September 13, 2011

September 13, 2011

This morning in Italian we learned to future tense so we know have a basic understanding of past, present and future tenses! My Italian-speaking life is getting so much easier! After Italian, a bunch of us ate our bag lunches together in our classroom in Linguaviva and, after about an hour of lunching and socializing, Franzi and I headed out into the city. Information sessions on the different classes started today but my first one isn’t until tomorrow so I had the afternoon free. We first wandered over to the library to get our library cards but their system was down so we could not get them today. We wandered past the Duomo and decided to look at all of the paintings (the hand-painted in front of you ones…the real art) from the Duomo to Palazzo Pitti. We found an artist whose style both of us really liked but we decided to keep looking. On our way, we window-shopped and went into a few different beautiful pottery stores. In Palazzo Pitti, we found the most stunning watercolors of Florence. The woman was incredible and showed us how she painted them and then inked in the details. We each bought one of her beautiful paintings for our families (sorry Mom and Dad, I gave it away, but you won’t get to actually SEE it until I come home). After that, we decided to wander back toward Linguaviva as the sun was beating down and it was getting too hot to be outside any longer. We looked in a few more stores on our way back, picked up our backpacks from school and got on the bus for home. However, we did get off a few stops early to get some gelato at Gelatteria di Medici because it was so hot out :)

Speaking of being so hot here, I found out it’s supposed to be 58 degrees tomorrow back in Minnesota while I am sweating through this mid-ninety-degree weather! How crazy is that?! Hopefully it will cool down here soon. And hopefully it will warm up a little bit in Minnesota :P

Dinner is over and was lovely, although Andrea wasn’t home yet, which was too bad. I love eating all together as a family. I love eating with just Daniella as well but it’s just more fun and crazy when we’re all together. For our first dish we had rice and vegetable soup that was very hearty and yummy. For our second dish, Daniella and Franzi had pork and I had my soy burger and we all had green beans with Parmesan and olive oil (new idea, Mom!). I have had three soy burgers so far and, I realized tonight, that they have been SO delicious and so different tasting every night. I found out tonight that Daniella cooks it in the same sauce and flavoring that she cooks the other meat so I still get the taste and the experience of the meat without the texture. She really is an incredible and clever cook :) Next, we had the delicious ice cream cake from last weekend, which was still melt-in-your-mouth incredible. We thought that was the last course but Daniella brought out the fruit bowl next and we had pears and peaches. I’m stuffed, but very satisfied :)

After dinner, Franzi and I had some roommate bonding time, swapping stories of our lives back home and laughing so hard that our abs hurt. Now it’s time to study for Italian quiz #3 tomorrow. Wish me luck, yet again! Oh, one random thing, our classrooms in Linguaviva are on the fifth floor of the building and we counted the steps today; there are 110 steps that we have to climb to get to class every day. And then 110 steps down. And, when you leave and come back as many times as we sometimes do during the day, we are doing a gazzilion steps. Not to mention how much we walk around the city. So, in case you were worried about how much food I’ve been eating every night, you don’t have to ;)

Buona Notte,

Kari

p.s. Sorry about the lack of photos, once again…I guess, when you live in one place for such a long time, you don’t have the need to take photos every single day. Imagine that :P