A lot of catching up to do...

Sorry my posting schedule on this blog has turned out to be less than consistent.  With being in the room at odd hours of the day and always wanting to crash at night when we finally get back, I never seem to have time to update you all.  Life is going REALLY well though.  Today was by far my favorite day so far (note the pic), but before I get to that I’ll update you on the past couple of days…

 

Wednesday we had class from 8:45 until 11 in the Bargello Museum.  It’s an amazing statue museum in Florence that houses works by Michelangelo and some of his contemporaries.  After the museum a few of us tried to find some trendy yet relatively well-priced stores in the area to shop in, but were unsuccessful in finding either of those qualities.  Everything here is so expensive (on top of the conversion back to the US dollar) plus I am so set in my style of Anthropologie that the trends here don’t quite seem to fit, haha.  I am excited about finding some accessories, like earrings and a bag, but haven’t quite fallen in love with anything yet.  Despite the unsuccessful shopping endeavor, we returned back to the hotel pretty content after a good class and as per usual had a pretty chill afternoon here.  A few of us went out that night since we didn’t have class until three on Thursday and knew we wouldn’t be able to the following night because we had early class on Friday.  We went to a place called Fiddler’s Elbow, another pub (I think there’s a trend here), and had a good night of just sitting around and talking until around closing.  The buses stop running as frequently after 12 am so we walked back to the hotel, which was actually pretty nice.  I really feel as though I can get around this city with ease now after only being here for a week and a half between our classes and investigating on our own time.  Its nice to know the city, but I’m definitely glad to be moving on in another week to a new city.   

 

Thursday morning my roommates and I decided to get up early despite the fact that we didn’t have class until 3 so that we could make the most of the day.  I feel like so many of the other kids here spend a lot of time sleeping and lounging when we have late classes, but I don’t think I could sleep much later anyway because I feel so obligated to get out and explore more of the city while I’m here.  We had heard of a place called the Boboli Gardens from both our professor and many of our guide books so we decided that would be a good destination for a gorgeous fall morning.  The gardens are huge and originally the backyard for the Medici family, but now open to the public.  Although flowers weren’t really in bloom it was still impressive to see all of the green space within the city and some of the views of both the countryside and city were great.  Lots of photo-ops!  Class that afternoon was first held in Santa Maria del Carmine and then finished in Santa Maria Novella (about a 15 minute walk from each other).  Both of these churches were quite impressive despite the fact that all of the churches are starting to look similar at first-glance.  I love actually knowing the terms to use to describe what we’re seeing, so intellectual and European, I know. Haha.  Like I said before, we had an early class on Friday so we stayed in Thursday night and played a couple of games of Shanghai (I STILL have not freaking won that game) and caught up on some much needed sleep.

 

Friday was our first trip with our Art History class.  We had to meet the bus outside of our hotel at 7:45 and then had about an hour drive to Pisa for the day.  Originally we were supposed to have about 2 hours of lecture there and then another 2 hours or so of free-time, but it down poured from the moment we woke up that morning so it wasn’t very suitable for eating lunch out on the green near the leaning tower or doing much shopping.  We did manage to have a good class despite having to take all of our notes while inside the buildings, but everyone was quite ready to leave when it was over.  A lot of the group had plans to travel to Lucca, Cinque Terre or Rome for the weekend so the bus driver dropped off all but five of us at their locations and then took us back to the hotel.  It was nice to have fewer of us here so that we could eat dinner at our leisure, not have to worry about what time others were coming back and just make plans for ourselves.  It’ll be interesting having everyone back here after the peaceful weekend, but I’m excited to hear about what they did.

 

And now for today!  It was such a good chill day, but also got us out of Florence for a while and able to experience a big part of the Italian culture.  The five of us still around for the weekend had made plans to go to Greve after receiving recommendations from other students who had gone earlier in the week.  Greve is the supposed capital of the Chianti wine region so we were hoping to get there and go to a wine tasting and then walk or bike around the vineyards, but didn’t really have a lot of definite plans yet.  Thank goodness for that!  When we were on the bus, we thought we had missed our stop in Greve because they don’t announce them and so we began to panic a little that we were going to have our “plans” ruined.  Luckily, a couple of girls from California sitting in front of us overheard our discussion about what we should do next and told us about a wine festival going on at the last stop the bus would be making.  We quickly decided that that sounded like a good idea and made plans to follow them there even though we later figured out we had not yet missed our stop in Greve.  The wine festival was so much fun!  We paid 12 euros for a wine glass and to enter the festival and then the rest of the day was free.  We spent about 4 hours walking around the city, sampling all sorts of wine (I’m ready for a break from red wine for a while, although it was great), eating lunch and meeting some really cute couples.  There were a lot of individuals from the US there, but it was even nice to interact with them (despite the lack of authentic Italian vibe) because they talked to us about other places we should travel and taught us a little about the wine.  One of the highlights of the day for me was buying my first piece of artwork.  We all know how obsessed I am with art, but this painting isn’t even that similar to my typical taste.  This particular artist sat at a table at the festival today and painted as people passed by in the piazza, all influenced by the festival atmosphere.  I had been admiring his art all day, but couldn’t decide if it was something that I wanted to spend my money on.  I told myself that if the painting I liked was still there at the end of the day, then it was meant to be.  Well, my painting sold about 30 minutes after I made that decision, naturally.  I kept checking back at the station throughout the day, but never saw anything I liked as much.  Finally after much debate and as we were deciding when to leave I made the executive decision to go for it.  I went back to the stand and asked him to make one specifically for me because he had one very similar on display, but I wanted mine to have a black background instead.  It is hard to describe the painting without downplaying it so I will wait to upload a photo later and let it speak for itself.  After I got my personally-made painting, we got on the bus to go back to Florence just in time for me to have a quick phone call with the fam and go to dinner.  Then to end the day perfectly we just got back from getting gelato at Florence’s most famous gelateria, Vivoli.  It was a good one for my first cup since I have been here and definitely ended the day off well. 

 

Tomorrow we are headed to Villa dei Castello and Villa la Petraia, a couple of towns that are accessible by public buses, for the day.  It probably won’t be as nice as today, but I’m hoping for at least some nice weather again (today was low 70s and sunny!) and a good end to a nice weekend.  Only a week or so until I will have more reliable internet and can get the pics up for you guys!  I’m stoked about classes and traveling this week, but ready to move on to the next chapter too.

 

I’ve been so excited to hear about amazing things going on with all of you this week!!  Sounds like IV is doing AMAZINGLY well and pretty much everyone is loving life back at BC.  The family seems to be doing well too which is nice to hear when I can’t be with all of you.  Keep the updates coming and I’ll try to stay on top of this as much as I can.

 

Love you all!