Day 7-10 Fa Caldo!

Ciao Everybody!

My apologies about the delay with the posts! I have been extremely busy and haven't had much time to write. But now that I have a little down time, I will try to get everyone up to speed on what has been happening in my life!

So.. as far as class is concerned, so far so good! I had Italian on Thursday and Friday and most of the class time was spent reviewing stuff that I have already learned. We go at a VERY fast pace though.. one day of Italian here is the equivalent to about 4 days at home in an Italian class. I am sure it will start to become more challenging soon, so I am trying to prepare myself for that! I also had my first Italian Film class on Friday. So far, it seems like a very interesting class. The only downside it that we have to watch all the films required for the class outside of class, so that means I will be spending a lot of time on YouTube watching old Italian movies. But I think that overall, I have a pretty good schedule this semester!

On the topic of travel, Ana and I have a list of destinations we would like to see before we head home. These places include...
-Paris
-Madrid or Barcelona
-Norway
-Cinque Terre
-Lake Como
-Venezia
and the list could probably continue forever, but that is what I think we have narrowed it down to.

Yesterday, Ana, her three roommates and I went on a short day-cation to a little beach town called Viareggio. It is about an hour and a half train ride west from Florence. We caught a train at 10 a.m. and hung out at the beach for about 5 hours. One surprise when we found the beach was that we had to pay to use the beach; I guess you can't just show up and expect to be able to use the beach for free! Basically they charge you about 30 euro for day use of an umbrella, two chairs, and a "bed" which is just a tanning chair. Since their were 5 of us, the cost wasn't too bad, and we were relieved to have an umbrella since the temp was probably around 95. Other than that, the beach was amazing! I have never been to an ocean that has absolutely NO waves... it was basically a lake. But it was beautiful and a nice break from the heat of the city. The Mediterranean Sea is also A LOT saltier than any other beach I've been to, so right by the edge of the water, there is a shower for you to use so that the salt doesn't dry on your skin.  I also have been missing the ocean a little bit so it was almost like being at home.

Today, I went into the city for a walking tour at 10 a.m. I am so glad that I did because even though I have seen everything on the tour, the history behind it all is so rich!! I can't describe how mind blowing it is to imagine the exact place you are standing existed hundreds and hundred of years ago and has not changed very much, if even at all. The historical contexts surrounding this city are amazing... I left the tour feeling 100% more educated and appreciative of Firenze than when I started. One of the best parts of being a student here is that we all were given a student museum card that gets us into most of the museums in Florence for free!! So I plan on spending a lot of time doing that.

Right now I am back at home trying to watch an old 1940s WWII film made in Italy for my class on Tuesday and work on my homework. The weather today was very strange, it began to rain during the tour but it was still very warm out, so it is basically super humid right now with some thunderstorms. Kinda odd.. but I'm hoping it will start to cool down soon because the mosquitoes are killer, they have even started trying to eat me when before they wanted nothing to do with me! Anyway, I should probably get back to this movie, I hope everything is going well in your lives and I would love to stay updated via comments about what is happening!

Love and miss you all!

Sarah