Ci vediamo dopo, l'Italia!

After:

almost 4 months, countless new great friends, traveling to Florence, Venice, Rome, Sorrento, Capri, Pompeii, Siena, Perugia, Chianti, Paris, and back to Prague, learning a solid basic Italian, lots of gelato, pizza, pasta, and stir fry (our apartment specialty), giving over 50 tours at Palazzo Vecchio, completing 5 paintings and a portfolio of fashion photography, gaining 10 pounds (see gelato, etc. above!), and traveling back to the U.S. for over 20 hours........

.........I'm home.

Il mio ultimo giorno.

(My last day.)

Well, this is it. Today I have to finish my bucket list - see the last things to see, eat the last things to eat, say the last goodbyes to be said. :(

The past couple weeks have been really busy and really fun. I finished up all my schoolwork, most notably all of my artwork. Finished tour guiding at Palazzo Vecchio. Had my last monday lunch date with Amanda (a running tradition). Had my last drink at our favorite bar. Went out to dinner with all of my housemates for the last time.

Even though this program made it more difficult to assimilate into the culture, I still feel great about the experiences I've come away with. I saw so much art I feel like my head might explode! I ate so much I feel like there's two of me coming home (I even tried traditional Florentine steak this week - rare almost to the point of walking around). I think I successfully learned a bit of Italian! It only happened in the last few weeks, but I feel like I broke through the wall and can actually speak and understand. What a great feeling! I've been having a bunch of long conversations with Italians...in Italian! The only problem is that we can only talk about the past or the present because I never learned future tense in my class. I've never felt so comfortable with a language before and I'm really sad that I can't keep going with it.

Mostly, I'm so bummed to leave the people here. The most amazing thing happened with our apartment: our program threw 6 random girls together who lived together perfectly. Seriously, it was a dream. We all complimented each other so well and got along great, without having to spend all of our time together. I'm so going to miss hearing Sara and Kayla laugh hysterically in the kitchen while Ashley does art, helping Liat with her hair, coming home to Lauren asleep on the couch by accident. I'm going to miss cooking together, even when we weren't all making the same thing (most likely some form of stir fry). I'll even miss this rundown apartment, along with all the yelling in the street or the guys' music blasting in the apartment below us. It felt like a big family, which I guess is a big part of Italian culture anyway. I feel so lucky to have found that here.

Tonight my taxi is picking me up at 3am for my 6:50 flight. After another 18 hours of flying and layovers, hopefully I'll be at home!

Whoops.

I broke my bed.

Well, Sara, Kayla, Amanda and I broke my bed.

My stupid stupid bed.

(The bed that I hate with a burning passion...it's so uncomfortable that I've had re-occuring dreams that I'm getting shot in the back!)

We broke it while watching the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun," eating cereal, and drinking tea together.

It broke as soon as Ashley walked in the apartment.

(Who has been having the most ridiculous luck this semester - breaking everything from her phone charger 3 times to her computer, her foot, and an olive oil bottle...poor girl.)

And without warning one of the plastic legs of my stupid stupid bed completely broke off.

Causing the entire bed to collapse on one side, sending all of us screaming.

And then into fits of giggles.

Now I have that corner of my stupid stupid bed held up by my bedside table underneath.

This entire apartment is falling apart.

(Have I mentioned the massive mold monsters coming from the scary water damage in our bathroom and kitchen? It's literally making me sick!)

Anyway, whoops!

"Ciao, Bella!"

Saying that I hear this popular phrase (called out to young women by usually older men) all the time is a serious understatement. Who knew that being called beautiful could be so annoying?

I know what you're thinking - that I should take this as a compliment, to feel good about myself. But if you walked out your front door in the morning to a creepy man looking you up and down, yelling "Ciao, Bella!", you'd be seriously sick of it too. And it's not like they discriminate either. Every girl hears this all day, every day.

Sometime they change it up a little; "Hey, babyyy!", "Come here, sweetie!", simply "Ciao!" or "Bella!" (most of the time whispered creepily in your ear), and once a man popped up from behind a cart and said, "You are sooo..........(long pause)............CUTE!" (he had forgotten the word for cute). Sometimes they don't say anything at all...they just grab my butt instead, met with a slap to move their hand and a shrill, "SCUSA!", from me.

Clearly these alternative catcalls are no better than the good old, "Ciao, Bella!"

