Classes started this week and I have to say that, having been on break for almost 2 months, it's been a little difficult getting back into it. On one hand, I only have classes 4 days a week (no class on Friday and my thursday class gets out at 8:50am!). On the other hand, 4 of my 5 classes are 2.5 hours each. ugh. Non buona.
Without a doubt, my Food and Italian Culture class will be my favorite of the semester. Italy is one of the world's most renowned nations for food and I am pumped to be taking home with me both a theoretical and practical knowledge of its cuisine. When I get home, I fully intend to intimidate you all with my ridiculous ability to cook Italian food AND explain its region of origin and historical context. Yup. Pretentious Italian food snob in the making right here.
Other than that, I'm taking Intermediate Italian, History of Catholicism in Italy (2.5 hours? really? I thought it'd be interesting but my professor has me yawning already and the workload has left me scared for my life), Journalism, and Music and Film (another interesting topic that looks like it will be made boring by a timid professor).
And I just have to share this. There is a torture museum on my way to class. I don't know what that means but it's certainly worth a visit.
-On Tuesday, I walked about 6km to and from Cascine Park. They have a market there every Tuesday morning and it's ridiculously cheap. I'm talking €5-10 (about $7-13) for a pair of knee-high leather boots. It's worth the walk and you won't find any tourists/English speaking people there.
-Thursday, I saw King David's penis. *giggle* Unfortunately, they don't let you take pictures but he only lives about a 5 minute walk from my apartment so I plan to go there again soon and sneak some. All joking aside, it's amazing to see Michaelangiolo's work. There's so much detail in every part of it and knowing what he wanted it to represent, it's fabulous to see it in person.
-Today (Friday), 2 of my roommates and I participated in Gimkhana, a scavenger hunt type of event around Florence that was held by my program. The winners got free sandwich vouchers for one of the best paninotecas in Firenze (haha. hey, that's less money I have to spend!). We were the only people out of several hundred in our program that showed up. We got about halfway through the list when we decided to stop the hunt and grab an espresso. We won by default.
-We were taught some self-defense moves by Italian men in shiny booty shorts today (I didn't realize it was still 1986). Uh, have you seen me? I'm basically defenseless and I'm pretty sure my fight-or-flight response would just be to have a slap fight with him.
-There's an artisanal chocolate festival in Florence that started today. It lasts until 2/13 but we went by today and it is AMAZING. A return visit is inevitable and it is so fabulous that it deserves its own blog entry (for another time, eh?)
-And to draw the week to a close, dancing Hare Krishnas.
Buona notte a tutti!
~Britt
BILLY MADISON! Your week sounds like a blast! I can understand it being rough getting back into school, but you have some awesome classes to look forward to! The market sounds fun :D Some good shopping there! Oh& I'm really jealous of you getting to go to the chocolate festival ;)
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Special prize! And it'll be even better than my sandwich. The festival has been so lovely. It's kind of expensive so we keep going for the samples. Love you!
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