My teacher sings too?

Today I learned a fun fact. My Genius of Florence professor, a historian who has been on National Geographic, is in a band AND his music is really good.

The part I find amusing is that his thick Italian accent vanishes when he sings. Why is this? I've noticed it when British people sing too. It's weird, but cool at the same time.

Here's a link to his song that I heard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClZ5O7a-mJA

He's the younger guy who sings first.

In my Genius of Florence class my teacher took us to the Duomo museum where there were remnants of Saints and sculptures by Michel Angelo. We were standing in a room the shape of maybe an octagon and as I was walking around the room I saw behind the glass there was the bone of a bottom jaw and a bone that looked like a femur. When we asked who's that was, my teacher said it was St. Catherine. He said back in the day in order to build a church you had to have remnants of a Saint to start ground. There was only a thin piece of glass separating me from St. Catherine's jaw. I cannot wrap the thought around my head.

Also in the museum was one of Michel Angelo's last piece's of work. He almost always never fully completed sculptures, but this one he came close to finishing. He didn't get to finish this one because he died before he could. My teacher said they don't know if this was his very final piece of work, but it was quite close to it.

After my classes finished up for the day and I relaxed at home for a bit, I met my friend Carolyn and some other people for dinner. Every year Carolyn and her friends have a Valentine's day dinner and go out to eat.

We went to this restaurant called Osteria da Pennello. We had the upstairs room because there were originally supposed to be 27 girls, but it ended up being about 15. I only knew five girls there, but it was a lot of fun. I got bruschetta to start off my meal because I was starving. It had white beans, tomatoes and olive oil, which was interesting. I've never had beans with it before. It was good, but I also felt like I was eating a heart attack with all of the oil.

For my main course I got tortellini with spinach and ricotta cheese on the inside and a creamy tomato sauce with it. It was beyond delicious.

After being satisfyingly full, I decided I still wanted dessert. I wanted to get coffee mousse with hot chocolate, but unfortunately they were done serving it for the day, so I got tiramisu. It was almost like a soupy tiramisu instead of a cakey one, but it was SO good.

The girls were going out to the Red Garter afterwards, a bar I went to my first weekend here, but I have a big Italian exam tomorrow that I figured I should study for. Which is what I'm going to go do now. Buona notte!

"Kate...I think I just broke the door."

Between the time I shut my eyes and Lydia's alarm waking me up, I feel like the time flew by. After hitting snooze on my alarm for 45 minutes I mozied out of bed to my desk because I was too lazy yesterday to do my Italian homework.

After a half hour of Italian on a groggy mind, I got ready for the day. Today in Italian class we learned love lines for a love letter we have to write for class tomorrow. During this class she also taught us pick up lines, which the two guys in our class loved, of course.

Italian: Ti sei fatta male quando sei caduta dal ceib?

English: Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

After my Intercultural Communications class I walked home, ate lunch, showered and started looking to book more trips.

Over the course of the afternoon I sat on my comfortable couch staring at the computer screen. Let me tell you it can be stressful trying to find affordable, decent places to stay.

At 5:30 I left the apartment with Kate to go listen to speech our Italian Art professor, Rocky, was giving. Last Thursday he told our class he was speaking in Florence and if we wanted to come we had to email him and let him know. He offered for his students to come because the artist he was talking about was not in our curriculum for the semester.

Kate asked me Friday night if I would go, and I decided it would be cool to sit in on, so I said yes.

We both forgot to email him until today, but he got back to Kate and said we were more than welcome to come.

We showed up at 6:00 thinking that's when it started. We walked up to the fancy man standing outside of this building and he opened the doors with a remote to get inside these big glass doors. Sign number one.

When we got upstairs there was no one there. A nice woman came up to us and asked if we were here for the speech and she then said it didn't start until 6:30. Sign number two.

So we decided to go grab something quick to eat. We went to the Piazza of the Duomo about five minutes away and I got a yummy bruschetta type of pizza. On our way back to the building where the speech was we stopped by the chocolate fair and OH MY GOSH it's amazing. Any kind of chocolate you can think of...on top of anything and everything.

