"Home"

Quick recap of this week: oral presentation (in Italian) went much better than expected, went to an apperativo with my language partner Martina and her friends (it was SO fun and I feel like I am getting more and more immersed), had my first meeting for volunteering teaching children english, and spent two hours learning Italian hand gestures in my Italian class!

What was almost a blog entry about my amazing time in Rome, will now be a blog entry about good ol' Florence! This weekend I had decided last minute to go with my housemates to Rome! Unfortunately, after we had already booked a hostel and bought our train tickets (of course), we were warned by our teacher's and program directors that the coming weekend was going to bring a LOT of snow and dangerous travel conditions. I discussed it with my roommate, Anna, and we decided to opt out of this trip and pay $15 for canceling our hostel instead of possibly getting stuck in Rome and most likely not being able to see things like the colosseum and the forum. New plan: spend the weekend in our city of Florence!

I was honestly quite happy with this decision because after going to Paris last weekend, I was pooped! I needed time to just take it easy and rest. And that's pretty much exactly what I did! Anna and I were the only one's in our house this weekend (our roommate Tinn actually left the program and went back home, we were all shocked to hear this!) but it was such a nice time! On Thursday after class we came home and wrote out an entire grocery list for our long night ahead of finally cooking! Menu for the evening (I sort of cheated and made the exact same things Alessandro had made when he visited): Ragu alla Bolognese, Bread with marscapone cheese and salmon, and tiramisu for dessert! We bundled up and went to the largest grocery store I have seen thus far! It blew my mind, I honestly didn't think they existed in Italy! Everything was so much cheaper and better quality, just like at home! Hallelujah! We stocked up on all the necessary ingredients and lugged our heavy bags on our 15 minute walk back to our apartment. The rest of the night we stayed in cooking (the tiramisu gave us the most grief when we had to manually beat the egg whites) and had a jolly time talking with Tinn before she was to leave. What an interesting girl.

Friday Anna and I pretty much stayed in our nice, warm apartment while snow was lightly falling outside. We watched a few movies I had never seen before, got a few more groceries for the week, and just relaxed and talked. Some maintenance guys FINALLY came and fixed our heating in the house and finally the heating for our water. Three days with no hot water has made us so much more thankful for little things you constantly take for granted. Our original plan of climbing to the top of the Duomo was quickly put on hold just be taking one look out the window.

Saturday was a bit more exciting than the previous day. We got up a decent time and finally visited the Uffizi Museum! There are such famous paintings here, The Birth of Venus by Botticelli for example, and it was amazing to walk through these grand rooms and be so close to works of art I constantly see on stationary or in textbooks. Museum make me immediately tired, though. How on earth did I ever step foot into one when I was a child?? On our way back to warmth, we came upon a rather large CHOCOLATE festival!!! We went a bit crazy as the smells of everything chocolate filled our nostrils and made our mouths water in anticipation. I finally decided to spend my money on a fruit kebab dipped in milk chocolate. SO. YUMMY. I was in absolute heaven while I munched on this piece of paradise. Not even the cold could steal my thoughts! Anna, the healthy one, got a little piece of dried fruit dapped in white chocolate. We made it home to our now warm apartment and I put on a few more layers and walked over to my favorite cafe, La Cite. This place is to die for! Almost all locals go here and the atmosphere is so welcoming. There are two stories and there are people of all ages doing anything from studying, to dancing, to just talking and drinking coffee. I feel so Italian in here! I met up with a girl I had met earlier in the week who is Italian and, luckily, has pretty good english. I helped her out with a school project and had to sadly scidaddle to get ready for the Opera, "Carmen"!

After cooking some dinner (correction after Adrian cooked us some dinner), we got ready in our semi-fancy attire and walked the quick 5 minutes to an old church, St. Marks. The venue was very small, but so intimate and you got to be extremely close to the singers. It was magical!!! I absolutely loved the experience and it still baffles me that people can make their voices do such things!

Today, Sunday, Anna and I got up early to head up the mountain (on a bus) to Fiesole! There was to be another chocolate festival up there, so we braced the cold temperatures and snow to get some more yummy goodness! After the walking and the bus ride, we sadly realized there was no longer a festival because of the snow. We were crushed as we waited in the windy snow for the bus to come back and take us to safety. To make up for our loss, we went back to the chocolate festival in Florence and got some more chocolate :) Our roommates are now back and our house feels whole again!

I love it SO much in Italy. Every day I spend here is another day I want to live here longer and longer. I honestly could see myself living here one day. The people are just so genuine and they aren't scared to show emotion. I love that they don't hold back and immediately form close friendships. It's honestly such a simpler way of living and it has gotten hold of me.

Ciao!