The other day, though, one particular man took the cake for his very original come-on. I was walking down the street right by my house with a group of people and this particular man, probably in his 40s, walked right across my path. He proceeded to look me up and down with a flirty look, and then...

...HE POKED ME IN THE BELLY!

This is easily the strangest out of all the pick up attempts I've received in three months. He didn't even say anything. Now I've thought about this a lot and I still have no idea what he meant by this poke. He didn't even poke me in the pudgy part, instead it was in the upper abs. Was I supposed to find this attractive? To think he was funny? Was he saying that I'm fat? Or maybe that I just have a rather nice tummy?

I still have no idea. You're guess is as good as mine.

What did I do, you may ask? Well, other than stop dead in my tracks with a look of utter shock on my face, my only reaction was to sputter out a very surprised, "Noooooooo!"

As weird as this interaction was, it's actually one of my favorite and silliest stories from Florence this whole semester.

In fact, last night I was out with my friend Amanda and we were approached by two 20-something Italian men. They were making valiant attempts at conversation and so we decided to practice our Italian language skillz. I brought up the subject of the common phrase, "Ciao, Bella!", trying my hardest to explain that "Non mi piache, 'Ciao, Bella!'" I even told them about this bizarre poking incident, met with confused faces. However, my message clearly did not reach these two fine fellas; we knew it was time to go when they begun asking us if we slept in the same bed together and started stroking my leg. These equally as annoying actions were received with our own common catch phrase, often uttered to these kind of men:

"Dobbiamo andare!" ("We have to go!")

è primavera!

(Chianti for wine tasting at Castello di Verrazzano on the left)

The past month I've done a fair amount of traveling around different parts of Italy.

A couple weekends ago I went to the Almafi Coast to see Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii, which was my first experience ever traveling alone. It was absolutely beautiful there and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go - I received a grant from Skidmore to do it. It was super unplanned and on the fly and I was endlessly asking for directions in Italian. But by the end of the trip I was able to help a Canadian couple get back to their hostel on the bus and was speaking Italian with the ticket guy...it was a great feeling of accomplishment! The biggest problem that weekend was the fact the my little cabin I stayed in did not have heat...or blankets...which made for a very chilly night's sleep. I decided that the trip would have been more fun to pal around with someone, but the chance to have the experience of traveling by myself and totally flying by the seat of my pants (is that the right expression?) made it priceless.

Then the weekend after I did the opposite style of traveling and went on a huge group trip with my program to Siena, Perugia, and Chianti, completely and totally planned for us. It was really fun to switch gears and hang out with tons of friends for the weekend. We spent a lot of time riding in busses around different parts of Tuscany. I actually really enjoyed just listening to music and looking out the window at this beautiful part of Italy that we live in. My favorite part of the trip was going to a wine tasting at a castle in Chianti (see picture). It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and so lovely and relaxing. Honestly, I think that that was one of my favorite places I've seen in all of Italy...and it's right in my backyard!

Back in Florence for the past couple weeks, I've mostly been working at Palazzo Vecchio a whole lot, enjoying the beautiful weather, and playing around with friends in the city. I've been continuing to cook all the time and my most interesting dish I made lately was fresh asparagus sauteed in a balsamic-orange-garlic sauce over basmati rice. The other day I also made a chicken caesar salad and made homemade dressing to go along with it. On another note, I've started to see a real improvement in my Italian skillz lately. I even had a 15 minute conversation about art with someone the other day!

Everything is starting to wind down, though, and I have less than three weeks here. I'm trying really hard to get everything on my to-do list checked off and to make the most out of my time left!

Ciao, Belli!

I'm alive!

Right now I'm sitting in this awesome cafe in a low key, more local section of Florence across the Arno River. I finished a caffe macchiato and a piece of cake while a man was playing "Hallelujah" by Lenard Cohen. There are books and couches everywhere I've been sitting up in a loft area skyping with a friend for a while. Life is good.

First I should mention my spring break trip and while I can't talk in detail about everything, I'd like to sum it up a little bit.

Paris: was absolutely wonderful. I saw all the major things to see and I saw tons and tons and tons of art. The Louvre was a fun and overwhelming experience because of the sheer quantity of art and vastness of the museum, but just beautiful. The Pompidou had such a cool setup and the main exhibition happened to be my favorite contemporary artist, Lucian Freud! It was a dream come true and I watched the sunset over Paris from the top of the building. The Musee d'Orsay was so lovely and every painting made me gasp because it was either a favorite painting or a famous artist! Aside from that, I ate a lot of camembert and baguettes and avocados and drank a lot of bordeaux....amazing!