There were white tents everywhere in the Piazza di Republica and under every white tent was chocolate and chocolate fountains. Kate and I got chocolate covered waffle sticks. I had dark chocolate with sprinkles. SO GOOD. I'm going back sometime this week and taking pictures. There were chocolate shoes, owls, penguins (edible candy), and they were all so pretty!

After that lovely detour it was almost 6:30. When we walked back up to the place where the fancy man let us in, there was no on at the stand. We stood around for a minute or two and kept looking around. I saw a button that said open/close. So I thought it would be a good idea to push it to open to glass doors. False. It started closing these huge wooden doors behind me. I immediately hit the button hoping it would stop it like a garage stops and goes back up.

At first it went back to open but then it kept making a clicking sound. I thought maybe it just always did that. About 2 minutes later the wooden door started closing again and it couldn't get very far because of this big red carpet, which it started bundling up...because that's what happens when a door pushes against carpet.

At this point I'm sticking my foot out hoping it won't shut on me. Thankfully it was motion censored. This was the universe's third sign to tell us not to go.

After this happened twice someone finally came out. While he was asking what we were there for I was praying the door didn't try to shut again. Luckily he led us to the elevator and if the door did shut again I didn't see it. Unfortunately I did notice a camera where we were at so now I know someone was having a good laugh watching me try to break this big wooden door that kept trying to close.

Once we got up to the floor we walked in and realized there were maybe only 10 other people here...and none of them were students. Kate said "maybe we should leave." I said "no let's just go in."

We walked in and no one really noticed. We saw our teacher talking with other people. We also noticed there was a bar with appetizers and wine, but we had no idea if we were allowed to have it so we sat down on a couch. We kept laughing because we were so underdressed and we felt so out of place. We kept trying to sit up straight and just talk but then we kept laughing because we had no idea what we had just agreed to come to. We thought it was going to be a big lecture and other students would be here too, but it was Kate and I and about 10 other people between the ages of 40 and 60.

A waitress came over and offered us hor'derves and we felt rude saying no. I took one bite and I regretted being nice. I think I ate something from under the sea and it was squishy and tasted so funny. My face must have been priceless. Kate said she thought she ate something that was raw.

About five minutes later the woman came back so I took another but Kate said no thank you this time. My second one was better than the first, but a little salty. After we finished the hor'derves I asked Kate where she put her napkin and she said "in my purse" because we didn't see a trash can. We were so classy.

At this point we both really wanted a glass of wine or something, but we didn't know if we had to pay for it so we stayed put.

Rocky came over and talked to us for a bit and thanked us for coming. I ended up feeling bad because he invited 30 of his students from my class and Kate and I were the only ones to come, so it was worth it in that sense.

His speech was on an artist named Caravaggio. We learned a little about him while we visited the Borghese Gallery in Rome so I had a little background on him. However, I didn't realize it was the same man until the end of the speech. He spoke about the paintings and what they meant. It was actually a really interesting speech and I'm not going to lie...I felt kind of fancy being there.

On our way out of the place I prayed to God that the door was still working. Thankfully it was still in place and I didn't get any glares.

Carnivale di Venezia

Things that happen in Venice:

1. You drink hot wine because you cannot feel your body.

2. Random Italian men with pink hair and tights come up and kiss you.

3. You get on Russian TV.

Now, the first and third happened to me, but the second didn't. However, the second one did happen to my friend.

Yesterday I went to the Carnivale di Venezia, and it was an adventure. This carnival is basically the mardi gras of the United States. Everyone dresses up, wears masks and is merry. I was in my fairy tale land because if I could travel back into time it would be to the 18th century when the people wore ball gowns. There were ball gowns everywhere, and they were all individually unique.

I started off the day at 7:45 when I had to pry myself out of bed and shower. I was originally supposed to shower at that time, but my roommate Jess slept in longer than she had planned on and Lydia set her alarm for the wrong time. So I didn't hop in the shower until 8 and were were supposed to leave at 8:20.

Now if you know me, you know I can get ready and be showered in 10 minutes when I put my mind to it. So, after all my roommates and I ran around our apartment getting dressed, drying our hair, etc. we walked out of the door at 8:30. Not too bad.

