One Month Later

So it has officially been over a month since my arrival in Florence. I am feeling a little more settled now that classes have officially started and the homework is beginning to pile up. The language is also becoming more familiar, although not necessarily easier. Yet I am finding that there are certain phrases in Italian that better express what I am feeling rather then their english equivalent. In a way it is kind of like taking on a second identity because the things I can say are limited, and thus different then what I would say in English, and I can only speak Italian with certain people in my life. For that matter I can also now only speak english with certain people in my life, it is just a larger group. I have also realized that to really feel like I am in Italy I must be speaking in Italian, otherwise the reality of being here is farther away.

In other news this weekend was a fabulous weekend exploring outside of Florence. I went to Pisa, Lucca, and Perugia for a chocolate festival! Pisa was full of tourists, but the leaning tower was fun to see and the accompanying church was beautiful inside. The best part of Pisa was the weird obsession everyone who visits has to take a perspective picture of themselves so they look like they are "holding up" the tower. Thus the fields in front of the tower are speckled with tourists in goofy poses trying to save the tower from it's doom.

Lucca was prettier and less touristy. It is a small city that is still enclosed by its medieval walls that have been turned into a beautiful path circling the city where people walk run and ride bikes. My three friends and I enjoyed a picnic lunch on one of the grassy walls, and after rented bikes for an hour and cruised around them. It was amazing. As we rode we could see the city of Lucca clearly on one side and the mountains on the other. It was a beautiful day and biking was incredibly de-stressing.

As for the chocolate festival, what can I say I was surrounded by blocks and blocks of specialty chocolate. It was pretty amazing, and obviously delicious. Plus I discovered the beauty and steepness of Perugia when my roomate Lenora and I decided to save 2 Euros and walk to the center of town for the festival rather then bus. When we asked locals where the center is they would chuckle and say "up". However because of its height the view from the center was amazing, and the city in general was full of beautiful and old architecture.