WAY TOO LONG

Ciao Tutti!

I'm so sorry that I have been slacking in the blog update department, however, I rest assured that you'll forgive me because this means that I've been out and about!

Lets start where I most recently left off...Around Valentine's Day- wow, I'm so behind!

Valentine's Weekend: a fun and relaxing weekend, half of our group went to Venice for Carnevale. This means that only two people were staying in my apartment and three in the other apartment-plus one guy stayed. It was so nice to have the apartment(s) to ourselves and to get away from some of the drama that a ten girl apartment ensues.

On Saturday-since it was Valentine's Day- the girls and I decided that we were going to cook dinner for everyone who had stayed in Florence, including our professor. Three of us ventured around to the market and made friends with the infamous guy who gives me amazing deals on tomatoes-which are quite tasty. He even wrote a sign in half Italian – half English about how he needed a valentine. Pictures are available on facebook.

After gathering all of the ingredients we began the cooking process, using both kitchens we made bruchetta, salad, asparagus, and shrimp linguini for seven people; quite an undertaking. It was well worth it and a very fun way to spend valentines day in Florence. On Sunday those of us who hadn't gone to Venice for the entire weekend went with the Accademia for the day. It was amazing to go and see this beautiful city-words can hardly describe, pictures do the best justice. The only downfall was that it was Carnevale and there were tons of people everywhere! We mainly walked around outside and skipped out on going into buildings-so I have more of a reason to go back.

This past week of classes (Feb. 16-20) has been hard. I think it's once again an adjustment thing-but I felt as if I was worse this past week than I had been during the first week of classes. Luckily I have a very understanding professor and he and I chatted about various things while taking a break from the mundane politics of Britain. He told me of two vegetarian restaurants to try and seemed to be worried that I hadn't been going out to dinner a lot and experiencing Florence. So I've now decided that I need to stop being so frugal and I need to live a little while I'm here.

This weekend was a very relaxing one-which is what I needed after this past week, but at the same time I've still not gotten caught up on my work-so tomorrow is going to be a hellacious day.

On Friday I went with the Art History trip to Lucca & Pisa. I think I've officially fallen in love with Italy. It was so so beautiful and very nice to get out of the hectic city life that has begun in Florence and will just worsen as the weather gets warmer and people start to take vacations here. I almost wish that I was studying abroad in Lucca. It was a very fun but long day of traveling around and seeing all there was to see, but for a free trip it was more than worth it. I climbed to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa, took almost 200 pictures, and came away with a desire to get in a car and drive aimlessly around the Tuscany area. If I have my choice-I think I would retire around that area, heck, I may even brush up on my Italian enough to move here one day-It's that amazing and beautiful.

For the rest of the weekend I took it easy. I went out for lunch and a bit of shopping yesterday- bought my first two pairs of skinny jeans… Then today some of the girls and I went to an American diner for brunch-so good! And then we wandered around for a bit…I bought a very cute little shirt for going out-and then came home and took a two hour nap-yikes.


THE NEXT WEEK Feb 23-March 1

Not much happened this week... Italian was extremely hard because we started learning the past participle and l'imperfetto- it's as hard as it sounds. We also had our first Italian test on Thursday, which was not fun, but at least that was all we did in Italian that day. The test was bad because for my Renaissance class I have a reading and a paper due each class day and my class days are Monday & Thursday-joyous. On Thursday we also went as a school to hear some of the voice students preform various songs, and then the Elon crowd went out for a large group dinner afterwards-I splurged and tried their lobster-YUM.

On Friday, Feb 27, I went with the art history class to Siena and San Gimignano. BEAUTIFUL. I am thinking and hoping to put my pictures on an online site that everyone can access.

Since I had a large paper, as well as my reading response paper, due for my Renaissance class on Monday, I didn't go anywhere for the weekend. I did however, get up on Saturday morning and go for a run along L'arno and through Parco Delle Cascine, which is about five bridges up from my apartment. It was a wonderful start to my day-I couldn't have asked for better weather or a better place to venture through. The park runs along the Arno and on one side has a larger grassy area with paths for running, biking, skating, then a small road-with a canopy of trees, and a small running path on the other side-which runs along a horse track! Very exciting to discover this. I actually ventured down to see the track, which I probably wasn't supposed to do, but there were people taking lessons/training on jumps-really neat. I turned my run around and headed for home when I reached the public soccer field, where a large group of males were playing soccer-fun to watch.

That pretty much completes my weekend-but it was a lot of fun!

This past week was even more of an adventure.

MARCH 2-8
After having taken our Italian test, we were placed into different Italian classes, but for Monday only Elon students were at school for class-so we discussed our test and then went for breakfast with the other classes-thank goodness! My class never went anywhere, while the others were always taking small field trips.

I now have a different teacher for my conversation, which is sad because I will miss Giuseppe and being called principessa in class haha. However Fede, my new teacher is really nice, and she makes the funniest hand motions during class.

The rest of the week continued pretty normally, my political science professor and I discussed what my 20+ paper topic will be and I won't have class with him for two weeks because he is going to Lebanon.

I also went to dinner with a small group of Elon students and the professor who came with us, on Elon's tab-thank goodness...We went to ZaZa's, which was such a fun atmosphere and very amazing food, plus a cute waiter. haha I ordered a type of calamari bruschetta and Salmon- so so so amazing, however it made me very very full.

On Friday, I went with the Art History class to Arezzo. It was nice- a free trip why not, but not somewhere that I loved entirely... THEN Grant, a guy who's here from Elon & I ventured to Milan. It was a really neat place to go. Very different from the fast paced Florence lifestyle. It was good to get away from the rest of the group, who went to rome, where Ive been before, and to also have a weekend where there was nothing to worry about.

I'm not sure what else to write about-PLEASE continue to keep me updated on your lives and don't hesitate to ask any questions if you want more information. I hope that you're all doing well & know that I miss you all!