We reached the train station at 8:50 when we were supposed to meet Bus2Alps at 8:40 because the busses were leaving at 9:00. Bus2Alps is an organization around here that is essentially a travel organization that plans trips, and you pick which ones you want to go on.

When we got to the train station lobby it was packed. I checked in at the N-Z stand and waited to hop on a bus with my friends.

Once we all were situated on a bus, I thought it was the only bus going to Venice. Ha, no...I quickly found out that there were 400 American students leaving with me to go to Venice for the carnival. Guess we weren't the only ones excited for this.

The trip to Venice took about three and half hours. We traveled through some of the mountains and they accumulated A LOT of snow. Now I understand why the Italians were freaking out and some classes were canceled. In the city we didn't get that much at all.

During the bus ride I watched Gone Baby Gone for the first time. It was a really good movie if you haven't seen it yet. It's one of those movies that has a twist at the end and you think "oh my gosh."

When we finally reached Venice we got off of the bus and walked to the water taxi platforms. We hopped on the taxi that would take us to San Marco because we were told that was this place where everything happened. A plethora of people piled onto to taxi, which was basically a ferry. There were some people already dressed up in ball gowns heading into town. I had already put on my mask and was ready to go.

It was about a 20-30 minute ride into San Marco. Once we finally got there our group decided to find food because we were starving. At about 12:30 we found somewhere to eat. It was back a few streets from the water because we were hoping it would be a little less expensive than the ones by the water.

We ate at this really cute, family-owned restaurant. The place could probably fit 20 people or less in because our group had 10 people and we took up half the place.

The waitress was the owner, or at least that's the vibe I got. She was this bigger, Italian woman who is the epitomy of the Italian mother. I could just picture her reaming me out if I was her child and I did something wrong. She was just so cute too.

For lunch I ordered a margherita pizza and our table of four split a bottle of water and red wine. It was all delicious and satisfied my stomach.

Afterwards we stared walking around the streets hoping to find stores selling face masks for the girls who had not gotten one yet. As we walked around we kept running into dead ends because of the canals...which were not frozen!

We walked down these very narrow allies hoping they would lead somewhere. We seriously felt like we were mice in an obstacle course because all of the buildings were tall and led to some places, but ended at others.

After probably 20 minutes of roaming we found the place where we got dropped off at by the water taxi. By this time we were freezing. It was painfully cold yesterday. I could not feel my fingers or toes, so we decided to keep going into stores to warm up while the girls looked for masks.

As we walked through the streets you saw more of the dressed up people. At one point a parade of people were walking by with music and there was a group of telle tubbies! This is when my friend was randomly kissed and she was in such shock. When we came back for more she ran away. We were all laughing so hard.

For the next hour or so we kept wandering the streets looking at all of the interesting people. We found the main square where the big celebration was and then went off to find somewhere to sit inside for a bit.

We found a wine bar where we were not welcome at first. The waiter asked how many of us there were and when we said 10 he said "no, no, no." We were freezing and said we could split up into different tables. He finally decided to let us stay, although I'm pretty sure he wasn't happy about it. I was too cold to care.

I ordered a cup of hot chocolate at a wine bar. Yes, I did this because it sounded do good and it warmed me up. Everyone else ordered wine. The waiter brought little cheese sandwiches with the wine and scones for my with my hot chocolate. Despite the waiter's resentment for American girls sitting in there, it was a cute place.

While were were sitting drinking, this couple sat down near us. Bethany started talking to them and we learned the woman was from Indiana. She was in her late 20s or early 30s and she said she currently lived in England. She studied abroad in Australia during college and fell in love with traveling. Now she's either dating or married to the English man she was with. They were cute and all dressed up.

After we finally warmed up we decided to brave to cold again. We roamed through the streets and found a part of San Marco that was supposed to have a lot of activities going on. It's where a well-known bridge is located too. It was definitely a lot busier than the quiet streets we were walking through before.

Bethany and Lydia found a stand selling confetti that we all through around at each other. I felt like I was a kid again.

