I did not return home until after midnight (mezzanotte) and had to get up at 7 for school today. In my defense I did have my blog written for yesterday, expecting that I would be able to upload it easily later. Unfortunately, my blog did not save and I now have to write the entire thing over. To make matters even worse, I am using a European keyboard, and it keeps messing me up. :(
So as I was writing my blog last night I was sitting in a gym in Figline, which is a small down south of Florence. My mother informed me that many people move to Figline because the housing prices are much cheaper, and travel to work in Firenze (which was about 20 minutes or so away) she also mentioned that Figline is not that beautiful, which I will have to take her word for because it was dark and I couldn't see very much of the scenery.
I'm not sure if it's the architecture of the buildings, the shades of yellow and gold that they use on the buildings, or the Florentine sun, but I absolutely LOVE my morning walks to school. Even if its cold, and rainy, (which isn't all that bad compared to the alternative weather in the Midwest) my walks usually put me in a good mood. (Just beware of the your step for there is a very likely possibility of there being dog poop on the sidewalk.) Well before I could take my wonderful morning walk, I had to get up, and get ready for the day.
I got up yesterday around 9 and showered and had my breakfast. By the time I had finished my breakfast and was starting to pack up my stuff for school my mother had left. Usually she takes Megan with her, today however, she did not. For some reason Megan was very excited yesterday morning and kept coming into my room, where Stella was, to bother her. (I'm sure they consider it playing, but Stella didn't seem to be enjoying it.) I've started learning some of the commands that they use with Megan (although she seems to under stand complete sentences- in Italian of course) such as stop, lay on the floor, wait, and the like. I was able to successfully tell Megan to stop and to tell her to go away. Unfortunately she decided to keep coming back every 5 minutes. Finally she brought in her towel to play, so I played tug of war with her for a few minutes, which finally got some of her energy out. At that point I was ready to leave for the day. I usually close my bedroom door, but Stella was relaxing on my bed at this point and I didn't want to shut her in there all day. Which then put me on the mission of trying to get her out of my room, which she loves. I tried picking her up a few times, only to have her either dig her claws into the bed so I couldn't pick her up, or for her to run away to another part of the room. This is when she started to play hide and seek. She tried hiding under my night stand, behind my shoes, and behind the window curtains. It was very entertaining and made me laugh, even though I was a bit frustrated because I had to get going. I really did feel bad though, because I could tell she didn't want to leave. Finally I captured her and brought her into another room.
Finally I was off to school. A few of us went to a panino shop that was near school. I got a turkey, mozzarella, and pesto panino. It was very good. Then I had my literature class, which is 3 hours. Usually we go to a local place for the second half of class, but yesterday we didn't. Instead we got a 20 minute break to break up the long class. So the 4 of us that are in my class went down to the tabacchi in our Piazza to get a pick me up. They have a drink vending machine where they have a variety of coffee and hot chocolate drinks. There were about 20 different options with varieties of no caffeine, with milk, extra dark etc. I chose the regular hot chocolate which was .60 cents. The coffee drinks were .50 cents.
After class I headed home. We were going to have an early dinner because Andrea had his basketball game at night. We had some rigatoni pasta with Italian sausage (although that is not the name they call that type of pasta). After that we had some chicken filets that were fried in olive oil, freshly squeezed orange juice, and some nuts that I believe were almonds. It was very good!
We quickly ate our food, and were off!
We only had to drive around the corner to meet up with Andrea's team, but then we had to drive to Figline. My mother introduced me to the parents of the team, who all seem very interested in "Giulia, the American." It was very nice of them to make an effort to speak slowly and to actually put spaces between their words so that I could understand.
Andrea is in the middle where the blur is. He was stealing the ball from the other team!
Now, I'm sure not everyone that is reading my blog likes the same football team, but I think you will find this pretty cool anyway. During the halftime of the game, one of the fathers was passing me to go call his wife, at which point he asked me if I liked football. (American football that is.) I said yes, because even though I don't follow it religiously my interest of the sport has grown after going to college games. He asked me if I knew Green Bay, and I said yes. I informed him that while I go to school in Minnesota, I'm from Wisconsin. He then said "the Packers" (which was funny to hear his pronunciation of the name) and I said yes, that Green Bay was my team of choice. He got very excited about this, and told me that he was a "member" as they call it. (After a little difficulty, I was able to figure out the correct translation and that he was an owner of the team's stock. HOW COOL! He told me that he gets the letters in the mail, and has a hat, as well as a jersey, which he described as "Matthews. Cinquantadue." (52.) This totally made my week. I found a Packers fan/ and partial owner in Italy!!! Not only did I learn all of this, but we had this entire conversation in Italian, which made me even happier.
Finally after the game, we returned home, at which point we had a quick little snack of mini croissants with nutella and then headed off to bed.
Sorry, for not getting this up last night!
One person sent me a message and said that me not posting a blog was like when the Truman Show went off the air!
On the bright side, you get 2 blogs in one day!
Also!! I do have pictures from the day, but seeing that I'm on the school computer at the moment I can't upload them, so I will add them when I get home tonight (which should be around noon in the U.S.) So depending on when you read this, they may not be up yet.
Sounds like fun!!!
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