First Week in Florence

     So, it's the end of my first week in Firenze and people, it's been a crazy one. So crazy, actually, that I can't remember most of it, but you know what they say: If you can't remember it, it isn't that important and never really happened, I'm pretty sure some other people besides me have said that before. Anyway, I guess I'll try to go over the most important things that have been happening since I arrived here last Friday.
     The people running this program were nice enough to give us a first weekend to get over jet-lag, so instead of sleeping we just spent Saturday and Sunday walking pretty much everywhere in Florence. When I say everywhere, I actually mean everywhere. It's not a very big city. It is confusing though; The way the city is laid out just doesn't make sense, so I never really know where I am. I pretty much rely on other people, pocket sized maps, and an abundance of famous landmarks to get me from A to B. The high point of our weekend adventure was when we went up a huge hill on the south side of the river, from which we could see the entire city of Florence. So the first weekend was really just a lot of exploration and getting used to Florence. We discovered how to get around, where to get food, etc. although we are still learning new things as we go.
     On Monday we had orientation. We got information packets, learned some stuff about our program that I can't remember, and took a walking tour of places which I also can't remember, we went to an art store and got stuff, I wasn't really paying attention. After that, we had intensive Italian, which happened every day but I'm only going to talk about it when I describe this day in particular because I'm trying to remove it from my memory forever. Three and a half hours of Italian is not an enjoyable experience, you understand. I then returned home and had a wonderful dinner with my host family. Serena is an amazing cook, and we always have a delicious pasta or rice course, followed by a meat course and, then salad, and then some really sweet alcohol with chocolates or some other sweets. It's pretty good. It's not long after that that I fall asleep, usually with my clothes on and without taking my contacts out. If I am lucky I am smart enough to take a shower beforehand, if not I have to do it in the morning, which isn't so bad, but I much prefer evening showers. Oh, the cool thing about going to bed at 10 is that I usually wake up an hour and a half before I have to leave for school, which makes for a fairly relaxing morning. I don't know how often that is going to happen once school starts, school seems like it is going to be rough.
     On Tuesday we started binding our own sketchbooks to be used in drawing class. This process involved ripping paper and gluing it together. it took three days, and my sketchbook is slightly awesome despite the mistakes I made (bookbinding is pretty difficult). for the rest of the week we had more orientation things, a visit from a cop who talked about safety, more intensive Italian, delicious sandwichy lunches etc. Things are good. The week ended on Friday with a visit to our studios, where we will meet for drawing class and have our theme sequence class, which is our large personal project. The studio is awesome, and my desk is amazing;  I have pictures of it, but blogger isn't letting me upload them at the moment. You'll see them someday soon probably. On Facebook maybe? I don't know, it'll be a surprise.
     It's been a very fun weekend as well. Saturday I spend most of the day with some friends. We walked around and played Frisbee and soccer at a park. We then went to dinner at our teacher's home. It was nice, but not really that awesome. She did have a very nice apartment though. Now it's Sunday and I'm finishing up this post. I've been out of the house since 2:30 and it's now 10:20. That's pretty much how weekends go here. Today I went to the outdoor market and I got a pair of sunglasses, and then met a friend at an antique market. We ate lunch and then went back and I bought a stupid ornate wooden flute-recorder thing. It sounds terrible and I regret buying it. I should have bought the one next to it, but it's all water under the bridge now. Then I went to Mass at the Duomo. After that I had dinner with my friend Maria (I was at mass because she was there and I was meeting her afterwards, in case you were wondering why I went to Mass) at this cute little restaurant with wine bottles lining the walls. It was a really nice place. I got wild boar meat pasta and this yummy white wine. It was a really fun time. After walking Maria home I found my way to a bus stop and came back here.
     That pretty much does it for my first week. I will probably continue updating this infrequently. Things are going to get pretty busy once school starts, but I'll do my best.

Ciao!