When we made it back to the main square there was music playing and it was dark out. A lot of people were dancing up front so we decided to go up closer. We accidentally walked past the ticket gates because we didn't realize you had to pay to get in. When we finally did realize it we just decided to stay up there.

After 20 minutes or so I needed to find heat because when I get cold I get grumpy. When we met back up with a few of the girls they said they couldn't find anywhere to get into because they were all packed with people.

So while we were walking around we saw this group of older people dancing in their costumes. One older man was so cute and grabbed me by the arm and started to spin in circles with me. I just laughed the entire time.

After the dancing we went back into the main plaza and this is when my friends and I ended up on Russian TV. Someone from a local Russian news station was there to film the event. We were able to communicate with him because Yelena can speak fluent Russian because she was born in the Ukraine and she speaks Russian with her parents.

So we danced and had a fun time while we were on some random, local channel in Russia that we'll never see.

By this point my toes were screaming in pain. We had about an hour and half left to kill so we found this restaurant that was reasonably priced right outside the main plaza. I ordered something I cannot remember the spelling of, but it was a pasta filled with ricotta cheese and spinach with tomato dressing. It was delicious.

After we finished dinner we went back out to the main plaza and went to get hot wine because Erika told us we had to try it. On our walk over one of the main singers started singing Grease in Italian. It's one of my favorite movies so of course I busted out in singing and Bethany and I sang our lungs out on our way to get some wine. When we met the rest of the group at the wine stand we were all singing it in English.

By the time it was 9:10 we decided we should go catch a water taxi because we had to be back at the buses by 10.

Once we hopped on the first water taxi we saw, we realized we were with about 20 other students from Bus2Alps, so we figured we were on the right one. Ten minutes into the ride, we realized we had gotten on the wrong route. We were on route number one and we were supposed to be on route number two.

We got off at a couple stops later and then hopped on the right one and it took us to our stop. We ended up being 10 minutes late, but the buses weren't even at the bus stops yet. So thankfully we didn't miss anything.

I was so thrilled to be on a warm automobile again. We finally pulled into the Florence train station at 2 A.M. Walking back was a bit brutal because it was cold and all I wanted was my bed. Thankfully 30 minutes later, I walked up into my apartment and plopped right into bed. After going for 20 hours I was pooped. I looked forward to a long and restful sleep and having no obligations the next day.

Europe is a blizzard. Well, nothing like Ohio.

Before I get into what has happened with my life the past few days, I would just like to say on Wednesday I held a five minute conversation in Italian with my neighbor, who is such a cute, old woman. I actually understood her, and she told me my Italian was good. It was just the basics of where I got to school, who I am, etc. But I'm able to communicate at least! I was all smiles after because I realized I'm actually grasping the language.

Anyways, I love Fridays. Why do I love Fridays? Well — when I'm not traveling — I have no obligations to attend to and I get to sleep in.

Today was a relaxing day. Accidentally slept in until 2...whoops and then went out to get a mask for tomorrow's festivities. A group of us are going with Bus2Alps, a travel organization, to Venice for its carnivale which is a masquerade.

I have always loved masquerades. Between the big ball gowns and the secrecy of the masks, I always wished I could travel back in time to see a real one, not the ones they have today with jeans, a t-shirt, and a thrown on mask.

When I think of Venice, I think of sunshine, beautiful blue waters running through the city and gondalas taking people from one point of the city to another.

But tomorrow I get to experience a different side of Venice. In Venice it has a high of 32 degrees tomorrow and the canals are currently frozen over. I found it funny my mom was the one to inform me of the frozen canals and she's the one across the Atlantic.

It's going to be a bit chilly, but I'm going to be in Venice, so who cares! I get to go to Venice again at the end of April with the school, so I'll get my warm weather then.

Not too much has been happening the past few days. I had classes and then because it's been so cold out I've just been wanting to curl up in my blanket and watch movies. I started a new show called Lipstick Jungle — which I found out was canceled after 2 seasons and made me sad. So if I'm not posting blogs every night, it's because this show has me addicted to it.

