This'll be a short post. I'm sitting in a cafe in Florence with two of my roommates, and they're about done with their cappuccinos, so I'm thinking that we'll be leaving soon. I just thought I'd do a little post to say I'm here!
I spent my first three to four days in Rome, which was lots of fun. I really loved the Colosseum and the Vatican City, especially almost anything they had by Michelangelo. People will complain that the Sistine Chapel is crowded, but I thought it was amazing anyway--the figures look like they're trying to come off the ceiling. The Pieta in St. Peters was beautiful, too. Apparently some crazy person attacked it with a chisel in the 70's, so it's behind a wall of glass now, but it's always been my favorite statue by Michelangelo. I also loved loved LOVED this gelato place near the Pantheon called San Crispino, and I ate there everyday (the raspberry is soooooo yum!). Problem was, it always took me about two hours of walking to find the Pantheon--maybe it's just me, but it seems kind of buried and hard to find, especially considering it's such a major world landmark. One of my favorite things to do was just walk around, though, so I didn't mind too much. I probably ate too much gelato, actually. I always spent my whole food budget for the day on lunch and gelato, so I usually just skipped out on dinner and went hungry. Food here is kind of expensive... but good :)
Now I'm in Florence, and I have to say that I'm glad to be living here instead of Rome. Rome was beautiful, and crazy, and actually reminded me of Jerusalem in a lot of ways, but Florence is a calmer city, which is nice for daily living. My apartment is a little on the old side, but it has a kitchen and two working toilets, which is a plus. One of my roommates--Alice from Australia--is in my portraiture class, so we've been hanging out a lot. She's a really good cook and very knowledgeable about food, so it's been fun to go to the market with her and help-slash-watch her make dinner. All of my roommates are nice and easy to get along with--there's Samantha from Peru, and Ashley from Florida. It's been a long time since I've had roommates, but I remember some experiences that were maybe... not so ideal? So I'm glad it's working out so well.
My portraiture class just started, but it's been great so far. It's much slower than the drawing process I'm used to--in a BYU class, I would come out of a three hour class with a finished drawing or a small, rough painting. Here, we're spending all month on a single painting, and we're spending the first week on the preliminary drawing. I came out of class today with only a few lines drawn on my paper--but darn it all, those were perfectly placed lines! I think this will be a good experience. Already, I've learned a ton of things that will be useful when I come back to the States.
I'm really enjoying my time here so far, though I think I'll be very happy to go home in a month--travelling alone is open and liberating, but a little lonely. But so far, things are going great. I was going to post some pictures, but the internet was too slow to load them, so I guess I'll have to do that next time. Ciao!
