Snow in Florence

Yes, snow is in the air in Florence. It snowed two nights ago, it's snowing this morning as I'm writing this all bundled up in my sweats and princess blanket, and it's supposed to snow tomorrow night. All I can say is ughhhh. I guess the snow isn't really the worst thing, it's the wind. People are saying it's from Siberia, I say it's enough to make it MISERABLE. I don't want to go outside at all, but I can't just stay cooped up in my blanky cause then I am missing precious time in Italia. But I have class in a couple hours so I will have to go out there anyways.

Let's see. I had two classes yesterday. History of the Mafia from 3 to 5:30 and Contemporary Italy and Italians from 6 to 8:30 both with the same teacher, Stefano. Stefano is the perfect teacher to have back to back. He is probably in his 50's, has a good sense of humor, and really laid back. Yesterday he just left the first class for twenty minutes, no idea where he went. I did see him pick some sort of wedgie as he was leaving though, full on hands in bis butt crack. So funny. I'm pretty excited for both the classes. I think I told you earlier I was a little bummed I'm not taking any wine tasting, or food classes. Welllll according to Stefano, you can't learn about Italy without talking about it's food, wine, or fashion. So we are going to Perugia to a chocolate factory, San Gimignano to go wine tasting, and the Gucci Museum. So I get to go on the trips after all! In the Mafia class, we are actually going to be let into the Anti Mafia Investigation Office in Florence. He's super excited because this is the first time the office has been opened to a school or the public at all. It sounds pretty intense, we have to send in our documents and not bring any bags or anything with us.

Last night the girls and I went to a talk by Andy Steves', Rick Steves' son. The girls were all pretty excited, I had no idea who Rick Steves was until I saw the traveling book Eliza had. Anyways it was pretty cool. I don't think I learned anything too crazy, but he does offer some really awesome trips that the girls really wanted to go on.

Yesterday I had some free time until my class at 3 so I went out walking. I found some pretty good discount stores and tried on some clothes. This is where my idea that Italians cannot be fat was assured. I first noticed pretty early on that there are no fat Italians. Literally, I have only seen one fat person and she was American. Then as we were walking around the city, I noticed that majority of the sidewalks are tiny. And a lot of the time if you walk on the street or next to the sidewalk you will get hit by a bus, car, or vespa. Literally, these busses get so close to the sidewalk it's nuts. So maybe all the fat people are hit by busses and therefore eliminated... Yesterday as I went to a dressing room I was sure, fat people simply cannot survive in Italy. The dressing room was microscopic! I felt like Alice in Wonderland when she's too big for the house and her hands and legs come out of the windows. My arms were outside the room when I tried to take my jacket off. It was actually comical.

So yesterday I asked this little secretary at the front desk at my school about soccer. He was probably around my age so I thought he would be a good person to ask. LdM has a club for people to play soccer so I asked him his thoughts. Sounded like they play once a week for fun and people usually aren't very good. So I asked him for a more competitive atmosphere and he told me that there were a few girl clubs I could look up on the internet and call and ask if I could play. I then asked if there were any recreational spots where guys play and I could join. I think he was offended that I asked if I could play with guys. He felt the need to tell me that soccer is their sport and girls don't usually play with guys. So he ended up being useless. But I emailed coach again and am going to see what google can tell me. Either way, there is no way I'm playing until the weather changes. I play in 100 degree weather not 30 and snowing.

Well I have to get ready for class aka get out of my pj's. The girls wanted to go out tonight, although it is miserable outside. But I guess we will see.

Oh and really quickly I wanted to tell you about the LdM welcome dinner we had on Monday. It was held in a palace. So freaking amazing. I felt like I was in the Beauty and the Beast. Here's the link if you're bored and want to check it out, my pictures don't do it justice.

http://www.palazzoborghese.it/en/english.html

The rooms were all pretty similar to this. There were beautiful chandeliers everywhere and giant mirrors. It was surreal. 

If all these cronies weren't there, you would see that this room was like the ballroom in Beauty and the Beast. It was stunning.

Snow outside my window!

One of my favorite things is to walk through the Historical Center at night when all the hustle and bustle is gone and all the Asian tourists are taking over some hotel or something. It just seems surreal.