing, and lots of a macaroons. And chai. It was beautiful.

Christmas in the Amsterdam airport! Way early, but still.

In front of the opera house. (L to R: Gretchen, Isa, me)

Gretchen and me at Place de Concorde.

Isa and me on Pont de la Concorde.

The Louvre at night!

Proof: we went, we saw, we conquered.

Travel-weary, but in front of the Mona Lisa.

Hall upon hall of statues at the Louvre.

MONSTER CHAI

We were serenaded at breakfast.

In front of the Eiffel Tower!

On the batobus, on the way to Notre Dame.

Notre Dame!

On our way to Notre Dame.

My favorite rose window in Notre Dame.

Pieta altar piece in Notre Dame.

Gargoyles atop Notre Dame.

The view from the top of Notre Dame.

Arc de Triomphe

Just before we climbed the Eiffel Tower.

Hot spiced wine at dinner!

Hotel des Invalides garden.

MACAROON.

And... the alps. They were on beautiful on our flight back to Florence.

So there you go. Paris. I ate all the food I could, we fit as much sight-seeing in as possible, and got really depressed when we had to leave. Seriously, the most difficult thing I've done all semester was leave Paris. Sad day. 

11/4 - 11/8: Gelato Makes Everything Better.

Sunday, November 4:
Alright, so there's this diner. It's an American style diner. It's in Florence, near the Bargello museum. It's kind of amazing. We ate brunch there this morning and I had the best breakfast sandwich of my life. Bacon, eggs, and cheddar cheese. Three things that don't happen in Italy. (Well, eggs happen, but not for breakfast.) After brunch, gelato, and some walking, Gretchen and I came back to my house, fully intending to study for our midterm... and ended up being on Pinterest the whole time. (Pinterest: world's biggest time waster.) After Gretchen left, I did eventually get some homework done, killing mosquitos all the while, before dinner (pasta with cheese, fish filets with the best broccoli ever, kiwi, and apples). After that I skyped with my family and tried my hardest to finish reading an article for class. It was quite dense. I may or may not have skimmed a lot of it. It's the thought that counts?

Monday, November 5:
Class with Gail was at Linguaviva this morning, not on site. It was kind of nice to be able to sit in a real chair at a real table and take notes, rather than doing it all while standing, but it felt a little weird NOT being on site. A little boring. Hmm. I hope this doesn't mean I'll be bored when I get back on campus. We received our take-home midterm today, so that'll have to happen soon, and then had a quick lunch before Italian class. I discovered I may actually understand indirect objects with the past tense, although I'm not positive when to use it. We had a surprise birthday party for Jodie after Italian, with little pies that we cut up for everyone. I ended up eating way more pie than I was anticipating, simply because they needed to be finished and everyone now knows that if there is food in front of me, I'll do my best to finish it. So I had six pieces. Yikes. After doing some homework at Linguaviva, I grabbed gelato and headed back to the house for an early dinner (vegetable soup, chicken burgers, stewed fennel, and kiwi) and more reading. All of the articles for the week seem ridiculous, but I work my through them, slowly but surely. I also got word that I'm in Coe's production of "By the Bog of Cats" next semester, so that's exciting. Hurray for being busy with theater. Also, I experienced that magical homework time-warp again where I got all my reading done but it went from being 8pm to 12:30am far too quickly.

Tuesday, November 6:
Election Day is quite stressful when you're abroad. On the one hand, I voted weeks ago (the perks of an absentee ballot) so I feel like the campaigning has stretched on far too long (yes, I know I'm not the only one), on the other hand, you're getting ALL of your information filtered through other sources. The Italians have much different priorities concerning this election than the Americans do. For instance, the Italians all thought the outcome of the election was pretty much decided already. For them, there was no contest. So none of them understood when we students explained that, no, things were actually pretty close and a lot of people were worried about the outcome. That didn't ever register for them. They had no idea. So here we all were, trying to find out what was going on at home, with no real way of doing it. Sure there are news networks, but a lot of videos don't play in Italy (we're not in the right "region" for viewing) and we're hearing only what we manage to catch between classes. The official results also came in between 4am - 6am for us, which meant the wait was even longer. Like I said, stressful. So I tried to distract myself with class. We watched a movie on Renaissance female patronage and music in my Gender class and then I went to Santissima Annunziata for my Medici class (where we almost interrupted Mass). After lunch and talk of James Bond at Linguaviva, I got gelato with Megan and Jessika before heading back to the house. I sat down and tackled my take-home midterm before dinner (polenta with spaghetti sauce, fish and cauliflower, grapes and walnuts). I skyped with friends from back home (which was nice), chatted with others, tried to do some more homework, and was too distracted by election stuff. My election prediction was that the Cubs would win it in the bottom of the ninth. Why not.