Prague: felt like going home. When I left last spring I was a little bit sick of it, but going back reminded me of everything I looooved. Staying with Olga and Ivana was so nice and homey and relaxing. We walked around a ton to all my favorite places, sat in the sun in the garden at my favorite cafe and ate my favorite cake, cooked dinner a couple times (Italian pasta and then fajitas! Yum!), and drank a lot of beer.

Back in Florence, I've gotten back into a normal schedule, cooking a lot and classes and tour guiding. Today I even got tipped 10 whole euro! I've been finding some really awesome local places and am psyched to continue exploring now that the weather's gotten so lovely.

Last weekend I hiked through Cinque Terre for a day and had a great time with a great group of people. We hiked all day and it felt so good! Even though I've been sore all week...

This upcoming weekend I'm traveling to the Almafi Coast (Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii) as a result of a grant that Skidmore's giving me! I can't wait, I hope it's warm!

Hope everyone is doing well, I miss you!

TOURGUIDING!

Studiolo di Francesco^

On the balcony explaining tresses with the Salon dei Cinquecento behind me^

So I started giving tours of the Secret Passages of Palazzo Vecchio this week and I'm totally loving it! It's not just the secret passages, though. It's about an hour and 15 minutes and is the equivalent of a serious stair-master workout! Since you can't be here to take the tour, here's the cliff notes of what I do!

1. Some history of Palazzo Vecchio and up the secret staircase that was cut into the stone wall

2. More history plus introduce the Medici family and introduce alchemy

3. Spend a long time in the Studiolo dei Francesco (Francesco's studio to store his alchemy collections), the paintings, the ceiling, and the alchemist theories that connect this entire room...seriously, it's really really really cool!

4. Reveal the next secret passage behind a painting - usually to lots of oohs and awes

5. Go through the passage into Cosimo di Medici's Treasury where he kept his collections

6. Go through the next secret door back to the Studiolo

7. Salon dei Cinquecento (Room of 500) for history, stuff about Michelangelo and Leonardo's unfinished frescos, how Vasari redecorated and raised the ceiling up, more paintings, etc.

8. Up to the balcony in the Salon to discuss tresses to explain how the ceiling is held up (see photo)

9. Up to the attic to see the tresses!

10. Back to the balcony for questions and thank yous

Whew! That photo is thanks to my wonderful friend Emily who came on my tour the other day and discovered that if you name drop and say that you know me, you only have a pay 1 euro instead of 6.

Also, ANNA O'CONNOR IS COMING TOMORROW!

pizza's cookin' in our oven and i'm feelin' good.

Day 1: After a 4 hour bus traveling South to Rome (Roma-roma-ma as Lady Gaga would say), we immediately embarked on a tour, including the Pantheon (one of my favorite art history topics!), the Trevi Fountain (the top photo is me making a wish!), the Fountain of the Four Rivers, the Spanish Steps, and more amazing things along the way. After a nice nap with the window open and a warm breeze blowing into our room, I had aperitivo (before dinner drinks with food included) outside in Campo di Fiori (which means Field of Flowers!). A fun night out with a ton of friends proceeded!

Day 2: When it would have been blizzarding at home, I stepped out in 70 degree sunny weather. I proceeded to walk through St. Peter's Basilica (one of the most awe-inspiring experiences I've ever had), walked through Castel Sant'Angelico (where the bottom view is from with my friend Amanda), had lunch at the Trevi Fountain, had amazing gelato at the Spanish Steps and people-watched, had delicious apertivo for dinner with all of my friends, and then ended the night sitting outside with a beer at a great bar by the Tiber River.

Day 3: I've never seen so much STUFF in one place as when I went to this famous flea market on Sunday morning! It was really interesting and crowded and fun to see. I bought a coral cameo pin/necklace pendant. I even bargained down! Then we all hopped on the bus and spent the rest of the afternoon at the Colosseum. I felt like I was on a movie set the entire time, it blew my mind. It's just so incredibly OLD! And did you know that one reason it's so deteriorated and destroyed today is that they took tons of stuff off of the Colosseum in order to decorate St. Peter's Basilica?

