Monday, June 30, 2008

Saint Miniato a Monte and first day of classes!

Ciao!
Well, I haven't written in a while so a lot has happened! On saturday after our trip, our RA showed up. She's very nice, and only a couple years older than us. Plus, she has been here for over a year so she knows all the good places to go! We went out to a great dinner saturday night. I had this incredible appetizer, it was Pecorino baked with prosciutto on top and truffle oil. SOOO GOOD! And then I had tortellini with prosciutto and tomato creme sauce. Definitely one of the more memorable meals so far. After that we went to the bar our RA works at, called Naima. It was really nice, and great to be away from all the tourists. It's a very relaxed environment and the drinks aren't too expensive. We went to some other bars but they were overwhelming.. lots of tourists and creepy Italian guys. But it was still fun to try out some new places.
Sunday we took the walk up to Saint Miniato a Monte (a church). What a walk!! It was so hot and tiring, but definitely worth it when we got to the top. We had the same teacher/tour guide, so it was great and we learned a lot! I realized that my neck does have some drawbacks because it started hurting pretty bad after staring at all the ceiling frescoes. It was worth it though! Our teacher explains every little detail about the paintings. I never knew how much meaning they had. It is literally like every detail in every painting has significance.
After our tour, my friend Carlyn and I just walked to Piazza Michaelangelo and enjoyed the INCREDIBLE view. We got some gelato, cioccolata arancia, AMAZING! Then we went down the mountain a completely different way and ended up finding this rose garden. I'm always trying to explore so I really get to know the city. Since Miniato is across the river, we explored a bit, and found some good looking restaraunts and bars. We are going to try to explore more on the opposite side because we've heard really good things about it.
Saturday night we went to a pizza place and then went to Naima again to watch the game. It was fun although the game was pretty uneventful.. On our walk home we happened to come across the empty market with the boar statue so we made a random guy take pictures, haha! This morning we had class at the crack of dawn. It was soo hard to get up at 8. My first class was Italian life and culture. I barely made it through because it was soooo boring! It's more of a history lesson, which is not exactly what I signed up for. The teacher was droning on for what seemed like forever. My second class was Italian II which was great. I'm really excited about that class!! Anyway, I ended up dropping my Italian culture class and instead I'm taking a writing class which is like a traveling features class. It teaches you to write about places you travel and what not. We have to write two huge papers, but we don't have any exams. I'm really excited, I think it is going to be great! Anyway, we just went to the grocery store and tonight we're cooking dinner! Pasta mm :) Plus I got some arugula for salad and a bottle of Chianti! I'm really getting the grocery shopping thing down, so I'm not feeling like as much of a stupid American. There is a ballet tonight in one of the squares and tomorrow night an orchestra is playing Beethoven's 8th. I'm definitely going tomorrow night, but I'm not sure about tonight. I'm pooped from class all day! I will definitely update to let everyone know how it was though! Tomorrow I don't have class until 1, so me and Carlyn plan on going to Mercato Centrale in the morning. I'm SOOO excited!!
Anyway, I'm going to attempt to upload my pictures in uno momento. YAY!! Love you all and miss you!

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