It's been a while and a lot has happened...I'll try to sum it all up.
Going into the second week of classes now. Classes are good.
Monday
Roman Catholicism - A little overwhelming, especially since it seems like everyone else has been in Catholic school their whole lives and I know nothing. Well, I knew that the 5th patriarch was in Antioch so THERE.
Introduction to Opera - A really fun class. We're going to watch a couple operas in class and go to a couple. I'm excited for that.
Tuesday
NOTHING
Wednesday
Italy in the 19th and 20th century - Seems good so far. Our paper is 50% of our grade so that's fun.
Thursday
Art in Rome - loveloveLOVE this class. Last class we went to the Forum and my professor knows his stuff. He's been doing this for about 20 years so he's an expert. This week we go to the Pantheon.
Last weekend I went to Florence with my friends Beth, Anne, and my roommate Amy. It was really fun. Florence is so much smaller than Rome and is FILLED with American students. It apparently has 24 study abroad programs so it kind of feels like you're on campus at home, especially when you have gaggles of girls in their shiny clothes going out at night. I'm really glad I decided to study in Rome, a bigger city with more people. Going back to the Uffizi Gallery was really nice. Rick Steves has a bunch of free audio tours you can download and Beth and I listened to it while walking around the museum. I really enjoyed the Venetian Renaissance paintings and Rick Steves commentary was hilarious. Beth and I climbed the 455 steps up the Duomo and the view was fantastic. I could feel the burn but it was completely worth it.
In Florence I learned the lesson of the consequences of eye contact. When I was waiting outside a building for my friends a guy approached merely because I was surveying my surroundings and briefly had eye contact with him. The funniest part was when he asked me what I was doing that night and I was like, "um it's 9:40 in the morning." Sometimes I feel like I need blinders so random guys won't come up to you all the time. It gets a little annoying after a while but it's also fun because I get to practice my Italian.
My Italian is coming along really well. I desperately need to review some of the more advanced grammar that I learned later (like imperative, future, conditional, and subjunctive) but every Italian I talk to always compliments me on how good my Italian is which is always nice to hear.
This weekend I signed up for the day trip to Ostia Antica, an ancient Roman port city with great preserved ruins. Beth and I want to picnic in the Borghese gardens and explore the Travestere area of Rome which is less touristy and a more genuine part of the city. Hopefully the weather will be nice. It has been thundering and storming like nobody's business which is exciting for Bay Area natives like myself, Anne, and my other friend from SF, Kylah, but of the norm for all the midwesteners here. They look at us like we're crazy.
I'm having issues with uploading photos right now. My Flickr site was going really well until I discovered the photo limit/month thing and my computer hates Facebook so stay tuned until I figure that out.
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