Two Months Left

WEDNESDAY

Hannah told me we have exactly two more months here. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It got really cold really fast here. Last weekend was cool, but Wednesday it was COLD. No rain, just wind. Freezing. I wore my coat IN my classes. It's apparently illegal in Florence to turn the heater on before Nov. It's so cold. And I think it might be colder in our stone and marble apartment than it is outside. We had my Medici class on location, as usual, so we spent three hours sitting on stone benches in the Bobali Gardens. I'm still trying to warm up. Have I mentioned it's cold here?

Midterms are sneaking up on us next week, so Hannah and I are doing some serious cracking down. I have 36 slides to ID and memorize. But that's not a lot compared to past art history classes so I think I'm fairly fortunate.

THURSDAY

But it was absolutely gorgeous out Thursday. I'm not saying I wanted to sun bathe, but it was a beautiful fall day and the three (count em) layers of clothes and sweaters I wore to school all under my trench coat totally weren't necessary. I'm a nut.

I went to my museum to do some research in the morning. The creepy security guard told me I was cute and if I had a fiance. I said yes I did and that I had to leave for class bye. I met my friend Tim for lunch that afternoon and we chowed down on Chinese food done Italian style. That was interesting!  

Thursday my only class, Italian, was kinda canceled because my professor couldn't be there, but we took a practice midterm which was sort of helpful. I made study guides for my other classes and did some research for my internship. Thursday afternoon it was a beautiful day so I went for a run along the Arno (I'm edging out of the 10k-5k shape I was in, and I'll be the first one to admit that. Ruh-roh).

Later Thursday afternoon I went to Spazio Conversazione to talk to practice my Italian (next week is our midterm eeeek!). The theme of the night was "perche no pesto?" so we had pesto and papa e pomodoro, which was like a tomato stew it was SO GOOD. Afterwards Hannah and I went to Tim's wine tasting at his internship enoteca, and then returned home for another lovely dinner (Anna gets 2 gold stars in a row for being so spot on with what I wanted for dinner those two nights) of pasta pomodoro, pizzeta (cuts of red meat with tomato sauce and cheese on top, like chicken parm but with red meat) and green beans.

I have postcards to send out, but I cant find a mailbox in this crazy little city! Welp  

FRIDAY
Today Hannah and I signed up for a walking tour of Florence through the school. Tim said Thursday that he'd signed up for it too but it sounded lame and decided not to show up. He got me all nervous that it was going to be lame, but then Hannah reminded me, hey, this is going to be something really cool to do on our Friday morning, why not go? She was right. It was SO cool. We went to four different artisan shops on Oltrarno, aka our side of the Arno, where most of the craftsmen work. First we went to a guy who makes Florentine marble paper and leather/goldleaf embossed book covers. Apparently he's been on Martha Stewart, he's a big deal! Then we went to another world famous artisan, a metal smither. We didn't spend much time there but it was cool to see his designs. Next we went to a jewelry maker, who works in brass mostly. He pressed euro coins for us into the Florentine insignia. We had a ball in his shop, he was the most personable as well. Finally we went to a tanner and leather shop. We didn't see the tanning process like we'd seen the processes of the other artisans, but I did do a my leather shopping there, especially since we were given a 15% discount on the goods!

Later Hannah and I met up with three other friends to buy soccer tickets to go to the game this weekend. But apparently it's such a big game that only Tuscans are allowed to go this Saturday! Oh no! So we all went out for lunch, and then we took Sarah, Caitlin, and Dani to the brass artisan to show them his shop, and they loved it as much as we did.

Hannah and I strolled around Florence for the rest of the afternoon. Now I'm a little tired, but we're making our way out to Il Gato e Il Valope for dinner (I took Sam here, and we'd gotten lost. But he ended up loving and wants to go when he comes back to Florence with a class in Nov).