Renaissance King
Finally another weekend. I thought that after my last weekend experience where there was nothing to do that perhaps I wouldn’t be so fond of weekends here. I am happy to say that that is indeed not the case. I can’t WAIT for vespers tonight. It’s been a full week. Tuesday was our first day of orientation. We went to meetings and took notes and listened. Then later went into town to finally buy a backpack. Most backpacks are insanely expensive here! Seriously they range from 29.99 euro for small Power Rangers and Hello Kitty ones to 79.99 euro and up for more age appropriate ones. I finally found one in a more American sports store. It was only 14.99 euro. The catch? It’s bright pink. Not just pink, but burn your eyes out pink. Like, BAM! pink. I glow when I wear it. But it’s functional, so I guess I can’t complain all that much. Wednesday we went on our first trip. We were supposed to go to Cinqueterra, but because of the rain, we didn’t get to. Instead we just went to Ponto Venere. I say “instead” as if it were a disappointing alternative. It wasn’t. It was overwhelmingly gorgeous. Just you look! 
First of all Antonietta pointed out this old fort off in the distance and said that that was where we were going. But then we parked. And the fort was still off in distance. At first I thought that the plans had changed again. No. They hadn’t and so I went on what was a very nice long walk. There were tons of beautiful houses and adorable hotels and terrifying cars that will run you over! I loved it, even despite the fact that it was a rainy windy day which, of course, makes my hair look gross. I felt pretty all day. And no, not pretty as in actually pretty. Pretty as in the use of sarcasm. Just to clarify. However, when we finally got down to the city I forgot all about looking so…pretty because the city really was pretty. The 
colors are astounding. I wish that we had colors like this is my neighborhood! And there were all these tiny boats tied up in the marina. We walked all the way down this street of bright yellow, red and orange houses and at the end the road curved around to the right and there were stairs that led up the hill to the fort. From there it was all views of the Mediterranean Sea. Not as blue and beautiful as I had imagined or maybe hoped, but that could just be due to the overcast day. After we walked around the fort for a while, we all walked back to a bus (and this was actually the point in time where they told us they didn’t plan on taking us to Cinquetera anymore…darn rain.) And we drove to a gigantic mall. It was called I Gigli or something like that. It was interesting I guess. Not my favorite place in the world I’ve been. But it was an experience. katie and I went to get our Pounds and Dollars changed over to Euros, but when we finally found the bank, they told us they couldn’t change money for us unless we were members. We looked at getting bank cards and being members and stuff because the lady said we could since we were technically living in Florence. But then it turns out that wasn’t true. Not completely sure why, but it was good because at that point in time we were both NOT wanting to go through with the member thing anyway. But still we were without money, so we asked one more time if we just couldn’t get our money changed to Euros. She talked to some people and then some more people, and eventually we did get to convert our money. Thank goodness. But seriously it took forever. After we left the bank we actually had very little time of our original two hours left in which to actually wander in the mall. We hit up a few stores, but nothing spectacular. Then pretty much we went back to the school. Now it’s the weekend and I’m happy and relaxed. (And now the weekend is practically over because now it’s Sunday and I started this blog on Friday, but due to the freakishly slowing internet connection and whatnot, my sites keep timing out and I never get anything done. So now I’ll catch you up on that briefly.) Friday was a fun day of language classes and I felt like I understood things relatively well, so that was good. I was looking forward to vespers. Afterwards I wasn’t so keen on having gone. Due to some interesting circumstances I ended up singing up front with two Italians and eventually having prayer. Those of you who are acquainted with me and therefore are aware of my love for all things up front and microphone-related will understand when I say that I don’t think that even the most persuasive person will be able to get me to volunteer for anything else anytime too soon… Saturday I went to church with Laura and Kate, two of the Walla Walla girls. The sermon was obviously in Italian and so your options were either a.) muddle through or b.) get a little radio thing to hear the translation. They ended up not having enough radios for everyone, so Laura and I switched off with one. Half a sermon is better than no sermon at all! After church most everyone went on a long walk arranged by the school, but some of us (Me, Katie, Holly, Laura and Joe from my Intermediate class) went to choir practice instead. It was really fun. It’s a classical choir, so we sang in German, French, Italian and Latin. It was intimidating, but a really cool experience because everyone was so good. Turns out I was sitting by the very impressive soloist and a girl who was really quiet but sweet. She spoke some English and I speak some Italian. Neither of us much, but it was fun to see how universal a language music is. Now today is Sunday and I slept in till noon. It felt fantastic. And it’s not like I feel bad about it because it’s not like I can be doing things on Sundays. Everything is closed. I kind of like that. So I’m not out. I’m not doing things. I’m not wearing myself down. I’m just chilling and drifting and relaxing and it’s a nice feeling. P.S. Try to ignore the seemingly unrelated title.
