Tuesday May 4 - Anna

It rains in Italy. A lot! Enough about the weather! Oh yes...it is also t shirt weather. So, for all of you who are enjoying snow in the west...too bad!

Flight, train to Firenze (Florence) was uneventful. Just tiring. We arrived at our apartment on Via San Gallo in mid'afternoon. 68 steps up. Counted them! My suitcase was far too heavy. but I knew that starting out. We will have great quads at the end of this. We are sharing the apartment with a woman from Montreal. Anna and this woman on the main floor. Jill gets a loft room, so gets an extra work out going up the tiny circular stairway. So small her suitcase was difficult to get up there. I have a window overlooking the street, so if you google the address, and look up, look waaaay up Rusty, you will see my window. Via San Gallo 46 is the address. Lots of shops along the street. Very narrow sidewalks, all cobblestones. Streets are lined with garbage cans, tiny cars, and Vespa scooters. Cold beer at the end of the street for supper, with the most dried out panini ever tasted. ptuii.

Monday morning was school. My alarm clock did not go off. But it was the old a.m. vs. p.m. issue. Oh yes, the new hair dryer with the voltage switch, quit after about 20 seconds. And, I brought the wrong hook up. Here in Italy are 3 horizontal prongs. Even Jills super duper plug in thingy doesnt have these 3 prongs. But I discovered one in my room.

School is a mish mash of n ationalities...a lot from Brazil, South Africa, 5 Canadians, 1 American. I th ink 27 in the classroom on the first day. We were divided up for the 2nd day. After school, we had a guided tour of downtown centre of Florence...just the important landmarks. The problem was it was conducted entirely in Italian! But it is amazing how much I understood...between high school Latin, French, Spanish classes this winter...really I could get the gist of it all. We were a little confused when the guide was talking about some statues, and pointing to them, saying what we thought was "Louis", but it was "Lui", meaning "him".

Stopped on the way home and got 3 bottles of wine for 20 Euro (buy 2, get 1 free) and the first two were 10 Euro each, and the third 16 Euro, which was the free one. I like the way they think here! After a bit of a rest, we went out for supper and a walk around our immediate neighbourhood with our roomie Yasmine. Through a couple of piazzas (San marco and Anunziatione), very pretty, even in the pouring rain. Then Jill & I studied our butts off, even reading a bit ahead.

Tuesday ' Day 2 of school. We arrived to find we had been put in different classrooms. So we got that changed, without issue. About a dozen people in the class. A young married couple from Montreal, a fellow (23) from Ireland who quit work and decided he would spend 3 months in Florence for the hell of it. A girl from Brazil (I think , she looks Chilean), 2 ladies older than me one from California, one from...someplace where neither Eng nor French is spoken...maybe South America some where. A girl from South Africa, via London, our roomie Yasmine, a fellow from Germany. I think it will be a good class. Some are taking the basic course, 3 or 4 weeks, some are here for Super Intensive course, so they get classes in the afternoon, some here for 3 months!! But I am sure we will all find common ground eventually. We are both just happy that this school is not a big scam, and the apartment is acceptable. And we find we are lucky that we are about a 10 to 15 min walk away. Many have to come on the bus. One girl has about 2 bus changes to get to class and lives in a neighbourhood where there are no services at all. We have shops galore, little delis, drycleaners, wine stores, even an Irish pub! Pastry shops, bakeries, so many stores selling gelato(I have thus far resisted). This internet cafe wthich gives students 30 free minutes, is 2 short blocks from our apartment. Definitely we are in the best of all places.


this Afternoon we toured the Duomo, which is the pictures at the top of this page. Beautiful indeed. But we will limit ourselves to one church per week.

Also we stopped at a tourist bureau recommended by the Istituto, and made train and hotel reservations for overnighting to Venice the 15/16 May. Through the school, next weekend we are going on a day trip to Siena and San Gimigniano. For 60 Euro, a good deal.

All in all...having a great time here! Just wish it would stop raining! But hey...we are in Italy!! How can anything be bad!! So thats all for now, folks.

Ciao from us both!