Florence Countdown

So I don't feel like I've done enough this week to post a blog, but I suppose I have done a little more than I was thinking I had at first, so here goes:
I wasn't feeling extremely well for the first couple of days this week. I wasn't really sick, but I just wasn't really feeling up to doing tons of stuff, so I went to class and then just relaxed at home for the most part. Classes have been moving right along and I have TONs to do before we leave Florence a week from today!
Monday and Tuesday were mostly spent in classes and at home. On Wednesday we went out to dinner for Jane's birthday after everyone was finished with classes and had a pretty good time. Dinner was delicious and our waiter was really funny. He tried to convince us he was from New York and served us heart shaped pizzas and told anyone who was voting for Milano in the soccer match that he would love them forever. It was pretty much really funny. Then we went to Peter's apartment to borrow a movie from Daniel (Peter's brother who teaches the photo class) and their apartment is really sweet. It's right next to the Duomo, like you could almost jump from the window to the side of the Duomo (their apartment is also up 4 flights of stairs). I talked to Eve and Sam while some of the girls chose movies (Sam is now my best friend since he seems to be the only other person in the world who thinks Tom Bombadil is a useful, important and enjoyable character).
After that we went and rode the carousel like I've been wanting to do since we came here. It made me so happy! We walk past it every day and I have been denying myself the opportunity for 3 weeks.

After the carousel, my roommates and I split from the group and went home. We had intended to watch a movie, but I think that we just sat and talked instead, which was still fun... Thursday, Friday and Saturday were spent mostly in working on class things. 3 of us tried to make our plaster molds and had a fun adventure when the plaster suddenly began to set while it was still in the bucket. We still don't know why it set so fast, but it was a very... exciting experience. On Saturday we did a service project that has become a tradition with BYU and the Santa Reparata School here. We made linoleum print Christmas cards that will be sold (nearer Christmas time) and the proceeds will go to UNICEF. It was fun, but took a lot of time.
In my painting class we are working on still life pictures. In sculpture we are casting plaster, carving stone and making sculptures by assembly of aluminum plates and epoxy. I'm really enjoying it all, but I think I'm starting to be just a little worn out. Traveling and school can really wear you out!
Yesterday was great. Church was really good and then we walked to the train station in the rain. When we got there and were waiting for the train to come, it turned into a full-blown thunderstorm right over our heads. The lightning was amazing and the thunder sounded like a shotgun and left our ears ringing.
We spent the afternoon napping, reading and resting in general. Then we went to the Piazza Signoria (in front of the Uffizi) and sang hymns with the missionaries in Italian while they went to talk to anyone who seemed interested. It was a great experience and the spirit was really strong despite the way we struggled with the pronunciation.
Then we had everyone over for a desert night in our apartment which we ended by playing games and then having a dance party. It was all around a fabulous day. Today is being another work day, but the rest of this week will include a lot more exciting site-seeing and such since I still have a list of required things to see before we leave here. I'll have so much to write at the end of this week and no time to write it in, but oh well. I'll just have to deal with it as it comes I guess.
Oh! Two more things! The first is that I just HAD to record for posterity that Doner Kabobs from the restaurant down the street here are my FAVORITE food now. If I had to choose one food to eat for the rest of my life, that would be it. Mmmmmm... They are a cross between sandwiches and pitas with spicy sauce, yogurt sauce, lettuce, something similar to coleslaw, tomato, french fries and roasted meat. Apparently there is an entire article on Wikipedia if you want to look it up. The other thing is an adventure Robyn, Morgan, Nicole and I just had. As we were leaving the Kabob place, this boy started trying to talk to us. He wasn't like the other Italian boys though. He made as much general conversation as he could manage (he didn't know English very well) and told us about America's influence on Italy and such. Then he asked us all for our email addresses as he was headed for the train station. He was really funny.
I miss you all and love you so much!

Living in Firenze

Alright, where to begin?
I suppose I will begin by adding things to this blog that I left out of the last one... The first was my first trip to the Uffizi gallery. It was AMAZING! The best part was that it was homework... the worst part was that I only had time to look at the required works, so I will be back again sometime soon. We looked at three paintings of the Madonna Enthroned. They are three very similar works done in oil on wood panels by Duccio, Cimabue, and Giotto. They are masterworks overwhelmed in gold leaf and bright blues, reds and greens. Then we went to the Botticelli room and got to see 15 or 20 of his works including his Madonna Enthroned, a beautiful Annunciation, The Birth of Venus and the Allegory of Spring. It was fantastic. It might be my favorite homework assignment ever... maybe. The other thing I left out last time was that in the Duomo in Sienna, we got to go into this little room full of frescoes and giant old illuminated manuscripts. There was literature and music. Very old sheet music. I didn't have my camera, but I do have pictures from the San Marco museum here where I found another collection of illuminated manuscripts. I could spend hours looking at them! They are so beautiful!