Where does the Sistine Chapel fit into all of this, you may ask? A week from tomorrow I'm going back to Rome to spend a day with my two best friends! I wanted to save that experience so I could share it with them.

AND yesterday I passed my tour guiding test at Palazzo Vecchio, so now I am an officially tour guide of the secret passages.

Life is good.

Food!

My housemates and I sitting down to a delicious family dinner! (notice the olive oil in the center of the table!)

A lot of Italian life, or at least my life in Italy, revolves around food...

Going out for aperitivo - pre-dinner drinks with light food like bruschetta included, getting together with a bunch of friends to cook big dinners (I've somehow become something like the head chef in my apartment, which is fine by me! - even though most of the time I'm totally wingin' it), or going out to a real dinner on special occasions (like tomorrow night for my good friend, Abel's, birthday, where supposedly you can order blueberry-balsamic steak!) are a few examples.

Instead of going to a huge supermarket and buying enough for the next month, Italians go pick up a few things every few days. It's crazy because it feels like you're spending more money that way, but I think it pretty much evens out (that is, if the exchange rate wasn't so terrible...) I've learned to buy my fresh fruits and veggies from the Mercato Centrale - they're exceptionally more tasty, fresher, and cheaper than at grocery stores - and to buy my bread, meat, and cheese at regular grocery stores. However, I've bought parmesan and asiago (called parmigiano in Italian) from this really nice guy at Mercato Centrale, and, man, was that parmesan mind-blowing. Oh and by the way, I just ate an orange that I bought there the other day; it was the best orange I've ever had and was bigger than any grapefruit I've ever seen!

A lot of my hanging out with my housemates revolves around cooking together at night. Sometimes we're each making our own thing and sometimes we all contribute and make something together. I always knew that I liked to cook, but since being here I've realized that I loooooove to cook! Some of my favorite things we've made so far:

• Amazing variations of pizza - we buy the raw crust and then bake it with tons of stuff on it! Tonight Emily, Abel and I made one that had pesto, ricotta, mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, my mind-blowing parmesan sprinkled over, chicken, sauteed garlic, prosciutto (which I realized that that I love), oregano, basil, garlic powder, and crushed pepper
• Amazing variations on pasta - I haven't bought tomato sauce since I've been here and instead make my own by sauteing tomatoes and spices, etc., but we've also made homemade gnocchi and other delicious versions of penne, spaghetti, and even a carbonara the other night where you crack the egg in the bowl and let if cook in the hot pasta
• Eggplant parmesan - I first tried to buy breadcrumbs and failed, but it's no big deal because I've made it twice just by frying it in egg in the pan, served with homemade tomato sauce and mozzarella
• Artichoke with hollandaise sauce - a big achievement that I didn't ruin the sauce!
• Fried rice with broccoli, green beans, egg, and soy sauce
• Countless variations of sandwiches - often including pesto, ricotta, tomatoes, and prosciutto or salami
• Salad with chicken, tomatoes, onions, and a lemon garlic dressing
• Tiramisu! it. is. amazing. except that we've been whipping egg whites until they're stiff...with a fork...for a half hour (we don't have a egg beater nor a wisk! nor a spatula to flip anything for that matter...)

Anyway, that's all I can remember at the moment, but I'll keep you updated with my newest creations. Usually my day begins with an egg sunny side up, either a piece of bread grilled in the pan with ricotta cheese (my poor attempt to imitate the idea of a bagel...) or some cereal, and a piece of fruit. For lunch I often grab a panini in between classes or my internship (I just found this amaaaazing little place tucked in a back alley and I will dream about forever!), and then come home and cook something delicious for dinner.

Finally, while I'm on the subject of food, it is important to note that the biggest change in my diet hasn't been the abundant intake of carbs (let's face it, I did that before I got here too), or the amazingly fresh ingredients, but it has to do with one key factor in almost everything I eat here: olive oil. I wasn't that big of a fan before I came, only using it to sautee stuff in. But I am a serious convert. We don't even have butter in our house! I use olive oil in everything from frying my eggs in it, to grilling bread with it, to making all sauces, all stir fries, anything made in a pan or drizzling it over anything baked in the oven. It. is. so. good. With 6 people living here, we go through about a bottle every week. I'll never go back to butter again! Yum!

