October 11, 2011

October 11, 2011

I went to bed pretty early again last night so I was able to get a nice amount of sleep before I got up at 7:30. I felt very un-Minnesotan as I walked to the bus this morning wearing a coat when the projected high for the day was 83 degrees…to be fair, it was 40 degrees when I walked to the bus stop, but still! The weather here is so crazy! This morning at 9:00, I had my Weaving the Tale class and we discussed the Decameron, which I still love. Immediately following that class, I ran over to San Marco where my Medici class was meeting fifteen minutes after my other class ended. There we studied the frescoes of Fra Angelico, whom I had written my paper on, so I found it especially interesting. I definitely think that San Marco is one of my favorite places to visit in Florence; I’ve been there twice and I will probably be back again. Our Medici class ended around 12:15 so I walked back to school and ate my lunch in the classroom before Italian. We had Italian at 1:15, during which we reviewed direct pronouns for our quiz on Thursday. At 2:30, I was all done with class for the day, which was fabulous!

After class, I was able to Skype with my Grandma and Grandpa for about half an hour, which was so nice! I had completely forgotten they even had Skype so it was a wonderful surprise to be able to talk to them and see them as well :) Skype is such a wonderful thing when you’re abroad…I really love it. So thank you for Skyping with me today, Grandma and Grandpa, it was lovely :)

After using the Internet for a little while longer at school, I headed home. It is Tuesday so I was hoping to see Marco and Massimo and, sure enough, they’re here! Marco was being fussy while Daniella was trying to start dinner so I took him and got to play with him for a little while, which was a lot of fun. Today was his first day of nursery school so he was pretty tired from that. Now (as I am writing this) I think he’s starting to get grumpy from being so tired because he’s crying a lot. Thankfully, when I played with him, he was still very content :) After a while, I gave Marco back to Daniella, who had finished the preparations she needed to do, and got started on some of my homework. I am so glad that we only have one more day of reading for Inferno because I am definitely ready to be done with hell. It’s so graphic and really no fun at all to read at this point. You can only read so much at once before you have to set it down and come back to it later. Thankfully we will move onto Purgatorio soon and then we’ll be to Paradiso before I know it, I’m sure. Just have to struggle through these last few cantos :P Thankfully I did my Inferno reading and followed it with my reading from The Decameron, which I enjoy so much more!

For dinner this evening we started with penne pasta with tomatoes, mushrooms and basil, which I had two helpings of (I was especially hungry tonight). For our main dish, Franzi and Daniella had chicken, while Andrea and I had caprese salad and ZUCCHINI FLOWER! We finished off with more sweet and delicious clementines. A wonderful dinner!

I still have a little bit of reading to finish up so I’ll do that, stretch and then head to bed—I’m starting to see a theme in my evenings after dinner. It’s so nice to be able to get so much sleep at night, though, because it would be so easy to get very little. It definitely helps me stay awake during class! As for fall break, the countdown continues and only two days of class remain until it’s here! I suppose I should focus on the couple days of school first though…so for now, I’d better go. I hope the weather is beautiful and the fall colors are brilliant!

Love, Kari