Alright, so since my last post, we went to church again and it was wonderful, just like last week. Almost all of our lessons and the talks in sacrament meeting were about forgiveness. We met some new people including some girls who are with another group here at Santa Reparata in Florence. We also met some interesting people from Denver Colorado who said they had recently run into an Elder Beck. They were really funny. They tried to help us (this girl Morgan and I) find our way to the train station, but led us to the bus station thinking we should take the bus to the train station by our apartment. We explained that we didn't have bus passes, but that we were trying to get to a train that would take us to that train station. Anyways, lucky for us I remembered the way once we were back on the main road and we didn't have anymore trouble. I talked to Seth (Brian's 12 year old son) at the train station. He and I are buds now and he tells me all about his adventures from previous trips and study abroads he has taken with his family. He is SO lucky! He's been to New Zealand, Australia, Spain, now Italy and some other places as well and he thinks they might go to Hawaii sometime soon. I got 8 years on him and he's traveled about 100 times as much as I have!
After church on Sunday, we went to the Boboli Gardens and spent the afternoon reading and sleeping under the trees and walking through the grounds. We also went into a museum at the Pitti Palace where there is modern art and a little contemporary art as well. It was pretty much awesome.Classes have been really fun. In sculpture we have moved from figure gestures to specific body parts. Right now we are doing heads and I'm about to try a replica of Michelangelo's David... the head at any rate. My first head copy turned out pretty good, so I'm excited to try this one. In painting, we are working on our first painting and I'm so excited. I'm just doing a copy of this picture I have from Pompeii... or at least, mostly a copy. And we also had another assignment this week... it was to go to the San Marco museum and look at the Fra Angelico frescoes there and to go to the Brancacci chapel and look at the fresco there. Pretty much most painting classes don't get assignments to go see some of the most famous frescoes in the world, so that was exciting. (The pictures aren't very good quality... you can't use flash and technically, I wasn't even supposed to take one of them...I also apologize for the nakedness, but since it is one of the most famous and most innovative paintings of all time, I decided to put it up after a brief but intense inner struggle.)

After classes on Wednesday a bunch of us met for dinner and Jane's friends Matt and Pete from BYU came with us. It was nice to have a little civilized male company near our age (and by that I mean any male company that weren't cat calling and whistling any time they were in our company) and we ate pizza and gelato and listened to a street band performing (they were amazing!).






I spent a little time just sitting around my apartment reading, cleaning and such things on Thursday, and that was nice. I just read A Room With a View for the first time, and it was really good. A lot of it is set in Florence, very near my own apartment as far as I can tell. My roommate Morgan and I went to the Supermarket that morning as well, it's really far away from our apartment. We bought tons of groceries and carried them all the way home on foot. It was bad. I was afraid for a while that I had permanently lost feeling in one of my fingers, but when I woke up the next morning, I could feel it again, so it was okay. I'm glad 'cause that would be a super-lame reason to loose feeling in your finger. Carrying home your groceries.
To make up for the day I spent just sitting around, we spent Friday running around everywhere. We saw the Brancacci chaple that morning, then we were going to go see the David at the Academia, but the line was crazy long and someone had forgotten their museum card, so we moved to the Duomo. We went into the Duomo and looked around and we also went into the Baptistery which has a giant dome covered in gold-leaf dominated frescoes of the entire bible. It is amazing!
We finished our adventurous day by going to the Cezanne di Firenze exhibit. That was fantastic too. Cezanne's work is much better in person. But I'm finding that to be true of most artworks...
The next day we had another adventure. We went first thing to see the David that we hadn't seen the previous day and all I can say is that there is a reason that it is considered to be one of the best sculptures of all time. It's such a different experience than you would expect. It's kind of funny too because the David is probably about the size and build of Goliath as opposed to David, but it's such an interesting piece to look at. After that, we went to the Bargello which is mostly a sculpture museum and we saw the David again, only this was Donatello's David. The one that sat in front of the Medici palace during the Renaissance years. There were also tons of ivory carvings and metal workings. I saw the most amazing chess board I have ever seen in my life covered in ivory carvings. There were also tons of amazing works by Robbia. They are relief sculptures depicting mostly Mary and Christ, and they are so beautiful and full of feeling! Oh! And I almost forgot the ceramics room! I loved it! They were all these teapots, washbasins, cups, bowls, pitchers, and all sorts of amazing things glazed so beautifully with the most amazing pictures, many of them done in glossy, metalic lusters. It was awesome!
After we visited the Bargello, we went to this little market where there is a sculpture of a boar that if you rub the nose and drop pennies from it's mouth, it is supposed to bring you good luck. It also is supposed to bring you back here to Florence someday.
Then as we were leaving, I heard someone call my name and there was Ava standing in front of me! I couldn't believe it. She was only in Florence for a couple of days and we managed to run into each other totally out of the blue! It was great.
Anyways, yesterday we went to church again and I found out that there is a deaf woman at church here and the Relief Society president translates for her in what I can only assume is Italian sign language! It reminded me of Ashleigh. It was great. Then that night, we all got together and had a potluck and it was fantastic. Sooo much good food. It made me really happy.
Today I have mostly been in class. We are starting plaster molds and still life paintings. Life is pretty much really good! I miss you all and I'm sorry I don't have as much time as I would like for keeping in touch! There is so much to see and so much homework to do and so much craziness trying to plan our schedules together so that no one is alone that it is just really hard. I'm doing my best though. Love you!