Venezia

Photos: 1. the island of Burano, 2. me, Kayla, and Sara on the bridge next to the Bridge of Sighs, 3. Carnivale at night, 4. the beautiful boat ride to Venice from the mainland, 5. flooded Piazza San Marco (a daily occurrence)

So Venice was pretty incredible. I didn't think about it that much until I got there, but as soon as I stepped off the boat I remembered how I'd been wanting to go there ever since I was little! I couldn't stop smiling, especially because it was a beeeaauuutiful weekend. Carnivale was really really fun, but I wish it hadn't been QUITE so crowded. It was festive and exciting though!

We left at 6am from Florence on a bus with our entire program (all super grumpy) and arrived in Venice at around 11, only to go straight into a 2 hour walking tour. I'm really glad we went because it was so nice to just follow the guide and take everything in. For lunch I had delicious fritto misto (fried seafood - Venice known for it) and a glass of chardonnay from a little stand in a piazza and sat outside and ate with everyone...so nice. We hung out by the Grand Canal and then made our way back to the boat to go the hotel. After a nice little rest, everyone got all dressed up in our masks that we had bought that day to go back to Venice for the Carnivale festivities! It was a total zoo so two of my housemates, Sara and Kayla, and I decided to split off from the huge group and explore/sit down for dinner. It was super relaxing and delicious - it was such a cute, classic Italian restaurant! After we literally just wandered around the city for hours people watching and exploring. Since I've loved 'A Little Romance' forever and it was what made me want to go see Venice in the first place when I was younger, we went to see it! We stood on the bridge next to it (you can't walk on the Bridge of Sighs), and I thought that that bridge was it! It was a magical moment because right as we got there, Kayla realized it was 11:11 and 11 is my lucky number!!! I was just sooo happy. Even thought it turned out to be the one next to us, I don't think it takes anything away from that experience. It was wonderful. Then, after wandering the tiny streets looking for the train station for over an hour, we ran to hop on the last train back to our hotel! I was so exhausted when we got back and just crashed.

The next day we went to visit the islands of Murano, famous for glass-making, and Burano. We saw a glass-making demo in Murano, which was totally amazing, and then headed for Burano. It was so cute! Every building was a different color and we had a lot of fun walking around and looking at the handmade glass. Later, we had free time back in Venice and my good friend, Emily, and her roommate, Sonya, and I just wandered and found a cute little place for pizza for lunch - easily the best pizza I've had thus far. Yum! Then wandered around back to the boat, where we made our way to the bus and then back to Florence.

It was such a lovely weekend, but I feel like I really need to go back and see Venice again without so many people there. I hope I can make it back there, maybe not this semester, but at some point. It was truly magical.

Venice was magical.

Mi chiami Hannah. Sono di Boston. Ho venti ani.

This picture is me at the Mediterranean Sea!!! We went to this huge festival called Carnivale in a beach town an hour and a half away. I don't know WHAT I was expecting, but it was not what I got. It was like a huge political-satire parade, mixed with really weird Halloween costumes and tons of silly string, confetti, and loud music, all taking place in a location I can only liken to the Jersey Shore. That whole situation coupled with the fact that I had no cultural context for anything going on, especially the meaning of the huge 50 foot tall, mechanized, moving floats made for a very strange and overwhelming day. But still fun.

This week the weather was kind of gross, so I mostly just went to class, but I did get to explore some more. I feel like I'm getting a much better handle on the layout of the city and can actually find my way around.

Last night all my housemates and I cooked the most amazing dinner and had a really nice time. We made a chicken tomato sauce, spinach gnocchi, garlic bread with mozzarella, a salad, and I made an artichoke with Hollandaise sauce! And I didn't ruin it either! And obviously, lots of wine was drunk. It was really great to be all together - we all get along so well, we totally lucked out.

After going to my favorite bar, a few friends and I found the secret midnight bakery! Success! They don't sell food after like 10, save for kebab places open late. So pastries are like gold after a night out. It was awesome.

Tomorrow I'm going to Venice with my program for the weekend! For another Carnivale! But I think this one's going to be way classier and more fun. I can't wait - I've wanted to go to Venice since I was little and saw 'A Little Romance.'

12 Days.

So sorry for not posting sooner, but the unreliable nature of my internet in my apartment combined with the fact that I actually have a busy social life here makes more not much time on my computer. But I have so much to tell!

