January 12, 2009

first day of classes. I had Italian 1 and Architecture in Context.
went out to the Joshua Tree and the Discoteque to celebrate Liz's birthday.



January 14, 2009

got up early and went running. Word of advice, don't try to go running through windy lanes in the rain. There were so many cars that I had to keep jumping into the gutter, which gets REALLY slippery when it rains.
went to the grocery store with Nadia to pick up a few things for the dinner we're preparing tonight. On the way back, we saw an Italian street fight. An old man and a younger Vespa driver got into some sort of an altercation. Two other Italian men were trying to calm them down, but as the Vespa driver walked back to his Vespa, he kicked the old man's car and they started fighting again. It was very entertaining to see Italians arguing cuz it sounded so much more angry since we couldn't understand them. We had to go around the block to go home so we didn't get caught up in it.
walked throughout the San Niccolo neighborhood and up to San Miniato Church and the lookout. The view from the lookout at the top of the hill is AMAZING. No picture can do it justice (especially since it was foggy). I'm planning on going to mass at San Miniato this Sunday despite the intense hill we had to climb to get there.
had movie night with the roomies.



The city is unbelievably noisy at night. Quiet hours (by law) officially start at 11:00 but that seems to be when the city gets the noisiest. Street cleaners come through every night, as do the recycle and trash trucks. As one of my roommates said, these trucks sometimes sound like a helicopter landing in our street. And we can hear people outside talking and singing as if they're in our apartment. The weird thing is that they don't seem to open their shops very early, so we can't figure out why there's so much clanging and talking so early in the morning. The quietest time of the day seems to be around lunch time or maybe a little later. Since it's so hard to sleep with all the noise at night, we're always glad for a little quiet time to nap in the middle of the day (although we'd all always much rather be going out exploring the city while it's still light out).