Luggage!!!!

Okay, so my first happy news is that after 12 days of misery, I finally succeeded in getting my luggage! YAY! It was a pain right to the very end though. On Wednesday, the Rome airport FINALLY called Brian's phone back after I had called and Danielle(Peter's brother teaching the photo class. He also served his mission in Sicily) called leaving messages in both English and Italian and anyway, they told me that because I had a faulty claim number they could not send the bags to my school, but they would send it to the Florence airport where I could go out an claim it. So the next day (Thursday) they called to say it had arrived and Morgan (one of the girls in the program) and I hopped on the shuttle bus to the airport -- leaving my passport laying on the ground next to my bed... so I got there and about had a fit trying to explain the situation to the woman at the lost and found who kept telling me that they didn't have a bag under my name (I knew that already) and that they didn't have one under my tag number (I knew that too) and that they just couldn't help me. I told her they called me and told me it was there and she said that I could come look for it, but it probably wouldn't be there. Then she asked for my passport... so I called Peter (in the middle of a class he was teaching turns out) and asked if someone else could bring me my passport before the lost and found closed at 8. Danielle showed up at quarter to 8 with my passport and we rushed to the lost and found and there was a different woman at the desk. So we had to explain it again and they were all very frustrated with me and told me they didn't think they had it and finally they asked what it looked like, went and checked and figured out that they had had it all along. Go figure. But at any rate I have it and I have never appreciated clothes and art tools more... also, I have my camera!!!!!! Hooray!!! So that means pictures (as you can probably tell). The picture on here is of the courtyard to our school. It's pretty much amazing! The rest of the pictures will have to be coming soon. If anyone knows of a site to just put all of them up in one place. let me know! Otherwise, I will just do what I can. Maybe Facebook is my best bet. In fact, a lot of them are already on facebook, so check there.
So last Sunday we went to church and it was way fun. We have to take the train out to the church. Church is not in a separate building, it's like just in a part of a building next to some apartments and shops. There are two tiny branches that meet in there (apparently one of them used to meet in a building even smaller and they didn't fit, so there is some transitioning going on there), so we split up and half went to each branch in an attempt not to overwhelm one branch or the other. There were like 8 missionaries there though and they translated for us during sacrament. Two girls even bore their testimonies and a return sister missionary translated for them (she had the most adorable little baby that I got to hold)! I love that we can come half-way around the world and the church is the same everywhere. It's true whether you're in Utah or Florence. We had sunday-school in English (two elders were asked to teach on the spot) and then the return sister missionary translated for Relief Society. It was sooo great!
Monday classes began. I'm taking beginning painting and beginning sculpture on Mon, Wed and photography on Tues, Thurs. It's been fun so far, but mostly it's just intro stuff still...
We also had tours this week of Florence -- a medieval history tour and a reneissance history tour. They were both really interesting and we got to go into some preserved palaces and things and pretty much it was awesome. Turns out that in Italy a building is brand new if it was built in the last 4 or 5 hundred years...
On Friday we took a day trip to San Gimignano (a city on a hill, like Sienna) where we saw some awesome old towers and churches and ate lots of world famous Gelato. There was a gelato place there that was voted the best gelato in the world last year. And for good reason. It was SOOOOO good. Then we went to Sienna and had a tour where we got to see the Duomo cathedral and all sorts of awesome buildings including the church of St. Catherine of Sienna. Her head is preserved in a small chapel there along with a lot of amazing artwork.
Other than that I have spent a lot of time working on my first assignments for my classes. We are doing color wheels and color charts for my painting class and those have taken the most time. It's fun though. Oil paint is a lot different than water color... I like it. Oh! And this morning some of us took a trip up to the Piazza di Michealangelo where you can see the whole of Florence from a hilltop. It was FANTASTIC! I didn't have my camera charged yet, but I'll get pictures from one of the other girls... I love you all and miss you so much!!!!

