The Journey Continues

9 February 2011

            This week of classes went by in a blink. I was literally exhausted Monday because of the Rome trip and admittedly almost fell asleep in my first class.  There are a few things from the past few days that are extremely note worthy. First of all I have decided to volunteer for the local museum organization in Florence and give tours to English speaking groups around the famous churches in Florence. Said churches include the Duomo and Santa Croce. I am just in the beginning of the application process but I think it will be a great way to get to know the locals running the program and to help give some of Florence’s visitors a passionate and enthusiastic opinion of Firenze.  In other news, there is a GIANT chocolate festival literally 4 seconds from my apartment. There are about 20 booths covered head to toe in chocolate. They even have chocolate in the shape of shoes and tools. I purchased these tiny dark chocolate covered nut things, which are delicious! I am sure the guy behind the counter was annoyed however because I kept asked “no latte? no latte? no latte?” he finally answered “lady it is dark chocolate there is NO milk” in perfect English. I smiled and said thank you. Tonight we went to Lauren friend’s, who she met at the gym she works at, bar. He gave all 7 of us drinks for just 5 Euros, which is really great deal! It was nice to see a more traditionally Italian bar and of coarse to make new local friends.

10 February 2011

Hello everyone!  Today was filled with lots of walking! After getting to sleep in a little bit I am feeling much better from this bug that I think everyone who went to Rome caught. My roommate Nikki and I walked around the city all day. On our walk we discovered the BEST gelato shop that makes half of its gelato with soy milk! So no latte!! My life has been officially made because of this shop! We also where able to find me a book bag so I can stop carrying my things in my SAI free mesh tote bag.  After walking for not joking almost 5 hours we came back and took a nap and am now preparing a chicken fajitas dinner for 7. Lauren (my other roommate) was out all day gathering up the ingredients and we are about to start cooking….. The dinner went swimmingly. Magically all the food was ready at the same time even in the small kitchen.  It was nice to have a family style dinner where everyone sits down at the same time.

11 February 2011

Shabbat Shalom from Italy. Today after a day filled with errands and homework Nikki and I went to services at the local synagogue.  To start with on my way to the shul a group of about 40 men where waving the Egyptian flag and yelling in Italian. They were about two blocks from the synagogue in front of a lot of stores that have Arabic writing so I think they were just celebrating in their community.  Regardless any large group yelling in a language I do not know is a little unnerving. Once we made it to the synagogue the services were literally only 20 minutes. The synagogue was absolutely beautiful! With a huge teal dome and ornate archways the building itself was awe-inspiring. However it is an orthodox congregation so I was stuck behind a partition. There were about 30 people in attendance most of which were visitors from Europe, Israel, or American students. I would say only a handful were from Florence.  After services we went to get dinner and now we are getting ready to go out with Lauren’s boss who said he will take us to the clubs that we wont have to pay at! We will see how that turns out. Hope everyone enjoys there weekend!