Monday, May 26, 2008

Day #7216 - And Then, The Sun Came Out!

Good morning, Vietnam!

Oh wait, that’s not right….

Good evening, Italy! Today’s weather was SUNNY with temperatures in the low 80s!

Hello hello again, friends and family. I know I haven’t written here since last Wednesday, but I promise I have a super good excuse: it’s ITALY and I just don’t want to miss anything. Life has been incredibly busy as of late.

School is going well. I keep trying, but my mind just does not grasp foreign languages (seeing as it still has issues with English quite a bit of the time). Art History started up last Thursday and is really interesting. We had that class again today and Andre (our teacher) took us to the Roman Ampitheater in Piazza Bra and because we were there for class, we got in for free! A word I love even more now that I’m here due to the exchange rate =)

I had my first outside-Verona experiences this weekend. Friday night, me and 7 other girls took the train down to Lucca, a small town in TUSCANY! It was incredibly beautiful – I felt that the small town setting was much more in line with my personality than a city is (but Verona’s a good compromise because it’s not too big). We had dinner in one of the main piazzas, spent the night in a hostel, and then during the day on Saturday we walked around, did some shopping, climbed an old tower attached to a church, and rented bikes so we could ride around the city walls. It was a busy day, we definitely used our time to the fullest and then rode back to Verona on Saturday night.

Sunday was our first pre-planned trip to the city of Mantua. While we were there, we toured two different palaces (we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the frescos though), had an incredible lunch, and went shopping at an outlet mall. The pickings were kind of slim, however I did buy the most amazing leather jacket and it was such a deal!

That brings us here, to Monday. Had both of my classes today, then went grocery shopping for the second time. There’s a small comfort in walking up and down the aisles and seeing American brand names (even if you can’t read anything else on the label) and hearing music in English over the intercom. They really love music from America here – it’s just kind of funny because we’re here for a cultural experience but keep bumping into English! Oh and good news – I got more bandaids =) though my feet are actually doing much much better in case anyone out there was wondering (but I’m pretty sure you weren’t).

That pretty much sums it up for now. I’m going to do my Italian homework really quick, and then most of our group is planning on getting together to hang out tonight.

Before I forget, here are links to some pictures I’ve taken so far:

Italy Part 1 – *link removed 11/2011*
Italy Part 2 (mostly pictures from Tuscany) – *link removed 11/2011*

Hope all is well back in the good ol’ USA – love you and miss you all!

No comments:

Post a Comment