Time flies when you live in Italy

Time is flying by. Mid Terms are next week and I can’t believe they are already here! I’m not as stress out about completing my projects like I usually am at Cornish so that’s good. My painting teacher was nice enough to give an extra week to finish our paintings so I don’t have to rush to finish those this weekend. All of my other classes are going pretty well. My Italian teacher is nice and I feel like i'm learning a lot more. She has decided that we aren’t allowed to talk to each other in English is class anymore though which is hard because we don’t know enough words yet to have a normal conversation. I have to turn in my photo project next week which means I have to spend as much time in the dark room as I can before that. I’m going all day tomorrow but I think i’m going to have one of the guys in the group with me. He’s never used a dark room before and he really wants to learn and have me teach him. I don’t really have a problem with this I just hope he doesn’t get in my way and that I can still get some work done.

Things in our apartment are going ok. Sara and I seem to me the neatest in the group. It’s hard to keep the place clean with 7 girls living together. A few of the girls don’t seem to know how to clean up after themselves. The kitchen is usually a mess because of them. I wouldn’t usually mind that much but we only have so many bowls and pots which means if you want to cook something a lot of the time you have to clean up after people first. Sara and I spent part of last weekend cleaning the entire kitchen and bathroom and that didn’t last long. But we put up a note and talked to some of the girls and they seem to be cleaning up more now…hopefully it will last. I finally found some nice boots today and I have been looking around for good Christmas presents for people at home.

We have been going on a lot of trips lately! Sorrento and Pompeii were amazing! We had a chance to walk around both cities on our own and see everything and we got to go to the ruins in Pompeii. There was a big protest at the gates to the ruins and a bunch of the guys got stuck on the outside. The Italians were protesting the damage being done to the ruins by tourists and they wouldn’t let the guys through. It was pretty interesting to see a group of short Italian women physically block off 4 talk American boys. We had a great time in the ruins though. I really wanted to climb Mount Vesuvius but there wasn’t enough time. Last weekend we went to Pisa with a couple of the guys. Pisa is about an hour from Florence so it was just a quick day trip. There isn’t a lot to see in Pisa, just the tower mostly. We all paid 15 euro to climb the tower which was by far the highlight of the day. We called the stairs the drunk stairs because when you walk up them you feel like your are drunk as the tower leans to the side haha. I spent the rest of the day taking pictures of people taking pictures of themselves holding up the tower. It was funny to show them without the tower behind them because it made then look completely ridiculous, I think I could do a whole project just with those photos. This weekend I don’t think we are planning on going anywhere big but next weekend, Halloween weekend, we are going to Venice for a few days J

I love Italy but its amazing how the little things from home can totally make my day. Courtney sent me some Starbucks Via from home and I couldn’t believe how excited I was to make myself a drip. And when it rains and everyone pulls out their umbrellas Sara and I puddle jumping to remind us of home. I’m waiting on another package from home and hopefully it will get here soon, I can’t believe how much I miss Mac and cheese! Little things make me miss home but I’m still so glad I came here; I really hope time starts to slow down a bit!

My first month....

I have been here for almost a month now. And the time is going by pretty fast. The weeks go by really fast because of school which is good but the weekends seem to drag on. Normally I would love this except most of my weekends I am constantly painting and drawing. This weekend though I am going to Pompeii and Sorrento with the school, which will be awesome…minus the 8 hour bus rides there and back! Sara and I have decided that Saturday is “adventure day.” We are going to try to go somewhere every Saturday, probably only in Italy for now. Last weekend we were supposed to take the train to Pisa but that didn’t happen because we both had too much painting to do. This seems to be the theme of our life here.

My Painting teacher and drawing teacher gives us a ton of homework. So far it has been a painting every week and when we get to class she rips them apart and basically makes us start over. Im not very fond of her yet…but I think she’s starting to grow on me as I get to know her better. One of my roommates dropped the class and then after that she seemed to be nicer and gave us less work to do.  I don’t have any new paintings due for next week but I do have to finish all 3 that I have already started…and watch two 2 hour long videos. So it’s a lot of work but im learning how to make time for everything. In my photography class im the only art student. The rest of the people are from design which means all their work is digital and all they do is still on there Mac books all day. I’m the only person who wanted to use the dark room and do film photography so I had to go around the school and get permission to use the dark room by myself, when there’s no class in there. I finally got everyone to let me do it and my teacher told me that she doesn’t think that I will be able to complete the project in time. She wants me to go to a photography store and have them develop my film and print all my photos for me. I would much rather print my own photos since that’s the best part of film so I’m going to attempt to do it myself, and I think I have plenty of time to complete the project on my own. I’m used to Cornish where every photo has to be perfect before it can be turned in so I don’t think this project will be too hard. I haven’t had Italian in over a week because my teacher was sick. But on Monday I got to class and I had a new teacher. I like the new teacher I think I will learn a lot more from her then the teacher before her.

I’m regretting not bringing enough shoes for Italy. I thought I would have too much when I was packing but now I’m starting to see that I was wrong. Both pairs of flats that I brought have holes in them from walking around on the coble stone streets. And my flip flops are dying fast too. I won’t need either of those soon though but for the time being I’m trying to find more flats and it looks like I’m out of luck. Italians have small, narrow feet and small, narrow calves and I have neither of those. I need probably a size 42 wide here and the biggest I can find is a 41 and that’s if I’m lucky. I also want to buy some boots while im here and since I have big calves they don’t fit either! The best part is that the salesmen act like you are inconveniencing them when you as for a size 41, like it bothers them that I have big feet or something. Sara has big feet too but she can wear a size 41 comfortably. She bought a pair of boots and they are already falling apart on her, I guess that’s what we get for trying to buy cheap shoes! Italy is also very fashionable and my shoes and clothes just aren’t cutting it. If I walk to school in flip flops and jeans I get stares sometimes, especially if it has rained recently. When it rains here people act like they will melt if the get one drop on them and they all pull out their umbrellas instantly, I don’t even own an umbrella.

But I really do love Italy! Minus the fact that it ruins my shoes and I’m swamped with homework all the time! I will try to write more sometime next week J