I also tried another recipe!! For someone who doesn't cook, I'm starting to get the hang of it. I usually can only focus on cooking one thing at once...I'm afraid I'll mess up otherwise. But last night I was cooking rice, hamburger meat and sautaing vegetables! Now I did fill the kitchen up with smoke, but that's why they put windows in houses.

I cooked up red and yellow peppers and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil and fresh garlic. Then I mixed the hamburger meat in and cooked that all together. Added a little sugar, pepper and salt, then poured that mixture into a pot with tomato sauce and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Then I put the mixture on top of rice and voila! So. Proud.

Last night was an absolute blast. A group of us went out and we were going to go dancing, but the place wasn't open yet so we went to another bar/restaurant where we ended up staying all night. That was only my second time going out in Florence, and I have to say the night life here is fantastic.

Good news too — I finally booked my spring break trip. I'm going to Greece! So excited. Getting there and home got a little complicated, but Kate and I finally figured it out. This is a place where I've always, always wanted to travel to. And people say some dreams don't come true? A group of us are going to Athens for three days and then flying to Santorini for five days.

I also cannot believe I've been here for a month as of yesterday. That's absolutely crazy. I feel like I've been here for maybe two weeks. Time is going too fast, and I don't like it. Before I know it I'm going to be on a plane home. However, the past few days I have been a little homesick. I think it finally sunk in that I won't see everyone for another three months. It's a weird feeling because I am so excited to see my friends and Kory in three months, but at the same time I don't want to leave. I'm just glad my family comes in two months!

Despite being away for a month already, I am doing a lot better than what I thought I'd be doing. I really thought I would be crying myself to sleep every night for a while and missing everyone because I miss being home at Kent after two or three weeks, but the only time I cried was the first night or two here. Maybe I'm growing up?

Fun fact. Right as I went to post this blog, the electricity in my apartment went out. Four girls who were all on their laptops didn't know what to do without the internet. Kind of sad, but the truth. Also, we were trying to figure out how to fix it, but then we realized our entire building was out and possibly the street. So we sat for 20 minutes or so and then it came back on. Thank goodness too because I need to charge my camera. I would be so bummed if I couldn't take my camera to Venice with me. What a disaster that would be.

La differenza tra me e te

This morning when my alarm sounded off, I was in a very deep sleep. Only a few seconds before it went off I was in the Gap at a random mall. When my eyes fluttered open I was confused, and when reality hit I thought "15 more minutes please." And of course before I knew it my alarm went off at 8:30.

Tuesday mornings are never fun. I have to wake up early and know that I will not be done with classes until 6:00.

However, today was a fantastic day. During intercultural communications we learned, obviously, about communication and then for the second half of the class Fabio took us out to coffee. He showed us this cute cafe a block away from the school. It was so cute and sooooo good!

It was also really cute because there were probably nine of us girls and Fabio trucking it into this cafe. It was bigger than most of the cafes I've been in so far, so we were able to maneuver our way in.

When I asked Fabio where I could pay at he shoed me to sit down with the girls. He bought us all coffee...it was extremely nice of him! Then for the next 20 or so minutes we all gathered around two tables, drank our coffees and talked.

Unfortunately we had to head back to the school because Italian started soon. I really enjoy going to this class, so I really didn't mind having to go. During class Nicoletta had us try to think of famous Italians in today's world, which is a lot harder than I thought. I didn't know Madonna was Italian. I found that one quite interesting.

Nicoletta introduced a famous Italian singer to us as well. Tiziano Ferro. Oh my lanta, he is amazing. I'm only able to make out a few things of what he is saying, but I cannot stop listening to him. Here's a link to the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=_KN_nyGehek

After Italian class, Bethany and I went to the on-the-go sandwich joint right outside of the school. Also across the street from where The Jersey Shore cast worked, but I have yet to eat there.

I love the sandwich joint because it's only €2,50 for a delicious sandwich. I go numero sei, which is tomato, mozzarella and olive oil. Yum, yum yum.

For Italian Art History we met outside of the Duomo, Florence's well-known landmark. Today we were learning about the Florence Cathedral, St. Maria del Fiore, meaning Virgin Mary of the flower. There is no such name for Mary in the Bible, but the people wanted to link the church to Florence. The city's symbol is a flower, fiore, and so came about the name St. Maria del Fiore. It started construction in 1296 and finished in 1468. It had a handful of different architects, considering how long it took.

