Monday, November 26:
There comes a time in everyone's life when their schedule gets messed up (ok, this happens on a pretty regular basis, but bear with me). That was this week. There are both pros and cons to having a flexible class schedule. Things get rearranged based on who needs to go where for whatever class and when this or that is open. It happens. But it was our whole week. That meant everything was a little bit off. But we work around it! After class today, I researched (because I managed yet again to pick a final paper topic that is hard to find research material for) and had Italian class, where we finished the movie we started in September, "La Vita Bella." I'd never seen it before and, boy, was it sad. Good, but sad. And hurray for English subtitles. Our Italian teacher sensed the mood and assigned the much more cheerful "what did you do this weekend" composition work. I grabbed gelato (yes, I'm still on track to make my every day gelato goal) and headed back to the house.
Tuesday, November 27:
Early morning class today at San Marco and a segue to Sant'Apollonia, a nunnery nearby. Kebabs for lunch (I'm kind of obsessed with the spicy sauce they use here) and then I check out another book from the ACM library. That brings us to a total of 9. Class that afternoon was in the Uffizi, which I'm actually a little tired of. There's some beautiful work in there and I'm glad we saw some different rooms today, but I don't like the layout of the exhibits and I really don't like how they trap you inside. It takes entirely too long to get through all of the levels and different wings and the maze of rooms, not to mention the 5 mile giftshop. I cheered myself up by going to the Venchi chocolate store for gelato afterwards. Dinner was lentil soup (nice, on such a rainy day), liver, vegetable bake, pears, and kiwi, after which I read a book on Italian poets and their work in preparation for my final gender paper (and discover that I picked the right major, because I really enjoy it and it doesn't feel like homework).
Wednesday, November 28:
We started learning future tense in Italian today. Since we'd been told that there was no future tense, this caught a few of us off-guard. So be warned: there's a future tense. After class in Santa Croce and the refectory-turned-museum, I went to Vivoli -- first, because it's close; second, because I needed my gelato for the day. It was once again, pouring rain. This is apparently normal in Italy in November. We have had unseasonably nice weather, since it's been dry, sunny, and warm (relatively speaking). At dinner, my host mom made a point of telling us that the pasta was very special -- from Sardinia. I think she somehow found out about my detailed records of the food we're eating. Or she could just be excited about the pasta. I know I was. We had homemade fish sticks, peas, and apples with our "pasta from Sardinia" and then I did homework. The end.
Thursday, November 29:
Gender class this morning consisted of individual meetings about our final projects with Sarah K. It's still hard to believe the end of the semester is closing in... at least enough to have to start thinking about final projects. I shared my outline (and the prospectus I had written up) with Sarah and got some good positive feedback from her. I've done a lot of reading from that book on Italian poetry, focusing in particular on female poets. It's worlds away from something that I would normally write at Coe (since I usually focus on early modern Brit Lit, not early renaissance Italian Lit), and so far I'm enjoying it! Class with Jodie was in Casa Buonarroti today, where I gave an oral presentation on an artist named Pietro Torrigiano (perhaps most famous for punching Michelangelo in the nose). On the way back to school, two of the girls and I stopped to get smoothies (banana and kiwi for me) at a shop that had a really hilarious sign left over from when the cast of Jersey Shore visited Florence, which read "No Jersey Shore Allowed." HA! Back at the apartment, dinner was some super delicious wild rice with squash, chicken and potatoes, and some pears and oranges.
Friday, November 30:
The whole group went to a concert at the Opera House this morning! Well, really it was the dress rehearsal for a concert, but they invited a number of Florentine schools to bring their classes. I'm becoming quite familiar with the Opera House though, since Megan and I have gone to so many concerts in the last few weeks. It's got (nerd alert) some great acoustics. I became the stuff of legend in our group when a pre-teen kept kicking my chair during the concert and I turned around, whacked in the knee, and said "basta!" (enough) with my meanest teacher face. I'm pretty sure I scared the crap out of him and his friends, because they didn't move for the rest of the concert. A group of us went to the American diner after the concert, since we were in the mood for a little taste of home. I had a bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. I even ate the whipped cream. (Desperation, thy name is cream.) After lunch, Isa, Gretchen, and I spent some time not focusing on our homework and instead assigning pokemon characters to our classmates. I, apparently, am Charmander.
