La Primavera. Spring.

Ciao tutti!
Another few busy days have passed and my time just seems to be getting away from me! So much to do, so little time. Well, that is the way of life I guess, and studying abroad is no exception.
On Monday we had a guest speaker come to my Literature class. She is a historian working in Florence and she came to talk to us about the Pazzi Conspiracy. The Pazzi Conspiracy is first a foremost a conspiracy. For what? To kill Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, who were the leading Medici of Florence at the time. (1478). It is called the Pazzi Conspiracy because the Pazzi family, who was the second most wealthy and powerful banking family in Florence, were a major part of the conspiracy, and ultimately were the ones that had the assassination carried out. There were many other key players that were behind the conspiracy, one that is very notable, was the current pope, Pope Sixtus IV. To cut a very very long and complicated story short, the assassination took place in the Duomo of Florence in April 1478, but it did not go as planned. Giuliano, the younger of the two brothers, was stabbed 19 times and died immediately. Lorenzo, however, managed to escape, with only one cut behind his ear. The Medici quickly enacted their revenge, and over 80 people were killed within the following weeks for knowing of, supporting, or being a part of the conspiracy. The Pazzi family was completely taken out of power. All of their money and belongings were seized and were either killed or exiled from Italy. The women of the Pazzi family were forbidden to marry, (not like any one would want to marry that family after that) and many were forced into convents. We had a very interesting class and looked at a few different primary sources detailing the events, including one by Machiavelli, who was 9 years old at the time. It all is quite fascinating.

Tuesday I had my Literature class in the morning. Now, I feel that it is important for me to provide you all with a complete view of my experiences and not to only fill you in on the fun, exciting things. Well, let me tell you, Tuesday morning did not go very well. Besides the not enjoying having to get up at 7 am for class, I thoroughly dislike having to take the bus early in the morning. As I've previously mentioned, the bus is quite full with people going to work at that time. Well Tuesday was probably the worst. I literally wanted to scream. If I knew more mean words and sayings in Italian I would've yelled at a few people. The bus quickly got very full and while those waiting at the stops could clearly see that there really wasn't any room for more people, only a few decided to wait for the next bus, while the majority pushed their way on. So, I got pushed up against the side of the ledge that goes over the wheels of the bus. I have a few bruises on my legs from being pushed up against it. This was made even worse when people needed to climb over me to get to the exit. Now usually you are only supposed to get off at the middle door, but when it is so crowded the bus driver will open all of the doors so that people can get out because it really does be impossible to get to the exit. Despite this, many people decided they were going to go all the way from the back of the bus up to the middle door. So they're trying to push and squeeze on or move towards the middle and I just wanted to yell at them "where do you think you're going to go?!" Everyone was already back to back, there literally was no space between people. I was so frustrated. However, it gets worse. Not only were we crammed onto the bus, but there was a lot of traffic. More than usual, for some reason. So, we were at a standstill for quite a while, and more than once. And when we do get moving, the bus drivers really don't know how to use the breaks so everyone is falling all over everyone, because there are so many people you don't have space to spread your feet out and get a good balance. So, it's an overcrowded bus, traffic isn't moving, its beginning to get really hot, the windows are fogging up, and the air is getting thicker inside the bus. I honestly had to lean my head against the pole I was holding because I just needed to sit down and it was getting hard to breath. I was so angry, it was horrible. It really takes a special kind of patience to be able to ride the bus in Italy. Finally I got to my stop and was able to get onto my second smaller, much less crowded bus that would take me the rest of the way. I should add, that on Monday, my second, smaller bus was temporarily suspended for the morning, which I didn't know until I got to my stop. So I had to wait til the next bus came that was the same as the one I had just gotten off, and then I took that bus closer to where I needed to be and walked the rest of the way to school. :( As if things couldn't get worse on Tuesday, I finally got to class, opened up my backpack to get my books out and what do I find? Oh, the banana that I brought to school exploded all over my backpack because all of those people that were crawling over it smashed it!!! I was very upset, as I'm sure you can tell.
Okay, onto some good things now. During my class we got our midterms back, which I got an A on! So I can now say that I got A's on all of my midterms!! I will have to find something delicious to treat myself with. :)

Today, for my psychology class we went on a field trip to one of the hospitals in Florence, where we went to the toxicology and substance abuse center. We are talking about substance abuses and the differences between different cultures. It was an interesting presentation that we had. A few things that I noticed: The hospital is a teaching hospital and so it feels very much like a college campus. You would not have thought that it was a hospital from the outside. In addition, each of the separate departments of the hospital had their own small building, they weren't all in one large building. So it really was like its own mini city. Also, another interesting thing, was that we saw a guy that had just graduated. We knew he had just graduated because he had a laurel wreath on his head. They don't wear caps like we do. The verb to graduate in Italian is laurearsi, which as you can tell, the two go hand in hand.

Stella and I took a good nap together this week. We both curled up and it was really cute. :)

I hear that many of you are getting sick of the non spring weather back home. Well I just thought you might need a reminder of what spring looks like. The trees on my street are in full bloom!

Do you know what this is?? It's a firetruck!! Yep, it is quite small, but very cute! (Fuoco means fire.)

This is a picture of the many many scooters that are parked along the river. I pass them everyday, and I decided that it was about time I took a picture of them. Plus, as you can see in the background, it was a beautiful day. :)

This is a picture from inside my second, very small bus. There are only 10 seats on it.

Now, I cannot believe that I keep forgetting to tell you all my good news! I now have a punch card for my panini place!!! Everytime you go you give them your card when you pay and they put a stamp in the box for that day. On the second time you get a free drink, the fifth time you get a free crepe, (which is pictured above- I got nutella and hazelnut pieces inside and it was wonderful!), on the seventh time you get your panini for free and then on the tenth time you get a free choco kebab! I have yet to have a choco kebab since I've been here, but I should be able to get mine sometime next week, I think. Anyway, I was very excited when they gave me my card, because I go there every day and I absolutely love it! In fact, on Monday I went at a different time than normal and they asked me if I didn't have school today, because I was there at an abnormal time. I informed them that I did, but that it was later in the day. (This clearly is a sign that I go there too much. But I don't care!)

Today, my psych class met outside the McDonald's in the train station for our field trip. My bus goes right from my house to the train station, so it was pointless to go to school just to get lunch and then head back the other way. So I decided that I would just get lunch there. I had yet to have McDonald's in Italy, so I decided  now was as good a time as any. I would just like to say that I have not craved McDonald's at all, I simply chose to eat it to do a comparative taste test. I will say that it tasted very similar. The only major difference was that I didn't feel as much of that "icky fast food stomach" afterwards as I normally do in the US. The only big difference was that instead of just giving you ketchup for your fries, they give you mayo as well. I at first was confused when I saw it on my tray, but then I looked around and the majority of people were dipping their fries in the mayo in addition to the ketchup. So, I tried it. Honestly, it was pretty good.

Stella hopped up to read my blog as I was writing it. She's in charge of quality control, so if there are any mistakes, blame her. :)