The only downside to visiting places is that we go to them no matter what mother nature is doing. So today when we went it was cold enough to create little flurries and blow cold air around the piazza. The inside of the church was just as cold, but thankfully there was no wind. However, I did learn one good thing: It is possible to take notes standing with gloves on and little circulation going through your fingers!

My next class was out of the classroom as well. Instead of having class 3:30-6:00 today we had it 1:50-3:30 because the place we were going to only had this time open for us. The place we walked to was called Penko Bottega Orafa. It is a goldsmith shop. The owner, Paolo Penko, and his wife own the shop and create absolutely beautiful things. We saw rings worth €2,000, silver Pinnochios worth €4,000 and this beautiful turtle necklace, which I think was made of ruby and silver worth €9,000. I was holding something more expensive than my car.

Paolo showed us what he does and how me makes different jewelry such as rings, brooches, pins, picture frames, etc. Christina, our teacher, was translating everything he said to us because he could not speak a lot of English.

It was cute because at one point he was describing what was lead and neither Christina or Paolo's wife knew how to translate it into English so his wife was looking it up on the internet while we were tossing out names of what we thought we were looking at. Finally Bethany said "lead?" and Paolo's wife said si, si!

A fun fact about this shop is that everything is handmade. There are no fancy machines that do the work for them.

Another fun fact is that this couple designed a necklace for Paris Hilton, which she wore to a big event...I cannot remember the name. They also created a ring for Madonna, which she is actually wearing on one of her album covers. Quite impressive.

Like I've said before, for this class, we have to create a documentary video and choose between the Mosaic, goldsmith, or tailor. I was really interested in doing the documentary on the tailor, since I love fashion, but I learned we aren't going to tour it anymore because our teacher were having issues cooperating with the tailor. So after thinking about it, I decided I really want to do the goldsmith. I found both really interesting, but the goldsmith held my attention more than the mosaic.

Here's a link to the goldsmith shop's website: http://www.paolopenko.com/

Later on in the evening I went to Billa to get eggs and milk to make French toast. I tried finding syrup and failed, but my friend gave me a fantastic idea. Instead of syrup I put Nutella on in. SO good. Probably not the healthiest, but who cares?! It was delicious.

I know, it's been a while

So my reasoning may not be the greatest for not blogging the past several days, but I simply got lazy, and I enjoyed it.

Last Thursday about 3/4 of the journalism group took a trip to Paris and four others went to Interlaken, Switzerland. I chose not to go on either of these trips because it was not on the top of my list of places to travel and I chose to save my money for those trips.

Making decisions is very hard and this is when I wish I was rich. I am very proud of myself for saving all of the money I was able to over the years, but Europe is expensive. I made this decision: When I come home I'm not saving up for a car like I was planning on; I'm saving up to come back. I would love nothing more than to buy a one-way plane ticket here, pick a place to start and then live my life pay check to pay check by writing for publications. I want to see everything and I can only do that if I'm living here.

I came to Italy almost exactly a month ago and it has changed my views on everything. I used to want to go to New York and work for a big name publication, but now I want to just run around Europe, not knowing what the next day will bring me.

Moving along, this past weekend was wonderfully relaxing and much needed after my past weekend in Rome. When you just go, go, go it hits you when you stop, and it hit me Friday. So I slept in until 1:00 p.m. and then mosied around the apartment. Around 3:30 my roommate Kate and I met up with Amy at San Lorenzo market and tried meeting up with a girl named Michelle, who I met last weekend in Rome.

Saying "let's meet at the entrance" was not the best idea. There are many entrances to this market because it just goes up and down streets. Needless to say, we had difficulty locating Amy, and then we never found Michelle.

After waiting about 10 minutes, Kate and I decided to walk through the market because we thought perhaps the girls went inside. Here's the thing about San Lorenzo: I love the prices, but I cannot stand the salesmen, ESPECIALLY the men. The deals are great because I can get three scarves for €12 or a top brand leather bag for €80, which was originally €140. You can also haggle with these people — although I'm not any good at it.