There comes a time in everyone's life when their schedule gets messed up (ok, this happens on a pretty regular basis, but bear with me). That was this week. There are both pros and cons to having a flexible class schedule. Things get rearranged based on who needs to go where for whatever class and when this or that is open. It happens. But it was our whole week. That meant everything was a little bit off. But we work around it! After class today, I researched (because I managed yet again to pick a final paper topic that is hard to find research material for) and had Italian class, where we finished the movie we started in September, "La Vita Bella." I'd never seen it before and, boy, was it sad. Good, but sad. And hurray for English subtitles. Our Italian teacher sensed the mood and assigned the much more cheerful "what did you do this weekend" composition work. I grabbed gelato (yes, I'm still on track to make my every day gelato goal) and headed back to the house.
Tuesday, November 27:
Early morning class today at San Marco and a segue to Sant'Apollonia, a nunnery nearby. Kebabs for lunch (I'm kind of obsessed with the spicy sauce they use here) and then I check out another book from the ACM library. That brings us to a total of 9. Class that afternoon was in the Uffizi, which I'm actually a little tired of. There's some beautiful work in there and I'm glad we saw some different rooms today, but I don't like the layout of the exhibits and I really don't like how they trap you inside. It takes entirely too long to get through all of the levels and different wings and the maze of rooms, not to mention the 5 mile giftshop. I cheered myself up by going to the Venchi chocolate store for gelato afterwards. Dinner was lentil soup (nice, on such a rainy day), liver, vegetable bake, pears, and kiwi, after which I read a book on Italian poets and their work in preparation for my final gender paper (and discover that I picked the right major, because I really enjoy it and it doesn't feel like homework).
Wednesday, November 28:
We started learning future tense in Italian today. Since we'd been told that there was no future tense, this caught a few of us off-guard. So be warned: there's a future tense. After class in Santa Croce and the refectory-turned-museum, I went to Vivoli -- first, because it's close; second, because I needed my gelato for the day. It was once again, pouring rain. This is apparently normal in Italy in November. We have had unseasonably nice weather, since it's been dry, sunny, and warm (relatively speaking). At dinner, my host mom made a point of telling us that the pasta was very special -- from Sardinia. I think she somehow found out about my detailed records of the food we're eating. Or she could just be excited about the pasta. I know I was. We had homemade fish sticks, peas, and apples with our "pasta from Sardinia" and then I did homework. The end.
Thursday, November 29:
Gender class this morning consisted of individual meetings about our final projects with Sarah K. It's still hard to believe the end of the semester is closing in... at least enough to have to start thinking about final projects. I shared my outline (and the prospectus I had written up) with Sarah and got some good positive feedback from her. I've done a lot of reading from that book on Italian poetry, focusing in particular on female poets. It's worlds away from something that I would normally write at Coe (since I usually focus on early modern Brit Lit, not early renaissance Italian Lit), and so far I'm enjoying it! Class with Jodie was in Casa Buonarroti today, where I gave an oral presentation on an artist named Pietro Torrigiano (perhaps most famous for punching Michelangelo in the nose). On the way back to school, two of the girls and I stopped to get smoothies (banana and kiwi for me) at a shop that had a really hilarious sign left over from when the cast of Jersey Shore visited Florence, which read "No Jersey Shore Allowed." HA! Back at the apartment, dinner was some super delicious wild rice with squash, chicken and potatoes, and some pears and oranges.
