Name:
Location: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Sunday, November 05, 2006

It's been a while...

Yeah, I havn't posted in a while, but it has been rather busy.

I got back from London with Sincere and Courtney a week ago and we had a fantastic time!! London is my new favorite city. It felt like a place I could call home very easily. However, the exchange rate is terrible, so I guess that means I won't be moving there any time soon. :) We also went to Milan for two days before that and that was pretty great, too. We loved that city a lot -- especially all the trees! Florence has zero trees along the roads in the center, so we enjoyed the all the green in Milan. :)

In Milan we saw some pretty great stuff: the Duomo, a cartoon (pre-sketch) of Rafael's School of Athens, and the Castle Sforzesco. The school is taking us there in the spring, so hopefully they will get us in to see The Last Supper. All the photos of Milan are up on my flickr page and they have their own set on the right hand column.. :)

London was a great experience. It was almost like a home town I'd never been to before. And everyone spoke ENGLISH!! That was a treat. In Florence, when you are standing in line somewhere, you are always thinking in your mind of what you are going to say and how to say it correctly. In London we found ourselves doing the same thing and then realizing they all speak english. Even in our fake English accents that we use only with each other, we found ourselves saying, "Si!" and "Grazie!" Our brains wouldn't give us a break, I guess. The weather in London was kinda cool with, of course, fog and a little bit of rain. It was perfect. The tube was very efficient and totally easy to use. I saw just about everything I wanted to see except the London Tower, Tower Bridge and the London Bridge. And of course, there are TONS of museums that I would like to go back to someday. We didn't make it to Stonehenge like I'd hoped, but I'll save that for the next time I'm there as well. :) I have all the pictures of London up as well, so go check it out! They have their own set on the right hand side of the page. There are pictures of The Globe, Abbey Road, St Pauls, the Eye.. everything.

Oh! And make sure you check out the Movie Premiere picture set on there as well. I had pretty good timing one night and ended up meeting Jude Law and Robin Wright-Penn at the premiere of their movie, Breaking and Entering. We got their autographs and a couple pictures.. so go check it out..

I started classes this last week. I have two italian classes, one for conversation and reading and the other is just grammar. Hopefully it will help my italian... I sure need it. :) I'm also taking a class on Dante's Divine Comedy, which I'm very excited about. Dante lived in Florence (and later, banned from Florence) and many of the places in the Divine Comedy are references to real places in or around Florence and Tuscany. In December we are taking a Dante Walk to see some of the significant places from his life and works in the city. The Accademia classes start tomorrow morning and I'm kinda excited and nervous. None of the other Cal State art students signed up for this class, so I'm a bit alone in there. I hope I understand everything the teacher is saying, or that I meet up with someone who speaks english. :) Anyway, wish me luck, I'll keep you posted on that...

This morning my friend, Varpu, and I learned a little lesson about paying closer attention to the bus system. We have been attending a small group at the Pepperdine University building for Sunday night worship, but there is an actual church building just outside the city that we were looking to worship with as well. She has been once and I have yet to go. My other friend gave me directions for taking the bus so, today, we thought we'd give it a shot. We got on the bus at the right time and all.. but we reached the end of the line before we realized we got on it going the wrong direction. Oh well. Next week, I guess... and I'll make sure to go the opposite direction. :)

The weather is getting much cooler. Almost overnight, the temperature has dropped dramatically. We've been keeping warm with hot tea and blankets at night. Hopefully we will be okay throught the winter since the heat is too expensive to turn on! Now I wish we'd picked an apartment with a fireplace!!

Okay, well, I have class early tomorrow and I want to be ready for it!
I have more pictures to put up from other day trips in Italy and I'll try to get those up soon..

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home