Che bellissima fine-settimana.

Friday we had a drawing lesson at San Minato, one of the most beautiful places I have been in Florence yet, we drew the architecture of the church and I decided that it was a fabulous way to learn and I will be signing up for the Studio Art course first semester—which starts in a couple weeks. I believe I will also be taking an Italian literature class, an Italian language stylistics course, and a history of Florence course, plus auditing one class at the University of Florence of my choice that I will be required to write a paper on at the end of the semester. I honestly hadn’t even really thought about the schoolwork that would be happening here, but I am very happy to have a schedule and to be back in an academic setting, learning about the environment in which I now live. Orientation will be another two weeks of classes and by the end of it my Italian should hopefully be back up close to the level it was at when I left Smith last spring.

This weekend was an excellent opportunity to see more of the Tuscan countryside and I definitely took advantage of it. Saturday I went to Chianti with three of my friends, we decided to go to a little town called Greve, where we heard there might be a wine festival going on. We decided to just hop a bus and leave the city early Saturday morning and see what Greve could offer us. It turned out no wine festival, but a little market was open until two with food and clothes and really beautiful leather bags (no Mom I didn’t buy one yet). We found out once the market was done though, that Greve is extremely tiny, with not a whole lot to do inside the town. The views on the way up and down were the highlight. I will post some pictures that I took out of the bus window and I promise you I did not edit them one bit—that is the Tuscan countryside folks. We did have an excellent lunch, some amazing dessert, and a little wine though, before getting back on the bus for some more panoramic views and hairpin turns.

That night we decided to try our luck in the city on our first real Saturday night in Italy. A friend of a friend had tipped us off to a bar that a lot of Italians go to called (of all things) Joshua Tree. Lucky for us it is very close to my and Katherine’s apartment, and there happened to be a Florentine soccer game going on so it was packed with screaming fans. If you want to learn some fun Italian words, watch soccer here. We immediately decided we will be buying our purple t-shirts and going to a game, hopefully next Sunday. It was great and the bartender made us free shots because along with her we were the only girls in the place. It was probably the nicest an Italian girl has been to us since we got here.

Sunday Katherine’s sorellina (little sister) Nora visited from Rome, where she is attending language school for a few months. We decided to get some more l’aria della campagna (country air) and headed to nearby Fiesole to have a picnic and do some reading for our classes. Fiesole is beautiful, you can just walk and walk and walk and everywhere you turn there are ancient Etruscan ruins or an amazing 360 degree view of Florence way down below the countryside. We got some sun and some reading done and had some paninos before heading back the città.

I got my first Italian cold this weekend, which might keep me in tonight but I didn’t let it stop me from traveling. I still find myself missing home sometimes and don’t know if I will ever get used to the idea that this is my home for another nine months, but as they say “Vediamo.”