La Dolce Vita

The Sweet Life. Currently, I am sitting on my bed with the windows wide open and listening to the birds chirping, watching our fascinating neighbor across the courtyard airing out her comforter, like she does everyday. We are also fascinated by our "new" neighbors who live above us and are extremely loud - we can hear every conversation and move they make. We have no idea why suddenly we can hear everything, so we assume they are new.

We are waiting for Samantha to come over and we four are going to have dinner and the best gelato in town together at our apartment. Patee, Marielle and I are "running" in the Florence "Vivicitta," or half marathon, tomorrow. It is a 12K, so I am not sure why they are calling it a half marathon, but I plan to run half of it and walk the rest. After running so much the past two weeks, my shins have begun to feel like they are going to break in half. The course of the run goes through the "most interested sites of Florence," as our advisor translated it as in an e-mail. Anyways, we are really excited because we get T-shirts and all.

While I am on the topic of beautiful weather that we had today, this week has been absolutely gorgeous. While this time of the semester has been hard for all of us because we all miss springtime at home, we have still been able to get outside and enjoy it in Florence. On Monday, Patee, Marielle and I spent the afternoon laying by the Arno (the river). I got a one-hour nap in and the rest of the time, we sat there for four hours eating gelato, gossiping, etc. We figured out by reading a sign that the area we went into near the Arno is actually a "Club" for rowers ... so we were afraid we might get kicked out. However, one man came up to us and told us that we should move to the prettier part of the Arno where there are gardens that were just done. He told us that we were sitting on the dirty section where rats come out at night. Wonderful. We didn't move because we weren't sure where he was talking about and we were too lazy anyway. When Patee and I left to start dinner, Marielle stayed and the man rowed past her in his kayak on the river and asked her why we didn't move... he told her that from now on we can enter the "Club" and just say we are friends of "Marco" (him). She stayed and had a long conversation with him and he showed her the "Club," which she said is beautiful. We are waiting for another beautiful afternoon after school so we can relax down there for another four hours! What a life.

My leather jacket got a rip in the seam when I was in France with Mark, but I didn't notice it until recently. I brought it back to Lucca and Ana when my parents are here, and he sent it off to the factory, so I miss it. He apologizes to me everyday and asks me if I want to borrow a different coat until I have mine back. I tell him there is no need to even wear a coat right now, a concept that these Italians can't seem to grasp. It is 70 degrees out and they are still wearing their parkas and fur hats! Lucca told us he wears his coat still because he works in the shade. We laughed at him, and he thought he offended us by wearing his coat, so he took it off. Daddy told me that Italians dress according to the month... which made sense, until April and beautiful weather appeared and they are still in the parkas. Anyways, Lucca told Patee that he is going to miss us so much when we leave. He says that we aren't the typical American girls who walk around being snobby and acting rich, and he is intimidated by those girls. He asks us everyday if we can stop by the leather shop after class so we can have a glass of wine with him in the store... Ha, again, what a life. He thinks that Patee's name is "Paniiiii," which means breads in Italian. Patee asked him, "Lucca, do you think my MOm was sitting around in the kitchen when she gave birth to me and said, hm, I will name my daughter 'breads'"? Lucca said, "I don't know your mother." Hahaha.. he is so funny. He thinks my name is "Conen" and that Marielle's name is "Marul." He told Patee, "I am going to miss you.. and Conen.. and Marul so much when you leave!" I think he has learned a lot from us about Americans and America in general... sometimes he says very inapprorpriate things - things that we consider inappropriate - and we have to tell him that he shouldn't say things like that in front of strangers because it will offend them. One day he told Paniiii that he needs to shave because he feels like Osama Bin Laden, and Patee told him to shhhhhh, and he didn't understand why, and responded with, "it's not like I am going to be terrorist or anything." Hahaha... We are going to miss Lucca so much when we leave!

On another note, Marco's pizzeria opened back up after restoration. We actually took Mom and Dad there when they were here, and it was still so delicious. However, Marco is no longer there. Patee, Marielle and I think it was taken over by the mafia. The new waiter we have enjoyed is named "Massimo," and he loves us. He gives us free wine, drinks and dessert whenever we want it. He is hilarious because he barely speaks any English and we have to correct him a lot. He and his "maestro" get a kick out of us. Maximo very often likes to say, "Scuse me, sorry"/"My name is Max.... bery Max." We think he thinks that in English Maximo is translated to "very Max" because the -issimo at the end of nouns in Italian, translated to English, puts emphasis on "very"... ha.

Ok, well now that I have procrastinated enough, it is time for me to continue writing my philosophy paper. I have to prove the existence of God, and then I have to write a paper for history about Petrarch and Dante, and then I have to write a literature paper on who knows what because our teacher is clueless... I actually plan to later write a post regarding Stefano, our literature teacher who provides us 95% of our entertainment in school.

Please don't make me ever leave Florence ... it is such a Dolce Vita...