Currently, it's 8:30 am and I'm sitting at our tiny kitchen table eating a banana with nutella and drinking tea for breakfast (and no, Dad, I didn't stay up all night last night!). I had to get up early this morning to get some paperwork stuff done for my internship...I have to leave to do that soon. But I'll get to that in a minute.

First, an update on my life here!

• My living situation is great! I live with 5 girls and we're all really different, but have been getting along amazingly. We hang out a lot, but don't HAVE to be hanging out all the time either. I feel like we've been living together longer than just a week because we're all close and mesh together so well. We share a lot of mutual friends so various combinations of us go out together a lot, but we can also just chill in our kitchen together eating special k when we get home (a frequent occurrence). The other super awesome and ridiculously convenient thing is that we've become good friends with the apartment below us, a group of equally as individually different, but totally great guys. I usually start and end my nights there...they have a much bigger and more hanging-out-condusive apartment, meaning there's always people there. Last night they all cooked this huge delicious dinner for everyone! The only issue that stems from getting along great and having their apartment in the same building is that we have a tendency to get to talking and accidentally stay up all night! Oh well. Here's a family picture of us girls!
• Besides my lovely housemates and the guys, it's been wonderful to have a bunch of different groups of friends to hang out with too! I've been spending a lot of time with my friend, Emily. She goes to Skidmore too and is best friends with one of my best friends, but we didn't know each other well before this semester. Most nights we end up either going out together to meet other people, or just naturally meeting up because of our mutual friends. We've been hanging out with a few awesome people from Skidmore and their housemates too. I also have been seeing my friend, Amanda, a lot, who I met in the airport waiting for our luggage. She's wonderful.
• I finished my first week of classes yesterday (no class on Fridays, hooray!). My Italian class seems fast-paced, but I think it will be good. My professor basically just speaks to us in Italian and it's pretty conversational-based, which I like. It's a 4-credit class for people who already know a romance language - unless it's a intensive class, the other beginner ones are only 3-credits. I want to learn Italian so badly, and I think I'm going to have to learn really quickly, but I'll get back to that in a minute. My Intermediate Painting class scared the crap out of me at first; I got to class and was thrown into a placement test to make sure we were good enough to be in that level. We had to paint the full figure in only 45 minutes! I haven't really been drawing or painting since first semester sophomore year, so I was terrified. It definitely was not my best work, but I passed! My professor is an American who's been living and teaching art in Italy for 30 years. She has a pretty strong personality, but I'm pretty sure she's going to be a good professor. She even had bags made up at the art store with all the supplies in them for each of us so we wouldn't have to hunt around and figure it out in Italian. It was great, except that I had to drop 200 euro for it all. Ugh. The art classes are all 5 hours once a week, which a weird change from my 3 hours twice a week at Skidmore. I have both art classes in the same day, though, which makes for a loooooong and exhausting Tuesday for me. I have class almost straight through from 9am to 8:30pm (they're each 2.5 hours with a 30 min break and then another 2.5 hours). Anyway, so I was all stressed about getting to my Fashion Photography class on time and then I spilled gesso IN MY HAIR (don't even ask me how that's possible) right at the end of class! I was so frazzled by the time I made it to photo and then we had another placement test in that class too. I think it's going to be SOOOOOO COOOOOOOL! Not only is my professor totally fly (I think he might be half Asian, half Italian?), it's going to be a really advanced course and is both darkroom and digital! So glad I brought the Nikon. I don't even want to think about the money I'm going to have to spend for that class, though....I think I might need a 100mm lens for my Canon - a good, useful investment, but expensive. We'll see....Finally I had my last class yesterday: International Art Business. I was nervous for it to be really boring, but it was awesome! My professor is this really cool lady who definitely knows her stuff and was really engaging the class. We were talking about art pricing and behavioral economics yesterday (fascinating) and the whole class was using about Damien Hirst and Duchamp as examples without having to explain who everyone was and it was awesome. Plus we're going to visit all these auction houses and private museums...so interesting.
• The last thing is my internship! I got placed at the Palazzo Vecchio, which is totally insane. I'm going to be guiding tours there for English-speaking visitors, meaning I'm going to have to learn everything and everything about 16th century Italian art, Vasari (who painting tons of it), and the Medici family. It's 12 hours a week and 1 weekend per month, which is kind of a lot with my class schedule, but I think it's going to be the craziest and coolest learning experience ever. The scary thing is that apparently the person I'm working for there does not like to speak English.......the reason I'm going to have to pick up Italian ASAP! This morning I have to go get all this registration and paperwork done so that I'm all set to work here. My first meeting at the Palazzo is on Monday! I'm excited and terrified.

