getting blown away....

So I am writing on a Friday afternoon after just having a cup of American Coffee....it was black with sugar but it is the first cup I have has since being in Florence and it was delicious! I can remember the last time I had Starbucks...It was in the London Gatwick airport before I left for Pisa! And yes...I remember the date, August 19th! I know lame but I do sort of miss my triple grande iced soy carmel sauce latte! BUT good news, there is Starbucks in Germany so I will be hitting that up in December! :D

Monday when I went to the school for my Mysticism and Magic class I learned that the school almost burnt down this last weekend! Someone had left a projector on and burned 3 of our classrooms. Luckily, someone called the fire department and there was not too much damage. But for this week, some of my classes were held in another school about 2 mins away from Richmond.

Moving on, this week has been an interesting one. On tuesday, instead of having Italian class, we were taken to the Palazzo Vecchio along with other American students in Florence for "Welcome Day". It was were the Mayor of Florence and some other members of Parliment welcomed us to this beautiful city! It was interesting....I was able to fill out a form so that I can have my absentee ballot sent here so I can still vote in this very important US election coming up(more on that later).

Wednesday, I went to the San Marco Monastery with my Mysticism and Magic class. This is actually a still living monastery which was interesting to hear. It was pretty amazing on the inside. In every cell in the monastery, it had a different fresco, so it was really cool to go from cell to cell and look at all the frescoes. I took some pictures but none of them turned out a well as I had hoped. But check facebook out anyway if you can.

So this week I have been battling a cough, which has been no fun! It is going around the people in my program so it was bound to come find me but now, I have gotten my roommates sick! So that is a quick update on my health if you wanted to know. :D Hopefully after I get over this...I will not be sick for the rest of the trip! *knock on wood*

This saturday I am going to my first ever soccer game in europe! I am super excited! The game is Fiorentine vs. Genoa so I managed to by a really decently priced Fiorentine scarf that I am going to sport at this game! I will take pictures!

Moving on to what I have been reading about in the papers about the US. So apparently our market is not doing so well right now. WaMu just got bought out by Chase in one of the biggest bank failures in history...and of course I happen to bank with them. I really hope that this does not put a damper on my finances while I am in Italy because that would not be fun for me! I was watching a video on CNN.com and it said that for now that people who bank with WaMu aren't going to see a change YET. Who knows what will happen....the market pretty much sucks and let's hope whoever becomes President will make a change for the better!

Hope that was enough of an update for ya'll! Miss you and Love you!

P.S. I decided to put up a picture of the Ponte Vecchio becauce it looks BEAUTIFUL at night! :D

cooking cooking cooking

So the last two days were so awesome I have decided to write a blog about them!!!

On tuesday after my Italian class, I was able through the school take an authentic cooking class. It was so much fun! We made everything from scratch including the pasta! We made a three course meal. For the first course we made vegetable souffle. Second course vegetable lagsana with pesto sauce and then for desert tiramasu! OH MY GOSH! It was amazing! And the best part......we got the recipies! So I can make this at home!

So I have decided that when I get back to the states, I am going to cook this meal!

Then today wednesday, at 6pm, I had a pizza making class. 15 of us Richmond students showed up to this resturant and we got to go in the kitchen and make pizza. The dough was already made which kinda made me sad but we got to flatten it, put the sauce on and any kind of toppings we want! My pizza turned out amazing as you can see in the picture above!

Classes are going well. The not so fun thing I have to do for my classes other than Italian is write a research paper that is about 3,000 words long. And my outlines for these papers a due with in the next week and a half. It's crazy how fast the semester flys by! BUT I am hoping that this weekend while my gang of friends is in London, I will get a head start on my subject and find some sources and organize!

I will hopefully get a lot done this weekend.

Love you and miss you all!

Oh the adventures of walking around Florence....

So today my friends and I decided to at 4pm walk over to Esselunga. Esselunga is a supermarket kinda like WalMart or Fred Meyer, they have EVERYTHING. There are 2 located in Florence and they are on the most outer part of the city. They are about a 20-25 minute walk to get there.

So we meet up at the Duomo(beautiful church btw! pics coming soon!) and start walking towards the store. We get there and get all of our shopping done, and check out. We walk outside....it is pouring down rain! We try to call the taxi number but it is busy, probably because everyone was trying to get one! Gilbert then walks a block or 2 to buy bus tickets cause we heard that you could take the bus closer to the center of the city. Gilbert gets the tickets but then and finds out that the closest bus station is at the Duomo! Let me say that the Duomo is about 2 or 3 blocks from where I live.

So we decide to trek the rain, it let up a little bit when we started to leave but in the middle of our trip it began to rain AND hail! We were caught in a thunderstorm!

By the time we got to the Duomo, we were drenched and the rain had stopped. Everyone around was dry and here we come walking through Florence, bright yellow bags in hand drenched in rain water.

As soon as I got home, I unloaded my bags and took a quick shower to get all of the gross water off of me.

So if this study abroad trip hasn't been an adventure to the fullest...I don't know what is!

