Greetings from Florence!
Been settling in pretty well... had faculty orientation last week, been cooking at home more. My stomach has been a little fussy (nausea, mostly)- think it's just adjusting to the food/ water/ etc, and the weather's shifted from being super hot/muggy to very very windy.
It's been odd having the change of pace. I'm use to always having something to do- house to clean, horse to see, work, projects, friends to see, etc, and now it's so... slow. It's very leisurely, but I'm fighting that odd depression I get when I don't have a million things to do. Yeah, I'm a workaholic like that. I think once classes start up tomorrow, that'll change and I'll have more things to work on. And I know there are a bajillion museums and things to see, but I don't want to do everything in the first week- it's like having an annual pass to disneyland (where you want to just enjoy it over many visits) vs going one day and rushing around trying to do everything at once.
I've also been kicking myself to just do art all the time, and I'm learning gouache and watercolor. We went to an art store that had jars and jars of dried powder pigment for tempra- it was amazing! It was like a wall of color in old fashioned labelled jars. Just gorgeous... I hope they let me take a photo of it when I go back...
I was sick in bed all day Friday, which sucked. Migraine and mildly nausea and jet lag all day. Did get the chance to catch up on Italian TV, which is, like all foreign television, STRANGE. There's this late night program that I can only describe as amateur hour variety show with strippers. But amateur strippers. Everything about it is hilarious, from the range of acts (cross dressing men in bad comedy skits to stripper to magic act), to the camera work (wait... where'd she go? There she is!). Damon and I were crying with laughter.. seriously.. sooo funny..
Walked around a lot yesterday, just exploring. Haven't really taken a lot of photos yet, which is very strange for me. Did some drawing, did some people watching. Going to try and check out the
Festa della Rificolona tonight, which is a parade with lit paper lanterns... should be cool! Classes start up tomorrow, so I'm going to swing by the design center and check out the lab/ facilities.