Wednesday, November 7:
I started my day off with gelato, because why not? I felt like I somehow deserved it. Because of yesterday's election and today's results, we talked politics for a little while in Italian. We ended up having to explain American politics to our Italian teacher, Stefano, after which he asked if any of us would ever considering going into politics. Most people said "maybe." How delightfully vague. After Italian I headed off to the Accademia for class with Gail, which meant that I finally got to see the David! It was strange though. I can see why people love it, but it's weirdly disproportionate to the point of almost looking unnatural. However the good news was that I decided I liked the Accademia much better than the Uffizi. They've both got some great works in them, but I prefer the Accademia. Sarah and I headed back to the house, where I did some reading, got some other work done, and then had dinner with Linda (the house-keeper) and Nonna (star pasta soup - seriously, the pasta is shaped like stars -, corned beef and cabbage, kiwi, apples, and walnuts). Anna had meetings at work all afternoon and evening, so that's why she wasn't with us. Nonna was super sassy tonight though, telling Linda off when she told her not to feed the dog anymore food from the table. Yikes. It was an interesting dinner.

Thursday, November 8:
Today was my day of all of the in-class sessions! Really, that's all I did. Gender class, Medici class, Italian. All right in a row. I decided that I needed a gelato break before I started in on homework, so I treated myself to a medium cup at La Carraia. Big spender over here. When I got back to the house, I packed for my big weekend trip (which gets its own post), had dinner (pasta with oil and cheese, frittatas, salad, and apples), and then did more readings and some paper-writing. Tonight was a long night though, because I didn't actually go to sleep. Well, I took a nap, but still. Because of my trip (and a flight that left at 6:30am) I decided to just stay up, because why not. I was already up late enough doing homework anyway, I figured I might as well stay up and get more done. I took a 2 hour nap around 2am, after which Gretchen, Isa, and I got in a taxi to the airport where we checked in for our flight, had a small breakfast, and waited impatiently for our flight to leave. But that'll be in the next post. Expect pictures!

10/28 - 11/3: Breaking out the Norwegian Sweater

Sunday, October 28:
While, technically, I did cover October 28 in my photo-journal of fall break, there were a few other things I wanted to cover.

1. Daylight Savings Time. DSL happens a week earlier in Italy than it does in the US. That being said, even though we had advanced notice, Sarah and I were still quite confused when we woke up this morning. Did our technology know to change? Had it? What time was it?! These were the important questions we were asking ourselves. We finally figured it out though. Thank God for technology that's smarter than we are.

2. Italy gets cold. Remember that I mentioned I wanted warm hands. This still holds true. The confusing part is that THE MOSQUITOES REFUSE TO DIE. I'm sitting here, freezing my butt off, and am still waking up in the morning with fresh mosquito bites. My frustration knows no bounds.

3. Maggio cards. Students thinking about doing this trip, you will get a Maggio card. USE IT. It will change your life. The Maggio card is the student card provided by the city's art/music/theater company. The Maggio card allows you to go to fancy concerts, ballets, and operas and sit in really nice seats for the low, low price of €10. Please take advantage of this. Please. You won't regret it.

Megan and I went, despite the cold, to grab gelato before hitting up a concert this afternoon, which was awesome, as usual. Quality stuff, these concerts. We saw the second to last the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino's Guest Director series, which meant Juraj Valcuha directing the Fiorentino orchestra for Debussy, Rachmaninov, Bartok, and Ravel. Awesome. The Debussy was divine. Seriously, the concerts here are amazing and so worth it.

I then spent the last few hours of my fall break skyping my family, sending off an internship application, and reading a crappy romance novel just because I could.

Monday, October 29:
It was officially Norwegian Sweater Day. I had been waiting for NSD for a while, but it was finally cold enough that I felt confident I would need the extra layering power of the magical Norwegian Sweater. After looking at the weather I felt like a bit of a baby, but man, 59 degrees (F) has never felt so cold. Sarah, Gretchen, and I walked to Orsanmichele for class with Gail. Most of the day is spent talking about everyone's fall break activities. We have a confusing Italian lesson where we are told we'll be learning about gerunds.... and then don't. Dinner was late tonight, which meant being cold and not really doing anything for longer than usual. However, it was worth the wait. We had pasta (AND I GOT SECONDS), frittatas, stewed cabbage, salad, and bread. No fruit though, which was strange. It didn't matter though, because Frittata Night is the best of nights. I ended up spending my evening going between homework and fantasizing about Norwegian Socks, since I couldn't feel my toes from about 3pm onwards.

Tuesday, October 30:
Today was about learning valuable lessons. Lesson 1, coffee without milk is not something I enjoy. Lesson 2, the Medici went all out when it came to weddings. Lesson 3, no one in Italy is allowed to turn their heat on before November 1, so we've got a few really cold days still ahead of us. Lesson 4, Ian and I are good shopping buddies. We both needed shoes and, by George, we got two fine pairs of shoes. We also got gelato and made a cat friend. Lesson 4, I do not like liver. Dinner was chicken, liver, salad, stewed onions, really good bread, and a pear. I then finished a take home midterm and had lesson number 5: layering of blankets is a good thing. We're on blanket number 3.