First week of classes...and my address!!!

So monday classes started at Richmond, which by the way is in an old 17th century palace! Awesome huh?

So this is my schedule;
Monday: 10:50am-12:30pm Mysticism and Magic of Medieval and Renaissance Italy
2:30pm-4:00pm History of the Italian Cinema and Society
4:20pm-6:20pm Elementary Italian 2
Tuesday: 4:40pm-6:20pm Elementary Italian 2
Wednesday: 10:50am-12:30pm Mysticism and Magic of Medieval and Renaissance Italy
2:30pm-4:30pm History of the Italian Cinema and Society
Thursday: 4:10pm-5:30pm Elementary Italian 2
Friday: NO CLASS!

So I would have to say that my schedule is pretty awesome! My mysticism and magic class has been interesting thus far, I feel it might be a little challenging when we get further into the course. Right now we are compare religion and magic in different text from medieval times with some text from the bible. Its been pretty interesting. My Italian Cinema class has been good! I was a little afraid on monday because I felt the professor was just talking just to talk at one point BUT wednesday it was good. We watched a movie called Mediterraneo and it was about these Italian mitlilary men that get trapped on an island in Greece for 3 years and they make their life while Italy is having a civil war. And of course Elementary Italian 2. The reason why I am taking this course is because while we were in Lido, we were talking Elementary Italian 1 and it was very intense! But we learned about a semesters worth of Italian in 3 weeks. This class feels a little overwhelming right now but I think I will get it of I study a lot. OH and the grade I got for Elementary Italian 1 was an A-! I was pretty proud of myself.

The reason why these is no class on Friday is because some of the classes here at Richmond have course-related field trips that they go on to different museums and cities around Florence. Also, so we as a program can go to Venice and Rome, class has to be cancelled on Friday. It makes it kinda nice!

One of the coolest things that Richmond gave us was a Uffizi student card. It is a card with my name on it where I can go into any museum in Florence for free if I just show the card and my picture ID! Aweomse huh? So friday's I can take advantage of that!

I have heard many people ask me what my address is. WELL, I can't receive mail at my apartment but I can at the school. BUT PLEASE NO PACKAGES. The school won't receive them. So if you would like to send me a letter you can send it to:

Lauren Short
C/O Richmond
Via Maggio 11
50125 Florence, Italy

I hope this was a lengthy enough post for you all, I should probably get ready for the day seeing as it is 12:30 in the afternoon!

Love you and miss you all!

there are no words to describe what just happened

So today we had our orientation meeting and safety meeting from the police. I of course, left that meeting more terrified than ever to walk the streets of Florence.

Anyways on to the juice that just happened. I went to dinner with Gilbert, Barbra, Carissa and Melissa and Gilbert walks me home and I get inside my building. I get to my flat and I put the key in and start to turn it and it won't budge! I tried for 5 min. Gilbert tried. We even called Barbra to come and try and we sat there for about 20 minutes trying to get my door open. So we call the emergency number for AIFS and they give me the landlord's number cause I haven't put it in my phone yet and so we call him. We keep trying until he comes. Antonio come about 15 minutes later runs up the stairs and of course....opens the door. I felt like a huge idiot! He tried the key at least 2 more times to be sure. The key just has to be jiggled and I thought we were doing that but oh well.

Oh and might I add I had chinese for dinner.....in Florence. Funny huh?

Oh the adventures of Florence!

Please someone pinch me!

I had my final test in my 3-week intense italian course! I think I did pretty well! Then I had to wait until 1:15pm for my bus to go to Florence. As soon as we got here we stopped, took out our luggage and my two roommates and I got a taxi because buses are allowed into Central Florence because the streets are very narrow!

My two roommates names are Amanda. Yup, both of them! They are pretty awesome and really nice. Our apartment is AMAZING! There is a shoe store right below us and a club within 30 seconds of our place. We had to climb up a bunch of stairs with our luggage but it was worth it!

The apartment building was built in the 1400's is what our landlord was telling us. It's got a kitchen with plenty of dishes. There is a dishwaser, washer (but no dryer) and all the essentials to clean.

The bathroom is RED and WHITE! That made me so happy and pretty much my favorite part!

Our landlord, Antonio is really awesome and showed us everthing we need to know about the apartment. He gave us 3 free pizza gift cards for us which was really nice.

I have the single room to myself and it is so beautiful! I will post picutres of the apartment soon. BUT the best part is yet to come. I noticed a wireless router between the couch and our bathroom door. And now i guess we have free wireless too! There is a wired connection as well! I can't believe it! I really need to be pinched and wake up from this amazing dream!

The school is about a 15 min. walk from my aparment. We are in the middle of everything! It is amazing!

Stress...

So this friday I have my oral test for italian! GAH and then saturday i have my written test. GAH!!

So please pray for me.

But the exciting news is that after my test saturday i am getting on a bus at 1:15pm and finally going to florence!!! I don't know when I will have internet next when I leave Lido so it might be a while before you hear about some of my fab adventures!

Just thought I would quickly update! Love and miss you all!