Italy should not be this cold...

Sorry, I meant to update this sooner, but first of all, I've been really busy the last few days, and second of all, its been really cold (in the 20's at night, which is when i do these), so its hard to sit out on the terrace for a long time and write these things.

This past week, classes really got into full swing, and as a result, I have a lot of reading to do for them. My European Union class is getting more interesting every time I go to it, which is wonderful, considering the fact that I was falling asleep during the first class. I was assigned a group oral report thats due in a few weeks on Germany, so we'll see how that goes. Its gotta be 20 minutes long, but I have a feeling that I should be fine considering that my topic is the entire country of Germany and anything and everything about it.

My History of Modern Italy class is probably one of the more boring things I've experienced in the last 20 years. Luckily, as the class is 2 and a half hours long, we get a 10 minute break an hour and 15 minutes into it. During this time, I've begun the ritual of leaving the school and grabbing an espresso to get me through the second half of the class...

My Food and Culture class is great. My instructor is a professional chef that has owned her own restaurant for around 20 years. The first week we made crepes, and last week we took a trip to the largest fresh food market in Florence so she could show us around and explain a bunch of food stuff to us. I really like the market; there's a lot going on and there' all kinds of really interesting foods. The only downside is that a bunch of the vendors like to overcharge Americans.

Italian language class is exactly that...italian language class. I know a lot of the people in that class, and there's a lot of active participation, so its a good time.

In other news, I've been trying not to eat out as much. The last week and a half or so has been mostly fresh bread, olive oil, blood oranges, salad, and different variations of pasta with tomato sauce. When I do eat out, though, I've been going to this place called Dante that is a Florence student's godsend. Its a nice restaurant, but the best part is that students drink all they want for free, plus what seems like an additional 15-20% off the bill. I'm still not exactly positive what they are or aren't charging me for, all I know is its great. I went there with a party of 12 a few days ago. Everyone got a meal, plus 6 or 7 bottles of wine for the table, a bunch of bottles of water for the table (no restaurants in Florence serve tap water), a round of lemoncello for the entire table, a few cappuccinos and espressos, and somehow it came out to 8 euros per person...incredible i tell you.

Other than that, I went to Pisa last Wednesday. Its a really easy trip, about an hour train from Florence. The city was pretty nice, definitely a lot greener than Florence, but also a lot smaller. Now check out some pictures. 

This is one of the main streets in Pisa; nothing all that exciting. It lets you see what the city looks like though.

A Keith Haring mural on the side of a church in Pisa. Looks pretty cool to me...I feel like I've seen it before.

It turned out to be really great weather the day we went, so that was nice. This is the Arno river cutting through Pisa. The same river cuts through Florence, just pretty far east from here.

You wouldn't believe the amount of people doing that cheesy *I'm holding up the tower* photo. I found that the asian tourists especially like holding up the tower in pictures. Besides that, the tower was nice. The whole area surrounding the tower and the church next to it was really nice; very green grass.

Check it out, its some nice dome thing. There were all kinds of signs saying to stay off the grass, but we made it on for the next picture...

You wish you could jump that high. Don't worry, you're not alone, everyone else is jealous too. Thats me and my friends Kat and Danielle. Yes, I was traveling with 4 ladies.

The sky started getting really nasty in the evening, so I snapped this and I think we got the hell outta there and back to the train right after this.

I did manage to catch a pretty cool sunset walking back over the river. Looks like the world's on fire.

This last picture is from a trip I took yesterday to Lucca, a city west of Florence, pretty close to the Mediterranean. The entire place was surrounded by these really old city walls. This picture is from on top of the wall, looking outside of the city. I didn't take many pictures of Lucca and none of my friends posted theirs yet, so this is the best I got. And sorry to go back to that Dante restaurant, but to give some perspective, I spent 17 euros in Lucca at some crappy little restaurant for a personal pizza, a little pasta dish and water...

No class again tomorrow. I keep forgetting that I still don't have an internship for the summer, so I think I may work on that a bit. Other than that, I finally got my Florence museum pass, so I may drop by one of the museums tomorrow.

Alright, I'm cold.

Happy, Mike?