Wednesday, October 31:
Happy Halloween! Since it's a Wednesday, I had time to carefully put together my costume for the day, which was... *drumroll*.... Jodie. Yes, I was Jodie for Halloween. The best part was when Jodie saw me and complimented me on my outfit. She said I looked really stylish. Perfect opportunity for me to say "well actually...." The people that realized who I was supposed to be thought it was pretty entertaining. Winning costume, if you ask me. Italian class was pretty low-key, it started to rain, and I went to Santissima Annunziata for class with Gail. We've just started a unit on Miraculous Madonnas, so we're tromping all over the city to see said miracle-working Madonnas. Exciting stuff. Then, in a case of "it's a small world after all," I end up saying hi to Gail for one of my professors back at home who used to work on the Florence program. All my professors know each other and now they're all talking about me. Simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. Back at the apartment, I did some reading and other work until dinner (pesto pasta, chicken burgers, vegetable stew, and apples), after which THE HEAT COMES ON!!!! But it doesn't really touch our bedroom. If you stand quite close to the heater, you're good. Unfortunately, our beds are not quite close to the heater. Hurray for blankets.

Thursday, November 1:
It's a national holiday in Italy today (All Saints' Day), so my host mom doesn't have to go to school. We at the ACM however, do have to go to school. I start my day at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi with my gender class, where, since it's rainy and we can't go see the gardens, we read aloud from a play that would have been performed at one of the Medici weddings. It's called The Deceived, was published in 1538, and is considered the prototype for Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Needless to say, it's hilarious. Seriously, one of the raunchiest, funniest things I've ever read. I loved it. Because it's a holiday, hardly any shops were open. This meant that no gelaterias were open. I had a moment of panic before Megan and I headed to the Conad to introduce ourselves to store bought gelato, which comes in pints. (Cue Pippin's voice from Fellowship of the Ring: "it comes in pints?" Yes. Yes it does.) I ate an entire pint entirely too fast. Dinner back at the apartment is soup, a salad consisting of eggs, hotdogs, and potatoes, and stewed cabbage. My host mom talked a lot about feminism in Italy, which would have been much cooler if I had been able to understand more of it. As it was, I felt kind of lost the whole time.

Friday, November 2:
It was a weird Friday in that we had class today. Ew. How ever will I go back to class five days a week? The day started at the Bargello, where we got to go upstairs to the super secret closed off rooms which hold Donatello's David. After class was finished, Jodie invited anyone who was interested to join her next class at Palazzo Pitti, where the Michelangelo class would be visiting the Palatine Gallery. Four of us tagged along, and since we weren't actually in class, we were free to bounce between the class and whatever artwork that caught our eyes. We found what I am convinced is the most beautiful portrait bust ever. The picture does not exist on the internet, which is one of the most unfortunate things to ever happen to the world. However, if anyone ever shows you the portrait bust of Leopold II Hapsburg-Lorraine by Ottaviano Giovannozzi know that it is beautiful. Afterwards a few of us went to a place called Gusta Pizza, which was delicious. I won the "eating pizza the fastest" contest and then we talked about eating contests. I'm a winner. We also had gelato, where I had chocolate orange and cream. We then walked to Sant'Ambrogio for class with Gail to talk about Eucharistic miracles. After dinner (pasta with oil, meatballs, stewed cabbage, and a special treat of this chestnut cake/fudge/thing, I'm not sure what it was), Sarah and I headed out to the movie theater with some friends to see the new James Bond movie, Skyfall.  SO AWESOME.

Saturday, November 3:
I slept in a little bit and then met up with Ian for a day trip to San Gimignano (affectionately known as San Jimmy because we are incapable of saying San Gimignano half the time). We took the SITA bus to San Jimmy or so we thought -- we ended up in Siena and then had to catch the bus to Poggibonsi, where we changed buses (like no one had told us we needed to) to get to San Jimmy. Thankfully an Italian couple was experiencing the same problems that we were and were able to actually communicate with the bus driver (and us). We finally got to San Gimignano, had lunch, and walked around the town. We climbed towers (which is what San Jimmy is known for), walked through museums, and looked through some churches. Normal things, really. We also snuck into a wine museum, which was technically closed, but the last group was going through, so we snuck in the exit and joined in. We then stopped in at a World Cup winning gelateria, which had the best gelato I've ever tasted. After that, we took the bus back to Florence, where my host mom's daughter and her boyfriend were over for dinner. That meant even more delicious food than normal. Eat all the food!

And there you have it. One more week of my crazy existence in Florence, where I travel all over the place and eat everything I can get my hands on. Such is life.