The inevitable stories of passport abuse

THE INEVITABLE STORIES OF PASSPORT ABUSE

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Eating Gelato in the Rain

I am smiling from the inside out and I don't know why.  I am in love with Florence. I have officially been here for one week and it feels like I have lived here my whole life.  There is something so comforting about Firenze. like no matter where I go throughout the city, Firenze always has me tucked in it's warm embrace. I have no class on Thursdays, so today was my errand running today...and believe me I need a full day (or two) to run every errand.  I ventured out with my list this morning all alone.  It was while getting lost in the narrow streets that I realized I had been smiling from the moment I left our apartment this morning.  No wonder everyone was giving me strange looks!  Something about being here just makes me happy (like eating gelato in the streets during a downpour...without an umbrella).  But discovering the city all on my own brought everything into prospective for me. Let's just say I plan on traveling as much as I can on my own.

Enough rambling about nothing, I finished my first full school week (a whole 3 days long).  Classes yesterday weren't bad!  I had Symbols and Symbolism in Western Art with Elizabeth.  Our Professor kind of looks like Ms. Hooch from the Harry Potter movies (she teaches the first years how to fly a broom stick, in case you didn't know).  We spend half of class listening to lectures about how peacocks are early Christian symbols of Jesus's sacrifice, and then spend the other half of the class actually going to museums and finding said peacocks in Renaissance art.  I must say that art is much more interesting when you are looking at the little detailed things...and the putting those details into prospective while standing in front of a famous piece of artwork. After class, Elizabeth and I got a quick lunch before heading to our next class, the Ethics of Globalization (yay another poli sci class...not).  Our professor is strange, there isn't a better way to describe him.  He completely disregards the rules of the school, which I love ( no participation points; I am incapable of saying anything intelligent in a political science class so this works out great for me!). I think it will actually be an interesting class.  We spent a good half hour discussing if McDonalds was going to take over the world or not.  That class went by surprisingly quick!  Then off to Italian for the second time this week.  Our teacher is moving VERY slowly through the material. I am baffled by the people who still can't pronounce boun girno, even though we literally have spent 2 days on that single phrase.  I wish the class was a faster pace.  Have I mentioned that I REALLY would like to be fluent in Italian by the time I leave.  I plan on participating in a conversation exchange though, which will hopefully help.  And the school here offers this "adopt a family" type program as well.  I will be set up with a local Florentine family who I will be able to babysit for, cook with and just be with during my time here.  Fingers crossed I get a family that speaks no English ( like I said I am desperate to learn Italian).

As far as traveling goes, I don't particularly want to do a lot of it.  Most of the places my roommates want to go I have been to already.  And as I have been to most of the famous major cities, I want to go to the less popular places like Croatia and Prague.  If anything goes my way, I will be traveling to Ireland, Prague, Croatia, Greece, London and Interlocken.  ( I have already been to London but I desperately want to go to the premiere of Harry Potter :] )  We are also going to the Amalfi Coast next weekend through a local travel program.  Now that I type it out, that looks like an awful lot of traveling, but compared to the rest of people here who will be traveling every weekend, my schedule in mellow!

Instead of planning out my travels I should be trying to read my 40 pages of International Terrorism reading...boring!  But there are so many exciting things to see in the World that I cannot hold still! Until manana....

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