Freezing in Firenze

So I’m trying my best to make this a habit to prevent me from falling off the earth and never writing again. Maybe it’ll also make my posts shorter since I’ll be writing more often.

Who am I kidding? I always have plenty to say.

Anyway, rundown of the week thus far. It’s only Wednesday which means a. happy hump day! b. one more day (and by day I mean morning) of classes. 

Classes, right. The ‘study’ part of my study abroad experience has officially begun...

Monday I had Wine culture in Italy which I can tell will be a challenging but fun experience. The teacher had pages on pages of slides that were filled with information. I’m pretty sure I lost feeling in my hand 45 min in. However the second half of class is dedicated to wine tasting which is awesome. We learn how to properly taste wine and get to sample 3 glasses of wine each class. aka considering that the class is at noon and I don’t usually eat a lot before I go, I will probably get to my 3:00pm Italian class tipsy. And I’m okay with that. La dolce vita, no? Italian was pretty standard the teacher is adorable and very quiet but doesn’t speak great English and our workbooks are completely in Italiano. not cool. Monday night we started planning out possible trips we all wanted to take so that we could get an idea of where/when we will be traveling. so much more stressful than I thought. There’s just too many places I want to go and not enough time AT ALL.  Didn’t make it out but I’m okay with it because my nose has been running up the wazoo and the last thing I want is to start off the semester sick. 

Tuesday I only had one class at 3 so I met Jaclyn for lunch at Pino’s, pretty much our favorite sandwich place thus far. 

Pause, I think it’s safe to say Pino is gonna be my new best friend, and by ‘I think,’ I mean it’s happening.  Literally the nicest man, and he’s pretty funny too!  While I’ll try to make it to all the restaurants recommended in the 4 guides I was given from various friends (without going broke/spending all my money on food), the food at Pino’s is just so good! And as I always say, if it ‘aint broke, don’t fix it. Unless, that is, we’re talking about shoes, bags, and clothing; in which case you should always go all out. But I digress. We also got cold cuts from Pino since he speaks english and the men at Billa (supermarket) don’t. Made myself a sandwich for lunch today and it was delizioso (that delicious in Italian, in case you were wondering).

Anyway, european lit was extremely boring and the teacher requires us to buy 8 books, reading 1 per week. I was not expecting class to cost me 80euro but I guess that just comes with the experience (and educational aspect). Right? 

(The room, Sala Rosa, where I have 2 of my classes. SO different from Muhlenberg!)

Now before I go on, I MUST take a break, once again, to address this (I know you’re all dying to know what else I have to say, but work with me here). IT SNOWED! Yes, white, flurry, cold, wet, snow. Dear Florence, I did not leave NY/PA to come here and find snow!  While my brother is in Michigan in shorts, I’m bundled up in my Hunter boots, 2 sweaters, and winter coat!  All week its been pretty cold but Tuesday was brutal and Tuesday night there were flurries! I woke up this morning to find nothing outside though. However, Florentine people are NOT used to snow so the whole city shuts down and people go crazy. It's insane!

Today (Wednesday) I have 2 classes: ethics in a world context and italian. I went to my ethics class only to find that the teacher wasn’t there. Why, you may ask, considering its the first day of classes? THE SNOW! Apparently he lives right outside of Florence and couldn’t get into the city. I was so shocked. There wasn’t even any snow on the ground aka it didn’t stick but people’s whole day were still getting affected. I guess thats what happens when you’re not used to it. NOT that I’m complaining, I got out of class 2 hours and 15 min early :D

So now I’m in my freeeezing apartment writing this, waiting for it to be time for my italian class. Tomorrow I have class at 9 (earliest class, ugh). It’s history of fashion design so I’m hoping it’ll be a good class that will keep me awake. For those of you that know me well, I don’t usually function like a normal human before 10, the earliest. After, assuming I’m alive, I’ll probably hunt down the bookstores where I need to buy my textbooks for various classes (so much for syllabus week) and then spend the afternoon doing work because a. it’s too cold to walk around and b. we’re going away for the weekend.

Speaking of which, Saturday morning, at the wee hour of 7:45am we’re going on our last orientation trip which will last 2 days. We’ll be seeing Assisi, Perugia, Siena, and San Gimignano. I’m really excited because I probably wouldn’t make it to these cities if they weren’t taking us. 

Off to learn some more italiano, god knows I could use all the practice I can get. 

Happy February, everyone...Ciao!