A Week in Firenze

My roommates and I have been in Florence for about 3 weeks and we are starting to get into a routine. My daily routine is much more relaxed here than at ISU and I am loving it.

Sunday or Monday we usually go to the market to stock up on food for the week. We found this huge open market with a ton if different vendors. We get fresh fruit, vegetables, and cheese and dried fruit (our new favorite). The people there are so friendly and I love walking around and seeing all of the different foods available
(much more fun grocery shopping here compared to Walmart). There is a cheap cafe inside and there is also a sandwich place that Angela's cooking teacher highly recommends. We tried it out and I loved it. I think I might become a regular there.

I love living in Florence because there is always something new to see and do during the week. For instance, this week there was a chocolate festival to celebrate Fat Tuesday and Carnival. I'm pretty sure that the chocolate festival is what heaven looks like in my dads mind. They had chocolate everything, even shoes! We tried a cannoli and another pistachio chocolate roll that had little rice balls on the outside that tasted like coco pebbles. So good! We also like walking around to the different clothing markets and leather markets to see what we can find. The guys that work there say really funny comments sometimes. One time they started playing the song "I Like Big Butts" when we walked by and they told us it was a compliment lol.

As far as school goes, I actually have to study but I do not feel the same stress about school here compared to when I'm at ISU (or at least not yet). My teachers don't assign a lot of homework and they generally leave what you learn and how much you learn up to you. The only thing they expect is that you come to class (3 missed classes and it lowers your grade by 1 letter). I have class Tuesday-Thursday, 2 Tuesday/Thursday and 1 Wednesday. I have about 15-25 students in my PR, Intercultural Communication, and Art History classes and only 8 students in my Italian class. All of my classes have a paper or presentation and a midterm and final, but that's about all. My teachers also really like to take us out on walks during class time. My art class is visiting various museums and historic places in Florence throughout the semester.

I love my Italian teacher. She reminds me of the mom on "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" except she has long hair and is Italian and her name is Francesca. She is always so happy and loud. My teacher for Intercultural Com. plays the name game for 15 minuets at the beginning of class and guesses all of our names (he calls me "little one" because he cant remember mine). Speaking if names, I actually don't mind if my teachers call me Katherine here because it sounds prettier/cooler (they pronounce it like Katrina with a rolled R.. My grandpa called me that all the time when I was little).

I am surprised at how much I like my classes and going to school here. And I love living among the Italians and trying to understand what they are saying (it's already improved after only 2 weeks o italian class).I think America should follow Italy and not give out so much pointless homework! That's my two cents for the day, Ciao!


Pictures:

1-3: This is the sandwich shop in the market. We also ate a rice ball dessert that is only available in Florence during Carnival. The dried fruit we got is our new favorite snack because it tastes so much better here!

4-10: This is the chocolate festival. The cannoli and other little chocolate thing were good choices, but we will probably go back to try more things.

11-12: We went out for Fat Tuesday together and it was a lot of fun! We found a karaoke bar... and yes I sang Michael Jackson and I Like Big Butts ( they must love that song here lol). We found the secret bakery at the end of the night. You can't talk when you walk up to it and all you do is give the baker your money and he goes in and grabs whatever he has made ( last night it was a pizza thing). I'm not sure if its illegal but it gave me an adrenalin rush!

13: Danielle broke a salt shaker at the bar and we couldn't help but quote Dumb and Dumber

" Spilling the salt is very bad luck! We're driving across the country, the last thing we need is bad luck. Quick, toss some salt over your right shoulder."

14-16: This is how we do chores here...the trash rules are very strict and we couldn't find the right dumpsters for a week and a half so when we finally found them we had accumulated a mountain of trash in our kitchen...not proud of that. We also have to lay our laundry out to dry because our washing machine has a mind of its own. We have tried 3 different detergents to get our clothes to smell clean and not moldy. Nicole and I don't have a curtain on our shower yet (coming soon) so we put the drying rack in there.

17: Ashes from the Duomo (it looks like lice). We went to mass as well, but I couldn't tell you what they said. It was interesting because the priest all walk in together but they are surrounded by body guards.

18: Valentines day dinner. I got Penne pasta with olives, mushrooms, and onions. The sauce was really good and this restaurant gave you bread for free!