Il Mostro. The Monster.

Well, time to catch up on the last few days.
Last weekend was pretty unexciting. As usual most of the people in my group travel on the weekends and so there's always a random handful of us left in Florence for the weekend. Last weekend however, those that stayed in Florence went to a concert on either Friday or Saturday night. I really didn't know the group very well, so I hadn't planned on going. Unfortunately, because everyone was busy I was on my own for the weekend. Friday I had a relaxing day at home working on various things and then headed out for dinner. I went back to the Pizzeria I Tarocchi, where I had previously gone for dinner with a few friends. Seeing as how they are first and foremost a pizzeria, I decided that I needed to try their pizza. So I hopped on my bus and headed out. I chose a small little 2 person booth, ordered my pizza and a soda, and read a little bit of a book that I had brought along. I didn't get to read very much because the pizza came out very quick!

My delicious pizza! It had tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, shaved parmigiana, fresh tomatoes, and basil. It was extremely good, and I even ate the fresh tomatoes!

After my dinner I headed back home and read some more of my book. Saturday and Sunday were much the same. I stayed at home and worked on homework. Saturday night my mother said that it would be fine for me to stay with them for dinner. She made pizzas-which you can never have too much of. I had cheese and wurstels on mine. Wurstels are a kind of German sausage, which my mother and I had quite the joke over. At first when she was trying to ask if I liked them I had no idea what she was saying- because their pronunciation is completely different than ours. So she showed me the package, at which point I understood and said the name how we pronounce it. We have a lot of fun joking about the pronunciation of different things. This is also delicious! I really recommend having pizzas like this in the states.

Finally, Monday had arrived, which I was actually quite excited about.

For my Literature class we read The Monster of Florence, which is about the serial killer in Florence who killed 7 couples, 14 people in all over the course of about 20 years. It is an extremely interesting case, which has never been solved. Many people were arrested as the Monster, 4 men were tried and convicted, but later released after the murders continued- obviously proving that they couldn't be the monster. The final person convicted was released after his appeal because there was a lack of evidence in the case originally. The book isn't very gruesome, it focuses more on the investigation and the ways the Italian police and judicial system work, or possibly how they failed for this case. As if the book itself wasn't fascinating enough for me, we then had a lawyer that was on the case come and talk to our class. He told us some of his points of view and what it was like and answered a lot of our questions. It was one of those surreal moments; I read a book  for class that takes place where I currently live, and was written in the cafe next to my school. I then watched a documentary with the authors that was filmed in the square that my school is in, and to top it all off I got to meet and talk to one of the lawyers on the case. My professor thinks that I'm going to go on and finally solve the case. Who knows! Also, for those of you that know of the books/movie of Hannibal- The author, Thomas Harris, was present at the trials of the Monster, and the character of Hannibal was inspired by the Monster.

Tuesday was a pretty rough day. I hadn't slept very well Monday night, and Tuesday I had a midterm at 9 am. I had an extremely hard time keeping myself standing on my bus ride to school, but thankfully I think my midterm went really well despite my sleep deprivation. However, because we had a midterm we got to be done with class for the day when we were finished! So, instead of having my usual 3 1/2 hour break between classes, I had a 5 1/2 hour break! It was wonderful. I sat on the couch in the library, did some homework, had lunch, and then watched a movie on my computer! In my Italian class later that afternoon we had Italian students come to our class and we got to chat with them for an hour. It was cool getting to talk with a local Italian that was our age and find out about cultural differences and their life in Italy.

Finally, we arrive at today. Today started off quite interesting. I woke up to my host brother screaming this morning and was really confused as to what was going on. I could hear the conversation between my mother and my brothers, but it being in Italian and through the wall I had no idea what happened. Finally, when I woke up an hour and half later, my mother told me what happened. My brother's knee was hurting him and he couldn't walk on it. She took him to the hospital, where they were the entire day, and found out he tore his meniscus, and now he is in crutches. I hope that it will heal soon!

During my psychology class today we went on a field trip! We went to the other side of town, to an enoteca, which is a wine bar. Unfortunately we did not go there to drink. :( We went to look at the modern art gallery that is above the enoteca. The enoteca has a new concept, (at least it is new for Italy) of the full experience- art, restaurant, and events. It was a very nice place, that is very close to all of the consulates of Florence. We were told that when important people come to Florence, the consulates bring the guests to that enoteca. Pretty cool! I usually am a little puzzled by modern art, but I really liked the two artists that I saw, and would definitely have bought some of the paintings if I had money. Perhaps one day for my future house!

On a side note, I think that someone told my pets that they should play hide and seek in my room. They have been very strange the last few days, to say the least.

I took these pictures of them, and as you can see, they're not very good at hide and seek. Although, it was fun watching them try!