Ciao de Firenze!

Greetings from Florence! I am in Florence now and in SUCH a good mood all of the sudden because I just received an email telling me that Nancy Bean, the BYU travel agent, thinks that they found my Luggage untagged in Rome. HOORAY!!!!! Oh I hope that's it! But let me back up a bit since I'm a little behind.
We left Napoli (Naples) and had about an 8 hour bus trip to get here to Firenze (Florence). The only eventful thing that happened was when we stopped at a rest stop/gas station (they had them all along the way and we stopped at them several times. They are a lot like American gas stations in the middle of no-where with souvenirs, overpriced food and snacks and nasty bathrooms. The difference is, you are expected to tip the man or woman who cleans the bathrooms... it's kinda weird. Also, bathroooms are not always divided by gender, sometimes there is just one for whoever...) Anyway, this particular time that we stopped, there just happened to be a bus full of Italian boys and they took a great interest. I think that I had one boy tell me he loved me and would wait for me in heaven or something ridiculous like that. He was just making hand gestures through a window, so it was hard to be sure. But as usual, Krista was the center of their attention. They even came on the bus at one point and asked if any of us spoke Italian and when they were off the bus, they kept trying to get Krista to come out to them. Everyone thought it was a good joke, but were really creeped out and we were all glad when Marco chased them off and shut the door so all they could do was blow kisses through the window... It was an interesting experience to say the least. I don't think I enjoyed it that much to be honest, but it does make a good story...
We got to Florence and Marco dropped us off just down the street from the school. Everyone was sad that we were losing our bus driver, but he thinks he will be our bus driver for the rest of the trip (when we leave Florence in a month) so that was happy. We had a quick welcome and contract signing at the school and then we went to see our new apartments. Our apartments are fantastic! Mine is on the 3rd floor in the swanky part of town and it's amazing. It is about 10 times as big as my Glenwood apartment. There are 9 rooms and all of them are pretty big. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dinning room, a living room and a smaller utilities room in the back with our refrigerator, washer and a utility sink. The showers don't work right now, and neither does the washer, but everything else is great! It's all furnished including dishes and sheets and things and we even have a tiny little balcony with a clothesline. I'll have to get pictures as soon as I have my luggage to charge my camera with...
The other girls all have neat apartments too. The thing about these apartments is that they are not cookie-cutter molded apartments like we have in the US. Each bed is different; we all have fantastic antique wardrobes and tables and furnature. Even the apartment across the hall from us is completely different. Most of us are on the 3rd or 4th floors though and have nice views out the window. I have already spent about three nights reading next to an open window with the shutters flung open. I have the mosquito bites to prove it too... the mosquitos are supposed to be awful, but currently they are only mildly annoying since there has been an almost constant downpour since we've been here.
Classes don't start until monday, so we have been exploring Florence ever since. It has been raining like mad the whole time we've been here which I don't mind. Big cities in Italy are really funny because the streets are so narrow and buildings are so close togther and everything looks so much the same and all the sudden you will turn a corner and there is the Duomo in all it's splendor and glory crammed between two apartment buildings. You would expect all these buildings to have a wide open space around them and maybe a grassy field, but they are practically hidden between thousands of other buildings. And even the small space around them is usually filled with vending stalls. People selling purses and watches and shoes and jackets to vendors. It's hard to explain... I really will have to take tons of pictures and pass them along. The streets are a complete maze too! Every time the street changes directions, it gets a new name and so each street is like a block long... and grid is definitely a foreign word to these people. I'm excited to be exploring the Duomo and the museums more closely too. We got our museum cards yesterday and that means we get into ALL state-run museums in Florence AND we get to skip the lines (in the case of the Ufizzi, that's like an hour and a half wait). I'm soooo excited for that. We should get to see some pretty amazing things including both Michaelangelo's and Donatello's Davids. Pretty much I'm totally stoked.
