This week has been so busy! We’ve been running around so much with city tours, moving in, orientation, and on Saturday we went to Chianti, the wine region, for a wine tasting. Tuscany is beautiful! I discovered much to my dismay that I can’t actually tell the difference between wines, but the tasting was fun nonetheless. Of course, wine is paired best with delicious food, and my taste buds were very receptive to that. The olive oil here is like nothing you’ve ever tasted! Same with the balsamic. Afterward, we toured San Gimignano, a small town nearby. It’s filled with medieval history (there’s a whole museum dedicated to torture), but it’s so small that we were only there a few hours and saw the whole thing. San Gimignano is home to the World’s Best Gelato though, so of course we partook in that.

Sunday I finally got a chance to relax. I woke up early to go to mass in San Lorenzo, only to find the church locked. So instead I ate breakfast at a café and read my book in Piazza della Signoria, a square filled with statues, including a replica of Michelangelo’s David. Then I met up with the rest of my group for a tour of the Uffizi, a HUGE art museum with works like Bottecelli’s Primavera and Birth of Venus. The afternoon was probably my favorite though. I sat in Piazza della Independenza, a much more authentic Italian area, and just hung out. I read a little, wrote a postcard, and knitted, and got to have some conversations with real Italians in Italian! I had to turn down a couple invitations for vino that night, but I think that’s for the best. I also met my new friend Lucca who has a leather shop in the market and offered me 55% off anytime I come to his store, plus free help with my Italian.

Monday was our first day of class! Advanced Italian is REALLY intense! Hopefully I can keep up. My other class is on literature, not so much Italian literature, but by (mostly English) authors who have travelled to Italy. This one seems much more manageable. Funny story: I did end up going to mass Sunday evening and there was an American college-aged looking guy sitting in front of me. He’s in both of my classes.

Also on Monday, I got to meet up with my best friend Laura! She’s also studying abroad in Florence this summer, but with a different program. This is the first time we were finally able to coordinate and meet up, but we realized that we’ve been to some places at the same time and hadn’t run into each other. But now we know how to get in touch and are already planning adventures together!