I feel blogalicious

So lucky you a second blog on the same day! yay!!

Gonzaga-in-Florence (GIF from now on) students are housed in one of seven Pensioni. The one I live in is called Manola’s House. It is amazing here! I’ll be sure to take pictures soon and give like a virtual tour of the place but here’s an overview…

Manola is about 4 or 5 blocks from school, so it’s really close. From outside we ring a bell to be let in the door and then walk up to the second floor of the building. Inside we have a large common room divided into a sitting area and a dining area. All over the walls are works of art and the ceiling is a beautiful fresco! I never thought I could live in someplace so beautiful as a college student! Manola is in charge of the place and her parents cook for us, and they are the best! The food here is INCREDIBLE! For breakfast we just get cereal, toast, coffee, juice, and sometimes fruit. I’ve found a new fruit here that I don’t know what it is, but they are so good! It looks like a plum except its yellow and redish. Big seed in the middle. Ok name that fruit!

At lunch and dinner there is a first plate and a second plate (eating a major event in Italy). The first plate is a pasta dish and the second plate is a meat dish with a vegetable. My favorite meal so far was a lunch this week. We had risotto for the first plate and then chicken with zucchini for the second. I didn’t even know I liked zucchini! One night at dinner we had these really delicious carrots, they just have a way of cooking here in Tuscany.

Ok my room. My room mate and I (Sayuri – she’s from Japan originally) live in the only girls double in Manola. We are upstairs in almost like an attic. But we get our own bathroom and we have huge closets! The bathroom is very interesting to say the least. The shower is just a faucet head on the wall next to the toilet. So when we take showers the whole bathroom gets wet! But we have discovered that if we shower at night, it’s dry by morning.

There about 4 other people that work at Manola letting us in when we ring the bell. There’s no curfew here, but when it gets late you can’t be coming and going all night. Once you are in, you are supposed to be in for the night. Also, it’s against Italian law to have anyone not registered be in a pensione overnight. It’s the law for all hotels/hostels/inns/whatever in Italy. It’s a form of tax evasion here.

Another thing I love about the Pensione is we have a library, most of the books are in Italian, but some are English. And it’s full of travel books that students have left behind. I have taken Rick Steeves Best of Europe 2007 and 1000 Places to See Before You Die. I also found an Italian Phrasebook too, by Rick Steeves. Oh and I took a book on Spain, it’s a few years old, but I figure the buildings are still there! Haha. That one is not Rick Steeves, however I think it will be fine.

There are so many vespas mad scooters here in Florence! It is insane! They are just littering the streets. But what scares me about the streets is that the sidewalks are so narrow and there’s no shoulder, so I’m afraid of getting hit by a bus! And when you want to cross the street, no one stops for you, they don’t care one bit that you are in a crosswalk.

As for school and my classes:

1. Italian: I am loving learning the language! It is difficult at times though, partly because of the Spanish I took in high school. Italian and Spanish are similar but not the same at all. We have had 2 quizzes in class and I got an A- and an A on them.
2. Operations: I hate it. Mostly I hate my professor. He’s basically making it into an online class and he just wastes our class time talking about nonsense and himself. Last Thursday in class I took a tally of all the times he said “I.” 91.
3. Intro to Florence: It is because of this class that I know my way around the city. But I only know my way around based on the nearest cathedral. Every Wednesday we go on a tour of a historical place in Florence. So far we have been to: Archeological Museum, Santa Trinita, Badia Fiorentina, Santa Maria Novella, and Santa Croce. Also, I am now a tour guide for Santa Maria Novella. How cool is that?! I get to guide tourists around the church and show them the frescoes and things.
4. Management: Taught by the same professor as Operations so I hate it.
5. Global Economics: I love and adore the professor. He’s an Italian man and I call him Andrea because I can’t remember his last name. The class is three hours on Monday nights, which is a long time to do the same activity. But he is just so entertaining that I love it all. Sometimes I sit in the front row and am seriously afraid of being hit in the face because of his use of hand gestures.

This weekend:

Today my room mate and I went to Bologna. GREAT shopping! They have one of the largest outdoor markets in Europe. And it is huge! We kept getting lost actually. Bologna also has a lot of good stores, some the same as in America (H&M for example). We also had a delicious lunch and incredible dessert at a Pasticceria. The main square in Bologna is also home to the 3^rd largest cathedral in the world! And it’s free to go in. Inside I lit a candle for each of my grandmothers. Let me tell you it was gigantic!

Midterms start on Monday so I should spend most of tomorrow studying.

Thursday I am going to Barcelona for the weekend! Very excited about that!!!

Finally….

Things I miss about America:

- Free glasses of water at restaurants

- Ease of doing laundry (costs €3.50/load here to wash)

- Showers where the water doesn’t run out on you

- Public bathrooms that are free and have toilet seats.

- And of course, all of you! J