Our first night in Florence we went out to eat for Morgan's birthday and I got a tortellini in a Medici sauce that was amazing . We all tasted everyone else's meal at our table and the consensus was that mine was the best although all of them were really good! Then we had the best gelatto yet that night. Amy, I ate a coconut one just for you... well it was coconut and a chocolate one too, but it was sooooo good. They use fresh ingredients in all their food. That's why it tastes so much better. I had pinapple yogurt in Napoli and it definately had large chunks of fresh pinapple in it. When people go shopping, they don't buy food for a month or even a week, they usually buy food for a couple of days and just go to the store or the market on a regular basis. We went to the San Lorenzo market for produce yesterday and it was so awesome! It is an unfinished church I think that has two floors. On the bottom floor is the meat market. They sell everything from huge slabs of beef and pork to whole rabbits, sting rays, octapus, eel and squid. Then upstairs they sell all of the most beautiful fruits and vegetables. One of the girls I was with got in trouble for picking up some bannanas and not buying them. In Italy you do not inspect the produce, you ask them for how much you want, they give it to you and you buy it. It's like a mark of trust. I bought carrots (they are sweet and good, so fresh they sell them with the green stocks and roots still attached), an artichoke and some blood oranges. Blood oranges are what they sell as normal oranges around here and they are my favorite. All the orange juice is a bright red color and tastes delicious. Everyone goes to the bakery for fresh bread too. Things taste a lot more bland too since it's not all packaged with sodium preservatives and salt.
I've been having an exciting time trying to figure out this cooking pasta thing. I have some Tagliettelli noodles and a tomato and red pepper sauce that is delicious. I have eaten a TON of fresh bread and pesto as well. Pretty much I'm adicted. Another big thing here is Nutella. You can buy Nutella almost anywhere. Which I really feel okay about.
Last night we had a traditional Italian meal as a welcome to the school dinner. It was so good, but it was 5 courses long and I was sooo full by the end. While we waited for our food, we ate some delicious bread, then we had an amazing appetizer with fresh tomatoes on bread and a mushroom filled pastry that was to die for. Then they brought us two kinds of pasta and served a third after that. Then we had potatoes and stuffed chicken. Then came the most amazing strawberry (fragola) dessert. It was soooo good!
Regular shops and stores are different here too. There are not really department stores or supermarkets in the sense that we think of them. All the stores are specialized. They have watch and clock stores and dress shops, shoe shops, purse and bag shops, electronics shops, and postcard stands. There is nothing like Walmart where you do all your shopping in one place at one time. People usually walk everywhere here too. The streets are small and narrow and the city center is not very big, so walking is really the most convenient way to get around. All the stores look small from the outside and many of them are still small on the inside, but some look small because you can only see one rooom and in the very back of that room there will be a small doorway leading into another room and that room leads to another all sortof ambling maze-like through a building. It was as if each was intended to be a different shop, but one person bought them all and made them into one store. You learn quickly not to shop in stores on main streets or near main piazzas (squares) since everything is more expensive there. Sidestreets are the best places to get things. Especially gelatto... it can be up to 2 Euros less for the same amount near a big piazza. It's crazy!
I'm really excited for classes to start on Monday. We bought some of our supplies today and I'll be buying my paints next week. It should be amazingly fun!
Pretty much I'm in love with Florence. Some couple on the street today almost took my roomate and I for Italians. Our flip-flops gave us away though. I thought it was funny and kinda flattering. Makes me feel like I don't quite stick out as much as I thought. Maybe I'll get some Italian shoes and then no one will be able to pick me out of an Italian crowd...
Oh, if I've promised to send you a postcard or to eat a gelatto for you, remind me so I don't forget anyone. I'm missin' y'all like crazy. The only way this trip could get any better is if some of you were out here with me... okay and it will probably be a little better once my luggage comes...
I miss you all and I love you!