Okay, I feel like that's a pretty sufficient update on my life right now! Other than these things, I've just been cooking a lot and walking a lot. The weather's been pretty cold and rainy for too much exploring, but just walking to my classes around the city and doing errands have been doing that for me some. I can't wait for it to get just a tad warmer and much more pleasant to walk around all day.

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures, but it's been taking too long to upload. I'll dedicate a post to just photos soon, but you can also check out my facebook in the meantime.

Ciao!

For scale:

My housemates walking by the Duomo on the bottom right!

Cinque Giorni

Now that I have a little time to myself, an organized room, and working wireless, I can actually discuss what's been happening thus far! Here is a condensed version of the past 5 days:

I arrived after a loooong flight to the Florence airport to discover that one of my bags had been lost between Zurich and Florence - along with about 30 other students from my program. Let me tell you, standing in line with that many cranky, jetlagged American students for 4 hours (yes, I repeat, 4 hours!) in line was really no fun. I've ever seen a line move slower. Apparently they just didn't have room on the little plane for 57 American students' multiple heavy suitcases equipped for 4 months worth of stuff. And I was definitely guilty in that. Good news was that I got my bag the next morning. Plus, I met some nice girls in line that I ended up hanging out with a bunch this week. Also, I got off lucky - Ashley's flight from Frankfurt got CANCELLED and she got there a day late!

We did a lot of administrational and safety orientational things for the first couple days while we stayed at this nice hotel. One night I was going out with some girls and my friend from Skidmore and we saw some of our Skidmore friend's in a random bar! They're doing another program and have been here for 3 or 4 weeks now and have a much better handle of things to do, etc, so I've been hanging out with them a bit. Turns out that one of those people, James, lives literally around the corner from my apartment! He lives with really cool people, including 2 housemates from Malta. One of them made rabbit for dinner the other night and it was so delicious.

Speaking of my apartment, we've all moved in! It was a little rocky the first day because our heat was broken and it was FREEZING. Now, it's cold in all Italian apartments (the heat only turns on at certain hours in the day, mandated by law)...which all of us Americans have a hard time with (except that I'm totally used to it at home). But that first night they put us up in the bed and breakfast in our building instead. So it wasn't until yesterday that I really unpacked and got settled here, which feels great. Our apartment is cute, not as nice as some, but in a really good, central location which is wonderful.

We've been having more orientation things all week. It's nice to be finally settled, but all of our time commitments, plus the jet lag, plus the fact that I have horrible blisters on my pinkie toes from wearing heels the first nice, combined with the grey and very chilly weather, has made it so that I haven't really been able to just explore on my own at all. I think I've become way more independent than I realized because I'm so not used to feeling obligated to going everywhere in big groups of people...One really nice thing, though too is that a fun and nice group of boys from our program (including my friend from SCOOP at Skidmore) live in the apartment directly below us. When Ashley and I look out our window and down, we can see their balcony! It's been fun to hang out with them a bit - last night we went out with most of our apartment and their apartment.

This weekend I'm going to a huge potluck! Plus I want to explore explore explore (and nurse my poor toes back to health), go to the Centrale Markata to buy tons of fresh groceries, and meet new people!

Ciao, ciao!!

Ciao!

Okay so I'm actually alive and in Florence!

I moved into my apartment yesterday, actually unpacked today, and finally set up my wireless so now I can communicate. I don't have much time to write because I'm getting ready to go out, but I'll post a longer thing with pictures later!!!

1 Week!

In just one week, I'll be arriving in Florence - my home until exactly May 15 - where I'll be studying abroad that the Lorenzo de'Medici school. I'm living in an apartment with 5 other girls (including my wonderful friend Ashley) and taking these classes: Intermediate Painting, Fashion Photography (so freaking excited), International Art Business, Beginning Italian, and...hopefully I'll be interning at an art museum. I'm interviewing with the class coordinator when I get there... ::fingers crossed::

Last year at this time, before I went to Prague, I was super super nervous and scared. But those nerves are out of my system this time and the thing I'm most worried about is what/how to pack. I'm insanely excited for a beautiful city, warmer weather, delicious food, great fashion, and obviously...ART!