Buongiorno!

So I had my first day of classes yesterday! I had Italian and Fashion Marketing & Merchandising. Italian will be interesting for me since its so similiar to Spanish so its hard not to get it confused! I've been trying to use the few words I know in Italian since I've arrived and trying out new ones that I have been learning. I have not had any language barriers though because me or the other person can generally figure out what eachother means. Fashion Marketing class will be amazing. My teacher is the funniest, sweetest, more adorably trendy lady ever. She has so many connections so we get to have great guest speakers like a person from Gucci and we get to go on some great field trips as well like to Ferragamo's factory.

Between classes I ventured off to the San Lorenzo Mercado Centrale which is their farmers market. It is unbelievable. Its a whole warehouse basically that is filled with individual vendors selling their fresh produce, fruits (fresh & dried), nuts, fish, every kind of mean you could ever imagine (including tripe...ewww), cheese, fresh pasta, etc. Its unbelievable. I got some fresh provolone cheese that they cut me off a chunk of! Its so good! I also got some fresh whole grain bread thats amazing as well. I look forward to going back and getting some chicken and attempting to cook it in my kitchen! Last night me and a few girls sat down for a few frustrating hours and booked our next 2 weekend adventures. This weekend on Saturday morning we are going to take the train to Montepulicano (for the Twilight lovers this is where they just finished filming New Moon the next movie) which is a cute little town south of Florence. We are staying Saturday night in a hostel and just hope to explore the little town for Saturday and Sunday. The following weekend we booked a hostel for Friday and Saturday nights (Saturday will be my 21st bday!!!) in Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre, Italy on the Italian Riviera. Our school is taking us there on Friday, but instead of coming home with the group that night we are staying until Sunday. I'm pretty sure Kelly McKitterick is going to meet me there on my birthday and hopefully stay in our same hostel!

Anywyas today I had my second day of class and it was great! I had my Great Masters Class, which is art history. I can tell its going to be tough, but its just so interesting! Today our very first day we had a field trip for the full 3 hour period at the Laboratory where they restore all the famous art pieces , church panels, etc. from the Italian museums and churches! It was AMAZING! This place is not open at all to the public so it was so great! We had one of the men that restores the art walk us through and tell us about everything! He only spoke Italian so our teacher translated. We saw a painting by Raphael that was being restored and has'nt been seen by the pubic for a few years due to its restoration as well as some others that havent been seen by the public for over a decade! One of the most amazing things to me that we saw were some of the original bronze panels from the Baptistry of the Duomo (the smaller separarte building in front of the Duomo used for baptisms by the Florentines) that are ancient. Today only replicas are in place and the originals will never be put back on the doors. At the laboratory they were being protected by the elements in a "box of air" literally a shield of air that is a particular humidity and temperature. Also the entire laboratory was monitored to be a certain humidity and temperature! It was crazy to see some huge pieces of art that had been destroyed in the Florence flood of 1963 and were barely recognizable to be paintings and see that they can restore them almost to a perfect state! With that being said, I'm excitd for this class!

Anyways I have to get ready for our Appertivo (Italian Happy Hour--normally pay for drinks and get free buffet....very traditional for the Italians) that our school is hosting for us!