Napoli

Ciao! So day three of our Italy trip and things are still amazing. We were supposed to go to the coast today, but it was rainy this morning, so we went back to the museum we went to yesterday. It's called the Museo (museum) Capodimonte. I bought a guide book that has a lot of the pictures. They opened up a new room today with an original Botticelli that was amazing and I got to see all the other fantastic ones I missed before. We also went to a tiny little chaple in Naples with the most AMAZING sculptures. There were two that were statues of people draped in thin veils... amazing artistic feats since you can still see almost all the details of the body but that it all is carved to look like there is thin fabric over the top. There was also one draped in a net which was AMAZING. I don't even know how you would carve something like that. It was so intricate you could see the texture on all the "ropes" that made up the net. It was incredible. After that we decided it was dry enough to go to the coast anyways and so we set off, but all we got were some amazing views of the beaches from cliff-top. Today is a holiday somewhat similar to Labor Day that the Italians take pretty seriously... It's a socialist holiday and no one works on this day. The young people party a lot and it used to be a huge day for political rallys and other activist events. There was a catholic procession in the town we needed to get through to get to the beaches, so we got stuck in traffic for a LONG time and then just turned around and went back. Riding in our bus is always an interesting experience. The roads are narrow and winding and huge busses don't really fit on them, but traffic works a little differently here. If you want to cross the street, you just cross it (or just walk down it for that matter). People treat most traffic rules more like guidlines and even though things are pretty much craziness all the time, they are all really laid back. No one minds having to wait for pedestrians that jump in front of their cars or for a bus to make a three point turn... or for a bus to get out of both lains around a corner that was not made for that bus to drive through...It's funny, but I like it. Cars always make sure that they don't hit pedestians, but they don't mind getting right up next to you with their car or sortof pushing through crowds. It's nuts.
Our busdriver Marco is funny. He's a really nice guy and is super smart. I've spent a lot of time talking with him. He studied Italian History at University probably 10 or 15 years ago and remembers so much! He tells us all about dates when important things happened, the geography and sites we will be traveling, and he was even the one to tell me all about the holiday today. He's great. We're good friends he and I. He's super smart and could be doing anything, but he likes driving buses. He gets to tour Europe all the time which he only likes because he gets to meet so many interesting people. He's really neat.
The other people I really love hanging out with are Peter and Brian's kids that are here. They are so fun! I love kids. The girls aren't too crazy either and we're all getting along and having fun. They decided today that if I were an animal it would probably be a black bear cub. They're funny!
The scenery is beautiful. A lot of it looks like western washington. They have fir trees and all sorts of other trees and lots of clover and small white daisies and morning glory and scotchbroom and blackberries and things, but they also have palm trees and all sorts of exotic looking flowers and plants. It's amazing! I'm loving it!
The Italian boys are funny. They seem to think it's their duty to flirt with american girls... sometimes even if theyhave other girls with them. One girl in our group, Krista, who is tall and blonde, seems to be getting the most of it. No one speaks a lot of English around here, but they usually know a few words. The Pizza guy at the local pizzaria asked if we call Krista "Barbie" which gave everyone a good laugh. Some of these guys are just funny like the guys who say "beautiful" or blow kisses as we pass... some of them are slimey and creepy like the guys I saw in McDonalds today (we stopped to use the restroom or toilettes as they are called here) who walked by and said "kiss kiss" to me and when I ignored them one of them said "kiss, kiss. You and me kiss, kiss" I said no and tripped on the stairs and they laughed which was pretty much hilarious, but they were gross... anyways...
Apparently when I'm not with the group I pass for Italian because everyone keeps trying to talk to me in Italian. There was a guy in a park today who saw me playing with Peter's daughter Eve and started speaking to me in Italian. I said I only spoke English and he asked me if she was my daughter and said she was "Bella Chica". I can ususally understand a little if they speak slow enough and communicate a little since it's so close to Spanish, but for the most part I'm lost. Supposedly people in more Northern Italy speak English usually which is a little sad because I'm already learning a little out of necessity, but it'll still be fun. We head from Naples to Florence tomorrow - an 8 hour bus ride- where we will settle for a while at the school. I'm having so much fun and am so excited to start my classes. I've been really inspired to paint especially after seeing all these fantastic paintings.
My camera won't be much use for my photography class unless I can get my luggage with my battery charger from it, but our BYU travel agent is on the case now and she's good at what she does, so I'm hoping we'll get something happening soon. Everyone has been taking great care of me though and lending me whatever I need and I just keep hoping I'll have it soon.
I miss you all sooooo much and I love you!