Cinque Settimane a Firenze

Its been five weeks since I started class in Florence.  It has been extremely busy in Italy.  I could write a book on all the amazing things I have done, seen and tasted.  A small list includes great views from the hills of Fiesole, 20-30 beautiful churches of the gothic and renaissance style, hundreds of amazing frescoes, a couple of archeological sites and over a dozen art, science and history museums.

I arrived at my host family's house after only one day of Italian class.  It was quite a shock when I realized they knew no english.  Five weeks later, my roommate and I are have simple, but understandable conversation fully in Italian.  Dinner's in Italy are much later than in the United States.  A typical dinner at my house starts at 8pm. The dinners are always three courses. First soup or pasta.  Then, a vegetable with meat and finally a piece of fruit for dessert.  My favorite meal is gnocchi and caprese which is seasoned fresh tomatoes and mozzarella.

The first weekend I was in Italy our program took a trip to Venice.  It was hard to believe that Venice could live up to all the pictures, but it did. I got to watch a demonstration on glass blowing, and take a short gondola ride, in which the gondola was almost tipped over by a large man.

Since I can not possibly post all five hundred photos that I have take, I will post my top ten favorite pictures from my first five weeks in Italy.

The City of Florence 

Glass blowing demonstration in Venice

Venice

Processional to San Marco during palm Sunday in Venice

The Florence countryside 

Piazza Duomo in Florence during Easter

Rainy easter morning

A short video of the view from a tower in Siena 

A few from Fiesole

eating gelato on the bridge