Week One

Well... I'm in Italy!

It's almost been a week. I've been wanting to write a post for a while, but until today I've been really busy and trying to avoid the internet.

We got here exhausted. I barely slept on the plane due to a small Italian child screaming behind me. Luckily there were movies and a map on the back of the seat in front of us to tell us how far we'd traveled. That made the time go fast.

When we got here we took a rather scary bus ride here, that I mostly slept through. We got our rooms right away and it has hardy any storage and a tiny, tiny bathroom, but a beautiful view.

We mostly went through orientation things the first couple days. Exploring studio to find things that had been left from previous years. That was kind of fun, like treasure hunting... except for studio supplies, haha.

Thursday we went to Cortona, the little town from the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, which was about 7 miles away on another kind of scary bus ride. It was beautiful though. The hills were crazy. We do a ton a walking, which is fine, except that it's mostly up an down hills. My shins and ankles hurt just thinking about it!

Friday we went to Florence. Yes. Florence. It was fantastic. The buildings, the streets, the wonderful stores, amazing. At one point, we were just wandering around and turned to find the Duomo RIGHT THERE. It was a great surprise. We just walked up to it in awe. I also had gelato there for the first time. Simply amazing.

Saturday, yet another adventure, we went to Arezzo, by train ths time. Ten minutes by train. There was an antique market going on that filled up so many streets. There was so much stuff. We looked at it for hours.

Today we didn't have anything planned, which I was thrilled about until it happened. Turns out, I'm really homesick, I just didn't know I was so busy. I can't sleep, I just feel very out of place. It's so different. I'll just tell you about the things I love so far.

The Italians are wonderful. They really like us, here in Castiglion Fiorentino. A lot of them speak English, but a lot don't too. Still, they're very welcoming and I really like them.

The food! On my gosh, the food. It's insane. We eat at 12:30pm and 7:30pm and there's a ton of it. Pasta or soup followed by meat and veggies with salad, and then desert. Usually desert is fruit, which I'm actually trying to eat. I'm eating a lot healthier here than normal. Very few snacks, which the exception of the gelato, haha.

The scenery. It's beautiful. It's so inhabited. You can see for miles, but there's hundreds of houses scattered about. Not like Kansas where there's nobody for miles and miles.

The architecture, of course. Even if it's not old, it's made to look old. Everything blends together. We've gone to lots of churches too.

Paolo, who is the man who runs Santa Chiara. We've had one class with him, and he's brilliant. So interesting. Everyone enjoyed listening to him. Our class is held around Castiglion Fiorentino, so no boring lecture halls. We get to experience what he is talking about.

Well, it's getting late. I better call it a night. I don't know how updates will go, but I'll try! I'll also try to add pictures, eventually. Right now they're too large. Maybe in a day or two!