However, the salesmen, especially the men, are SO pushy, and it drives me nuts. The women are much more laid back. When I'm shopping I don't like to be bothered, but they are just over the top.

I also am not a fan of simply walking through the market because the salesmen are annoyingly forward and are just trying to get you to buy their product. Cheesy lines are tossed in you direction or they randomly link arms with you and ask you to be their girlfriend. I usually have to be in the mood to walk through their and deal with it. Kate and I just laughed every time someone said something and kept going.

After our adventure into San Lorenzo, Amy, Kate and I went to the Leather Factory store near my apartment because Amy wanted to look into buying one. I felt like I had stepped into a true Italian store. The men working there screamed Italian. Big men, Italian accent — it reminded me of the mafia, but they were the nicest men.

Of course since it was a leather factory store, its products were expensive so we headed back to the apartment. We cooked chicken parmesan, Caitlin style. It consisted of chicken nuggets mixed in with pasta, tomato sauce and parmesan. It was delicious.

After dinner Michelle came over, and the four of us played a card game called Dutch Blitz. It was a fun night to just hang out in my PJ bottoms with a few other girls.

Saturday morning I ended up sleeping in until noon, a little better than the day before. Around 2:30 Kate and I met Amy at the Uffizi museum. We were in there for a solid three hours, walking the beautiful halls with extravagant ceilings. The view from the top floor of the building was gorgeous as well, especially at sunset.

During this semester my Italian Art class goes to this museum twice, so I'm looking forward to going because Rocky, my teacher, will explain what is happening in the paintings and what they mean. We were able to decipher what some paintings were from what we've learned in class so far. Along with the sculptures and paintings were tags with who painted it and where the piece of art used to be located around Europe, which is interesting, but I'd like to know more about what I'm looking at.

Other than that, it was beautiful. After I go with my class I'll be able to write more about the history of the place and what I was looking at.

Afterwards Amy came back with Kate and I and we cooked dinner again. Beforehand, Amy and I went out to Billa, another supermarket here, and wow, it was crowded. I thought Walmart in Cranberry was bad, but Bill is tiny and with a ton of Italians running around the store, it was a mad house. I think we waited in line for 20 minutes to check out. It was dully noted not to do grocery shopping at 6 p.m.!

After dinner we played Dutch Blitz again. It is amazing how addicting the game can be. An hour and a half passed before we decided we needed to quit.

Sunday was a catch up on my life kind of day. I slept in again and then worked on scholarships, internship applications and homework. Yes, I actually do still have work here. It's rather upsetting.

I also downloaded a movie called Ides of March off of amazon. It was excellent! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It has Ryan Gosling and George Clooney in it. Enough said.

Today (Monday) I had my Italian class and Intercultural Communications class. I love my Mondays because I'm done at 1:30 and then I have the rest of the day to myself.

After classes Lydia and I went out to San Lorenzo because I wanted to buy a leather bag and she wanted to buy a leather jacket.

Last Friday when I was out with Amy and Kate we went to a leather purse store, where Lydia and I had actually been about two weeks ago. A woman who works there talked with Lydia and I for a while and she is the cutest thing! She told us where she grew up and she was giving us names of places we should travel to. She made me feel so comfortable in her store and their sales were great.

So imagine how happy I was when she was there Friday. I found a leather bag that I really liked, but I didn't have enough cash on me. She said she would put it back until Saturday afternoon.

I wasn't able to come back until today, and when I walked in she remembered me and said she still had it in the back for me. It was a brand new one, instead of her selling me the one off of the shelf. It was 40 percent off and then she took a few extra euro off of it. I love my bag and I love her.

Lydia ended up having good luck with her leather coat. It was originally €385 and of course they dropped it down to €200 euro. They have student discounts here, which is nice, but you just have to be careful. She said it was still too much for her and the salesman said he'd sell it to her for €180. She told me before we went shopping her limit was €160. Then the owner appeared out of nowhere and said he would give it to her for €150. SOLD!

