week 8(?) update

To recap for those of you who didn't get the email:

So, I'll just get it out of the way - I suck at getting out regular updates. What can I say? I'm just lame like that. My view has been that when I sent out an update I should have something really cool to say, aside from the everyday nonsense of "I did this today, I did that yesterday...blah, blah, blah." I've been meaning to get this one out for a few weeks, but have been suffering from motivational problems. For one reason or another, I just haven't felt like sending out long emails/posting blogs, but I'm gonna do my best to get back on top of it for the rest of the semester.

But back to the fun stuff: Talking about me, (and my travels)

A couple Fridays ago, I woke up, and on a whim I decided to take off to Florence (Firenze in Italian). I asked my neighbor/friend Barbara if she wanted to join me.

Exact conversation verbatim:

ME - So, Barbara - how are you feeling today? (She has M.S. remember)
BARB - Like shit. Where are we going?
ME - Florence, you want to go?
BARB - Sure, what time?
ME - Half an hour.
BARB - Ok.

Total elapsed time - 30 seconds.

So we hopped on the train, and 3 hours later, we were in Florence. I'd had just enough time between asking her to join me, and our departure to book a hostel on hostelworld.com (a must for any traveler). We stayed there from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, when we headed back to Viterbo. We hit up 3 different museums. First and foremost we went to the Museo Academia to see THE piece to see in Florence: some statue of a naked dude that was built by one of the Ninja Turtles... For those of you scratching your heads, that was a reference to Michaelangelo...and the DAVID.

Oddly enough, you're not supposed to take pictures there. Most museums that don't allow photography do so because of the flashing damaging the paint. Which makes sense. But we're talking about a giant marble statue, so explain that one. Anyway, me being me - Savage Ron - I snuck a few pics. Barbara figured the reason was to boost the sale of their postcards. Of course. Anywho... the other museums we went to were mainly to see pieces by artists we'd been learning about in our Art History class. (by the way, I'm taking Art History instead of Rennaisance History, which had the most boring teacher ever.)

All in all, we had a busy, fullfilling two and a half days in the capital of the Tuscany province. The only drawback was the fact that we didn't hear enough Italian. We heard so much English, and (surprisingly) Japanese, not to mention French, Spanish and German, that it was almost annoying to not be able to practice our language skills as much as we wanted. We still tried though... However, we ate GREAT while we were there. We seemed to have a knack for finding good places at cheap prices. Friday dinner = 4 courses + 2 beverages for 22 Euros.

Other wise, we just walked around the whole time, taking in the city's beauty. Saturday night I sniffed out a jazz club, so we went and heard a decent quartet for a little while and had some dessert wine. Before we left on Sunday, we hit up an outdoor market, where I got a few knick-knack souvineirs (sp?), but coolest of all - I got two full-length kitchen aprons: One with the torso of David on it, and the other with the torso of "Birth of Venus" (woman riding a clam-shell, naked). I figured they would make good his/her aprons for Sarah & I.

Other than that, not much has been going on over here. Just been hanging out, trying to save my money. I went down to Rome last weekend to catch the sunset over the city. I had nothing else to do. :)

THIS weekend however, is PRAGUE baby! I'm really excited to go. I've heard that it's one of the more beautiful cities in Europe, and I'm going with someone who lived there last fall, so that's even better. As I mentioned last time, Mike (the USAC office helper), Massimo, Barbara and I are the 4 going, and we plan on enjoying the hell out of it. We're planning on seeing the opera Don Giovanni while we're there, based on Barb's very enthusiastic recommendation. So be prepared for more on that soon....

I don't remember who it was, but someone asked about seeing some kind of daily routine. Well here goes:

Mon/Wed/Thurs:
Usually wake up between 11-noon
Get a cappuccino and a pastry of some kind.
Shower before class (if I wake up in time)
Do homework
Have class at 3 or 4
Maybe hit up the grocery store
Walk up & down the Corso (most likely with Teddy), grabbing a cappuccino along the way
Eat dinner (places vary for this one)
Talk to Sarah for a while
Watch a movie or something
Sleep around 2-3am

Tues:
Get up at 8:30am
Grab quick cappuccino
Have boring Travel Writing class 9-11
Rest of day - chill: Read, walk, watch movies, enjoy empty apt, get cappuccino
Walk Corso in evening
Dinner
Go out to local club (not every Tues, but most)
Talk to Sarah
Sleep around 3-4am.

Weekends: Whatever comes to mind; travel, chill, sleep, etc.