Carnival

It seems like the time has been flying by, but I'm not sure that it really has. Time is a strange thing here because it's never constant. The first 10 hours of the tend to speed by but the last half of the day drags on, but it's not always like that. I just looked back and saw that we've been here for 38 days. That is over one third of the time that we will spend here. It's weird to think that we're approaching the half way mark already and I have very mixed emotions about it all. On one hand, I'm starting to get pretty homesick. The things that used to be really exciting and different about Italy are now starting to be annoying, strange and inconvenient. We are headed out of what everyone refers to as the honeymoon phase of our semester abroad. On the other side of it, I wish there was more time. I guess the difference is I don't want more time to explore Florence, but I want more time to explore the rest of Europe. Even though cultural aspects are the same in many Italian cities, it's still exciting to go to a new city in Italy and see new things. Maybe we just haven't found any new things to see in Florence lately and that's why it's getting monotonous.

To be honest, I don't have much to report about the last two weeks. With the exception of yesterday, which I'll get to, we haven't done much. Florence (and most of Europe) has been experiencing the coldest winter in over 25 years. This means that we spend every moment either at school or at home. We haven't gone out to explore or find a new place and even going to the grocery store is something we have come to dread. But even with the cold and with the end of the said "honeymoon period," I'm still incredible happy and blessed to be here. I am loving my classes and I love how comfortable I am getting with friends here. Meeting new friends is always exciting but also difficult because you are starting from square one. At this point, I am extremely comfortable with the friends that I do have here. It's very similar to what I experience freshmen year at High Point, which was not being used to the amount of friends that I have. Like at HPU, I have many acquaintances in Florence but my list of close friends is pretty small. Between schedule conflicts and just being busy travelling and doing school work, it's not always easy to find someone to spend time with. But I'm still getting closer to the friends I have and it's great settling into a comfortable friendship.

Speaking of that comfortable friendship, yesterday Sally, Alex, and I went to Venice with our friends from Drew University. We met Kim, Jeanne and Kristen on our first night in Italy. Saci had a dinner for all of the students that night and afterwards we ended up going to get gelato at a place around the corner from the school. As we were trying all of the amazing flavors, three other girls walked into the gelateria. Eventually, they asked us if we were from Saci. They ended up sitting with us to eat gelato and there a wonderful friendship was born. We have all said multiple times that we are so lucky to have met each other because without this group of friends, we wouldn't have many other people to hang out with. So I am very thankful for our Jersey girls :) Anyways, yesterday we went to Venice! We booked the trip with a company called Bus2Alps that basically provides trips for college students from Florence and other areas in Italy to different places around Europe. This trip only included the transportation to and from Venice as well as guides to help us if we needed help getting around the city. The bus ride was almost 4 hours long so by the time we got there, we were ready to eat lunch. Most of us hadn't eaten much yet that day so we were needing food quickly. We took a water bus (which is the most efficient way to get around the city- especially when it is so cold) to one of Venice's islands (there are around 100). The island is called Murano. When we got there, we found a restaurant to eat at.

Venice is very famous for it's seafood since it is completely surrounded by water. I had debated getting seafood but ended up passing on it because I was planning on getting something with seafood for dinner. I ended up getting penne with four cheeses. When I saw it on the menu, I thought it was going to be pasta with sauce and then cheeses on top, but when I got it, it was macaroni and cheese. I was so excited, in fact I couldn't stop raving about it all day. It wasn't quite our version of mac and cheese but it definitely hit the spot. I was able to try a little bit of everyone elses seafood so that made it a great lunch. We enjoyed our time as we tried to thaw out from the boat ride over to Murano (which took close to an hour and a half). It was a great lunch and provided some new experiences for everyone- especially Kristen who ate an entire baby octopus. Jeanne also tried one of the tentacles! No one else was brave enough to.

After we warmed up, we decided to brace the cold once again. We walked around Murano for a little bit popping into every other store to look at the famous murano glass. Every shop pretty much had the same stuff, just different designs and different specialities. I still don't know how all of those shops stay in business but they must do alright for themselves. We got to see a lot of bridges that connected the islands over the waterways, there are over 400 bridges in Venice. It's such a strange concept to see a town that's made up of bridges and canals but it was really beautiful. 

After exploring a little bit, we decided to head back to San Marco, which is the main part of Venice where the Carnival is. When we got there, we took a quick cappuccino break to warm up and then started exploring. Mostly, we just walked around. We found the main square of San Marco that was basically set up like a huge concert. There was a fenced in area where people were dancing and celebrating. There were also large shops near the fenced in area that had candies and other food. We stopped there for a little just to take it all in and then continued browsing shops. We ended up stopping to get a quick dinner at some point. We each got a slice of pizza and later on Sally and I stopped to get a few pastries (I have to have something sweet after every meal it seems). We ended up back at the main square and continued dancing and having fun until it was time to head back to the bus to go home! Because of the bad weather, we didn't end up getting back to our apartment until 3 AM but it was a great trip. I know we will always remember how cold it was, but we'll also remember how much fun we had despite the cold!!

This weekend I am going to Rome with Sally and Alex to see Shelby! The next weekend I'm going to Paris and then the weekend after that Steven Wetherill will be here!!! I can't wait to see my boy:) Ciao!