As for the rest of the day I watched some TV and did about 2 hours worth of Italian homework. Somehow I still had the energy to blog!

Snow in Florence?

This morning the weather man called for snow. It was 36 and salt was being put on the roads last night. Italians were prepared for the white flurries to hit the ground!

I couldn't help but giggle when I saw the salt on the ground. I thought to myself "if only they were in Ohio..."

Fabio, my intercultural communications teacher, said the last time they saw snow in 2010, the highways shut down and people were stranded for two days. He showed me from the floor how much it was and it maybe came up to my shin or knee, so really not that much. He said helicopters were taking people food and water, it was that bad. He said "the cars here don't have the thing you need for snow. What do you call it?" I said, "Four-wheel drive?" And he laughed his Italian laugh and said "yes."

We didn't get any snow in the city, but apparently they did get some out in the country side, according to my Italian teacher, Nicoletta, who lives out there.

One class (not mine) was even canceled today because the teacher couldn't make it into the city. If only this were the case at home!

Today I really enjoyed my Italian class. We went over homework and did exercises for the first half of the class and then the second half of the class we just talked about the differences in superstitions in Italian culture and American culture. It wasn't a planned conversation, but it was most definitely entertaining.

In Italy, the unlucky number is 17. So like how Friday the 13th is bad news bears for us, it's Friday the 17th for them. Nicoletta asked us to guess who was born on Friday the 17th, and Glen, someone in my class, said Mussolini. She bursted out laughing and said it was she who was! The entire class was laughing for a good few minutes.

They have a certain day in December that if it's bad outside, it's going to be bad for the next 40 days, kind of similar to how we rely on the shadow of the groundhog.

Breaking a mirror is bad luck, walking under a ladder, etc.

Nicoletta said it perfectly, "I don't think walking under a ladder is unlucky, it's just dangerous."

I had a three hour break, so I just hung out at the apartment and re-energized myself for my next class. I was really glad to find out that my teacher wasn't taking us out to tour Florence for the day because it was too cold out. Now, I know I've dealt with colder weather than 36 degrees, for those of you laughing, but my body has definitely adjusted to Italian weather and I was FREEZING today. I'm not looking forward to my apartment when the heat turns off for the night.

When it gets cold in this apartment, it can get cold. One night I slept in a t-shirt, sweatshirt, shorts, sweatpants with sheets, two heavy comforters and two blankets and I was still shivering.

During my Genius of Florence class we watched a National Geographic documentary of the history of Florence that my teacher was actually in as a historian. Pretty cool.

The documentary was really interesting because I was learning the history of the grounds I walk on every day. Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence has so much history behind it. I learned that there are secret passages underneath it and the building connects from building to building across the river to the other side of the Arno River. They did this so that the Medici Family, the richest ruling family in the 14th century, could stay away from the common people. It even led them to a secret passage way to the church so they could sit above the people and leave without interacting.

I wondered to myself what the buildings above me were as I crossed underneath them on the main roads and the buildings on the bridge, and now I know.

The picture on the left is called the Ponte Vecchio, meaning "old bridge." It's also now known as the jewelry bridge of Florence. The bridge actually used to have people who sold meat, and the meat made the halls of that above walkway you see smell horrid. So it was changed to jewelry.

You can see the hallway connecting from one side to the other in the very center. It goes above the little houses too, but it's more noticeable in the center.

The picture to the right is another connecting hallway. It leads to the hallway across the Ponte Vecchio bridge as seen in the picture on the left. Just some fun facts.

After class I went to the supermarket Meta and fetched my ingredients for dinner. I found a recipe online for pesto chicken. It recommended cooking rice with it because I would have more than enough of the sauce to mix with it.

I ended up tweaking the recipe and mixed the peas, tomatoes, rice and basil pesto/mayo sauce with the rice and put it on top of my chicken. It hit the spot! I was so happy because my roommates said it was really good too! I'm slowly getting better at this cooking thing.

I should really be studying for my Italian quiz tomorrow, but I'm just not feeling it. Perhaps another cup of tea and browsing the internet will be a good end to the night, and I'll wake up earlier and study. When I say early, I mean 9:00, so really not that early.