Friday, November 30:
The whole group went to a concert at the Opera House this morning! Well, really it was the dress rehearsal for a concert, but they invited a number of Florentine schools to bring their classes. I'm becoming quite familiar with the Opera House though, since Megan and I have gone to so many concerts in the last few weeks. It's got (nerd alert) some great acoustics. I became the stuff of legend in our group when a pre-teen kept kicking my chair during the concert and I turned around, whacked in the knee, and said "basta!" (enough) with my meanest teacher face. I'm pretty sure I scared the crap out of him and his friends, because they didn't move for the rest of the concert. A group of us went to the American diner after the concert, since we were in the mood for a little taste of home. I had a bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. I even ate the whipped cream. (Desperation, thy name is cream.) After lunch, Isa, Gretchen, and I spent some time not focusing on our homework and instead assigning pokemon characters to our classmates. I, apparently, am Charmander.
That afternoon, we stopped by the British Institute for a Christmas market/party that had been advertised at Cecil Studios (where most of my classmates have their drawing classes). It was a little disappointing, simply because it was nothing like we expected -- it turned out to be more of a bookstore/library open house than anything else. We ditched the party in favor of gelato at La Carraia, after which I split off from Isa, Gretchen, and Ian to go to Sarah K's apartment for a game night with my gender and music classmates! It took us about 45 minutes to get started (and even then we still didn't totally understand "The Patronage Game"), but it was fun. I took the bus back to the apartment, where I was met with a dinner of soup, a weird fish (that I think was called aringa) and polenta, frittatas and salad, and oranges. I tried to explain The Patronage Game to Anna and Nonna and learned that "board game" is "gioca di tavolo." After that, it was time for a night out on the town -- or at least a few drinks at the Irish Pub with Gretchen and Isa to end the night.
Saturday, December 1:
Today is the first day of Florence's Christmas festival, which features food, entertainment, and gifts from all over Europe. Gretchen, Isa, and I met up with Kara, Lauren, and Chelsea at Santa Croce, where the market was held, and spent a few hours wandering around the rows of stalls, sampling sausages, sauerkraut, pastries, and sweets. We all bought a number of presents for friends and family and then walked to Palazzo Vecchio to check out the Gucci Museum (which had been on our "Florence Bucket List" all semester). The Gucci Museum was super expensive (surprise, surprise), so we went to the Venchi chocolate store for gelato and chocolates to bring home as presents! Back at the apartment, Anna's daughter and her boyfriend were over, so we have more food than normal. Dinner was soup with some unidentified floating object (U.F.O.) in it, rabbit with an egg, prosciutto, and vegetable stuffing inside it, salad, stewed kale, pears, oranges, and walnuts for dessert. Anna and her daughter got into a spirited debate about education reforms at one point, which meant that Boyfriend and I sat very quietly and hoped we would not be asked our opinion (my method was to continuously stuff food in my mouth so that I could not talk even if asked to). Unfortunately, we weren't entirely successful; we both ended up being called upon, me to provide the term "wild west" (I have NO idea why) and Boyfriend to provide moral support. I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how the Wild West fit into education reforms.
Sunday, December 2:
Because one day at the Christmas market was not enough, today Ian and I spent some more time exploring. We met up at Santa Croce for lunch and ended up splitting four massive pieces of strudel (apple, frutti di bosco [mixed berry], cioccolata mandorla [chocolate almond], and apple). Both of our host moms had said there was another market happening rather close to Santa Croce, so once we had eaten, we decided to try and find it. The only directions we had were from my host mom, who had said "it's near the synagogue." Well, we found the synagogue, but there was no market. We canvased the neighborhood, but ended up heading back to Santa Croce for second lunch (we're part Hobbit?). I had the most wonderful wΓΌrstel sausage with sauerkraut. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city center, taking pictures (included below), and buying presents for people back at home. We've been here long enough now that we know where to go for certain items and have scouted out the best places to shop. It's a nice perk of this whole "living here for four months" thing! Back at the apartment, dinner consisted of pasta (which pretty much made my day), chicken, salad, stewed onions, pears, and oranges. Oranges are in season still, down south, and so they're cheaply available at the stores in Florence! They're delicious. After dinner, I skyped with my parents (as is our Sunday tradition) and then churned out part of a paper.
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| Part of the Christmas market! |
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| This is the type of food available. I felt like I was in the renaissance version of food-heaven. |
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| Strudel! |
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| Lovely Christmas decorations. |
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| Florence's synagogue. |
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