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!
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!
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