Happy Valentines Day!!

Safely made it back from Paris! Editing pictures now to do the longest best post ever!!

Love to everyone :)

Bonjour?!

Game plan for the weekend? 
PARIS!


I will be in Paris from Thursday night to Sunday and I am SO EXCITED! I will be sure to remember EVERYTHING and take a crillion of pictures to update you all upon my return!

Lovelovelove! 

My B.F.F Dante and the Secret Bakery

Ciao ragazzi!

Things have been wonderful- busy with exploring, eating and classwork as per usual.

Tuesday:

Stumbled upon this doorknob, very Harry Potter-esque if you ask me! And how can you pass it by with out giving the poor hand a pound!?

After Dante's World (name of my english class), italian and art- I went out to eat with Devon, Marlene, Justin and Victoria. (Or as our art teacher calls her "victorie")

We went to a little pizza place across the bridge called DANTE'S! How excited was I right?! I am in a class where we are learning all about Dante himself and here I am at a restaurant dedicated to the very man!  

There was a very pretty fresco of Beatrice (pronounced "Bee-ah-tree-chey") and her two friends with Dante seeing her for the first time since they were 9 years old. My professor actually gave us a postcard in class of that very same picture! 

Sara Shaban, this postcard is headed your way!

Now we live about 25 minutes away from school. Justin, one of the boys in the same apartment complex- bought a bike. Which is very VERY brave of him. The cars and vespas ZOOM by, even the other bikes do. We were told that if you get a bike, as long as you don't look back and acknowledge that there is a car behind you, the car can't hit you or beep or anything cause they are aware of you. Frightening I KNOW! Naturally Devon, Marlene and I all wanted to have a try at the bike!

It was interesting to say the least, and we all are alive to speak of it so no worries!

We got home, showered/got ready and decided to try out a bar called Old Stove. There are three, and we went to one that is the closest. It was really cool there, no one was looking for a crazy party night by any means, so it was nice to just talk and hang out. We also successfully managed to pick a bar that wasn't filled with a ton of other american students!

Noah, Devon, Marlene, Justin and Ben!

The croissants here are AMAZING.

 Especially when filled with chocolate! 

There is a "secret bakery" that is only open from 1 am to 5 am because they are making the pastries to give to the cafes to sell. 

When I was told about the secret bakery, I was told to "follow the smell" and I 100% doubted that I could actually use my nose to find this place. Justin knew the general area of where we needed to be but....SURPRISE! it is not a lie, you can follow the smell. We were half way down the street and all took off running because the amazing smell of bakery was overwhelming!

Justin, Marlene, Noah and Devon

We knocked on the glass door and a man came out and asked if we wanted chocolate or marmalade. We said 5 chocolate. He closed the door and five minutes later we were all in heaven! 

croissant = cornetto

Fun Factoid!

We learned today in my Ancient Rome class, that after big victories generals would come home and receive a "triumph"- which is essentially a big festival/parade/party to celebrate the win. And the general would get dressed up in purple (which was the color of the Gods so not just anyone could wear it) and they were on a float of sorts being honored.

THE ONLY OTHER PERSON on the float was a servant boy. And his only job was to whisper "You are human." in the ear of the general. Because the general was being honored so much that he needed to be reminded/kept in check as to not let it go to his head!

I thought that was so cool/interesting so I thought I'd be a nerd and pass it on!

Some Palazzo Rucellai, More Friends and Chocolate and a Dog in a Scarf

This is Palazzo Rucellai! Back in the day, the ground floor is where people brought their chariots. The first floor was for visitors, the second was private and the third was for the servants and the kitchens!

This is part of the library to the left of the picture is where I have my Dante's World class.

Here is the cafe right across the street from school, it has delicious croissants and cappuccino! Which is terrible and wonderful all at the same time.

Oh hello Palazzo Vecchio! You are looking especially pretty today!

David? Is that you?! ( This is not the real David this is imposter-David) The real one is in the Accademia (which I am going to with art and will be sure to post about!) 

On a lot of the street signs there is art work, sometimes it's hearts and things, other times it is:

These are done during the night by Clet. He is an artist that lives down the street!

Also down the street is Meta, a very tiny/strange grocery store. In italy they don't buy in bulk. So people are at the store every day, it is nothing like at home where you can stock up for half a year if you wanted. They don't add preservatives which is important, if you buy something USE IT, it wont last long.

This evening I met Mandy and Jessie and we went to the chocolate festival, because *GASP* they had not been yet! I know I was in shock as well, it started three days ago what were they doing with their lives?! (Oh that's right they were in Rome, all is forgiven!)

Jessie about to steal Mandy's chocolate waffle

I will be in Rome on a class trip, so I cannot go to Venice for carnivale, but I fully support someone buying/wearing this chocolate mask in my honor!

We walked around aimlessly after stocking up on chocolate, and stumbled on a cute little jewelry store.

Sisters/Mom/Aunts/Cousins/Friends- if you see any jewels you like let me know!!

Palazzo Vecchio by night! (QUICK LESSON- Vecchio means "old")

ALSO! 

Saw a dog wearing a fur scarf. No joke. I've seen dogs in leather jackets here, dogs dressed nicer than me. And now a dog in a fur scarf. Seriously?! 

The picture is a little blurry cause the big guy was on the move, but you get the general idea!

Victory!

Today was pretty low key for me! 

I woke up, exercised/showered and then went grocery shopping.

After that I wandered around Florence for a couple of hours, and then made my way up to Piazza Michelangelo with my sketch book!

It was around 60 degrees here today and wonderful in the sun. 

I sat down at a statue and just soaked it all in. (cue Sheryl Crow: I'm gonna soak up the sun..")

A view I will never tire of:

Once the sun was going down I was getting a little chilly so I decided to go back to the apartment.

Tonight I tried my hand at making crepes! I was flying solo and wanted to see if I could really make them or if the cooking instructor had helped way more than I realized! 

Good news, I can make them!

Jenna and I had them for dessert, we put strawberry jam in some and nutella in others! We each had two.

Knowing how to make these might be the best thing ever or the worst, we shall see.

Italian Lesson

I am going to attempt to explain to you all something we've learned in italian. But before I can share words I've been learning, you are going to need to learn how to pronounce them.

This may be really confusing, in which case I am sorry and you should ignore it and go to someone that knows italian and have them explain!

So there are some rules when it comes to words with the letter "c" and the letter "g", for now I am going to stick with explaining "c" words

Here goes:

 Ciao (hello)

- now you know how to say that-phonetically it is "chh"-"ow" even though it is not spelled that way. That's because in italian, words with "ci"and "ce" are pronounced with the "chhh" sound.

OR

piacere (nice to meet you)

Phontetically, it's pronounced "pee"-"ah"-"chhh"-"ere"

See what I mean? The CH sound really gets ya!

Now I'm going to rock your world:

example:

zucchero (sugar)

This word is pronounced like "zoo"-"kerr"-"o"

I KNOW RIGHT! It has the CH in it, but it is pronounced like a k! 

(other examples = caffe- "ka"-"fey")

To make things easier...

"C" is pronounced [CH] when it is before the letters "E" or "I"

"C" is pronounced [KA] when it comes before "A" or "O" or "U"