Here are some of the things I've been up to:
1. Last week I almost got hit by a pigeon once. I almost got hit by a car once, too. Both are fairly normal.
2. I saw an Italian Beatles cover band last week. Just say "Sgt. Pepper" out loud, but roll your Rs. It was so entertaining!
3. I went to Perugia yesterday. It's a little town about 2 hours from Florence by bus.
Felipe, Delilah, and David in Perugia.
They are famous for: Tomb Museums, chocolate, the place where the American student maybe murdered her roommate, underground tunnels, universities, and apparently Jazz? It's not Jazz time of year yet though, so instead our professore took us to the tomb museums. While he was explaining all of the archeology in Italian (which did not register in my brain), some of us ran away to a chocolate store.
It's possible that I'm just not very into museums. This possibility makes me feel a little guilty in this country.
So.. Perugia. The bus rides were the best part, actually. The Italian countryside has a really eerie beauty. Almost smoky.
I shared music with my new friends Felipe (Brazil) and David (Java), made a list of movies to see with my friend Julian (Spain), took pictures of the sleeping Gerd-Helen (Norway) and hung out with Delilah (Toronto) and Leonie (Germany).
The cool thing is that these people are from everywhere, and we're only here for such a short period of time. I was talking with Delilah yesterday about how because we're all thrown together so quickly and we leave so quickly we have to develop really short, but really strong friendships right away... mostly because we have to trust each other so quickly. These people have been really, really wonderful. It's going to be hard when they go in March.
This cat seems to also "mangia bene."
4. Walking around Florence is like this: you are always looking up and then down and then up and then down. This is because of dog poop. Felipe says, "I never see dogs, here. Just what they leave behind." So you have to look up to see where you're going for a few yards, and then you look down so you don't step on anything you don't wan to on your way there.
5. My house mom's granddaughter's name is Olympia, and I've been trying to teach her English every day. And she teaches me some Italian. She's 5 years old.. and she's almost got "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" down. So in between watching Pokemon dubbed into Italian, we learn some English (and me some Italian).
The food is still as good as ever. I "mangio bene" every day. Dinner is always SO much, but SO good. I'm trying to learn a thing or two about Florentine cooking.
Interesting Florentine fact? Their bread has no salt. That's so you can taste the olive oil :)