First Week of Class: Check. Oh, and That Little Expedition to Cinque Terre...

Seriously, what? It's only been one week?! It seems like we've been in class for about a month, at least. But no, that's not possible since we haven't even been in Florence for a whole month. As crazy as it seems, we've really only been here for about 2 and a half weeks. In that short amount of time, I've already experienced reading, quizzes, reading, presentations, reading, reading...oh and did I mention reading? Yeah, we do a lot of that around the villa. Or outside. Some find it better to do work outside the house. I will usually read out in the backyard patio. Others go across the creek and sit on a bench. Or some still will venture to a nearby park and just read. Or they'll just stay in the library/music room. Whatever floats your boat.

Now one thing I have to say is that even though school work is tough and its been a lot, I am actually appreciating it a lot at this moment. I am enrolled in four classes this semester and they all work so well together. The most exciting part is that we learning about Florence...IN FLORENCE. We are reading Dante...IN FLORENCE. We are seeing pictures and statues and buildings in our textbooks that are only 15 minutes away. That didn't really hit me until we finished reading Dante's "La Vita Nuova" in my English class. We have to go around the city and find "Dante Plaques;" they're plaques placed at important locations in the city with quotes from Dante's "Divine Comedy." I went with two friends looking for a couple and we ended up at the Ponte Vecchio, finding the plaque that translates to "At the Crossing of the Arno..." From the Ponte Vecchio, we saw the Ponte Santa Trinita. The bridge with three arches was described to us in class as we were reading La Vita Nuova. That was the very bridge Dante saw his love, Beatrice. RIGHT THERE. They were right there. I just read that two days prior. And now I am at where it happened. Wait, what?! Seriously? You can say that makes the learning experience a little more bearable.

At the end of the week, we all kind of decided to reward ourselves with a trip to Cinque Terre. We left Firenze at 5:30...in the morning. We got to the first city, Riomaggiore. And this is what we saw.

I mean, I guess you could say it was kinda beautiful.

We walked through the Via D'Amore to get to Manarola, the next town. Along with path we had the Meditteranian Sea to our left and graffiti of people professing their love for each other on the right. People also brought locks and locked then on chains to symbolize their love being "locked" in the Via D'Amore forever. Also, someone wasn't feeling the love so they posted "4 Ever Alone"... sad day.

Anyway, we lost a couple people, found some people, trained a bit, walked a bit, ate a bit, and wondered around until we got to the end of the third town, Corniglia. Our group decided to hike to the next town of Vernazza. I went for it. Without knowing it was an hour and a half hike. I wanted to die. After close to two hours of hiking, we were rewarded with a stunning view of Vernazza. We spent some time in that town, eating lunch and exploring some of the shops. We were so exhausted from that hike still that we didn't even think about hiking to Monterosso, the last town (although some from our group were able to. Kudos to them). So we trained to the last town.

Monterosso is basically the Santa Monica / Malibu of Italy. Beach town. The water was beautiful and the weather was nice. We rented a couple beach chairs and umbrellas for our group and laid out on the beach while some went into the rock-infested waters. The beach closed at six and some of us treated ourselves to a nice dinner...and a way cheaper dinner than we thought. Seafood spaghetti with the house white wine...only 10.50. And we were sitting right there next to the Sea. Couldn't get any better (or cheaper) than that.

We relaxed for a little while longer until our train back home arrived. We didn't get back to the Villa until past midnight and we were all exhausted. I didn't wake up until noon the next day. Best feeling ever.

And then we were off for week two of class...
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