didi
This past week has been an odd mix of relaxing and strenuous. The weekend itself was mostly spent doing site visits for architecture class, and doing a good deal of painting in my sketchbook.
On Friday, I decided I was fed up with the dinky little grocery store where I have been doing most of my regular shopping, and decided to find out where the Esselunga nearest my apartment is. Now, Esselunga is a huge grocery store chain frequented by most of the people I know here in Florence who do not live in my part of town. I had always been told it was huge and overwhelming, and that was exactly what I was looking for. After asking my nice landlady where the nearest one was, she told me a big one was a half hour's walk from here, but a small one was only about fifteen minutes away. I settled for the small one, but yet even that one ended up being about three times the size of my normal grocery store. Esselunga is a real supermarket, with check-out aisles, jumbo-Nutellas, and a wide produce selection (I bought a mango!). I took my suitemates there the next day, and now they are just as hooked as I am.
For Easter, I went downtown to the Florence Duomo to see the Scoppio del Carro, which involves a cart brought into the Piazza del Duomo by oxen which then gives off a good ten minutes of smoke and fireworks. Afterwords, my roommate and I attempted for a good while to get into the Duomo for mass, only to find that we, and a whole gaggle of Italians, had been trying the wrong entrance the whole time.
Apart from celebrating the Resurrection of Christ, Sunday evening I went over to Angela's apartment to celebrate her birthday. I brought some Muscatel spumante and colomba cake (traditional Italian Easter cake; sooo good), and her roommate cooked an awesome dinner which included some of the best asparagus I've tasted.
Monday brought work in the form of my scrambling to finish up my architecture journals and term paper. The next day our class met at the Boboli Gardens, which would have been a nice finish to the course if it hadn't been the coldest and windiest day yet this month and with Edelstein keeping everyone out in the open to answer people's reading questions. Angela says that I complain a lot, but I really think that it's basically just that class that does it to me. She also says that my default state is "amazement." Is this true?
Today I gave my first tour of Santa Maria Novella in Portuguese. It was slightly challenging, but the Portuguese couple who I was doing it for was very nice and very excited that they could get a tour in their own language. Lucky they didn't visit in the morning.
This week I registered for the courses that I hope I won't be taking next semester.
I wish I weren't such a coward.
On Friday, I decided I was fed up with the dinky little grocery store where I have been doing most of my regular shopping, and decided to find out where the Esselunga nearest my apartment is. Now, Esselunga is a huge grocery store chain frequented by most of the people I know here in Florence who do not live in my part of town. I had always been told it was huge and overwhelming, and that was exactly what I was looking for. After asking my nice landlady where the nearest one was, she told me a big one was a half hour's walk from here, but a small one was only about fifteen minutes away. I settled for the small one, but yet even that one ended up being about three times the size of my normal grocery store. Esselunga is a real supermarket, with check-out aisles, jumbo-Nutellas, and a wide produce selection (I bought a mango!). I took my suitemates there the next day, and now they are just as hooked as I am.
For Easter, I went downtown to the Florence Duomo to see the Scoppio del Carro, which involves a cart brought into the Piazza del Duomo by oxen which then gives off a good ten minutes of smoke and fireworks. Afterwords, my roommate and I attempted for a good while to get into the Duomo for mass, only to find that we, and a whole gaggle of Italians, had been trying the wrong entrance the whole time.
Apart from celebrating the Resurrection of Christ, Sunday evening I went over to Angela's apartment to celebrate her birthday. I brought some Muscatel spumante and colomba cake (traditional Italian Easter cake; sooo good), and her roommate cooked an awesome dinner which included some of the best asparagus I've tasted.
Monday brought work in the form of my scrambling to finish up my architecture journals and term paper. The next day our class met at the Boboli Gardens, which would have been a nice finish to the course if it hadn't been the coldest and windiest day yet this month and with Edelstein keeping everyone out in the open to answer people's reading questions. Angela says that I complain a lot, but I really think that it's basically just that class that does it to me. She also says that my default state is "amazement." Is this true?
Today I gave my first tour of Santa Maria Novella in Portuguese. It was slightly challenging, but the Portuguese couple who I was doing it for was very nice and very excited that they could get a tour in their own language. Lucky they didn't visit in the morning.
This week I registered for the courses that I hope I won't be taking next semester.
I wish I weren't such a coward.