Update.

Dear readers,

Sorry it's been a while since my last update. I've been having a pretty terrible week and haven't felt up to posting just yet.

Last weekend I went to Venice with EuroAdventures. It was very cold and because of some miscommunication issues I did not have the best time. I will be going back to Venice over Spring Break and I hope to post a much more interesting recap of my time there.

The chocolate festival was in Piazza della Reppubblica this week so I was able to drop by there a couple times. It was really fun and delicious, and it almost made me want to give up design and spend my life making cute little animals out of chocolate. Tuesday my boyfriend of 3 years and I decided to take some time off and that's been one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with in my life, but I know there are a lot of people here with me willing to help me get through it.

After moping for a while I woke up this morning ready to enjoy my time here, even with 12 hours of class. Then not even 2 hours of being awake I managed to fall and sprain my ankle. Unable to put any pressure on it at all I decided it was time to call our SOS International health insurance company and see about getting it checked out. They're very nice and extremely helpful, maybe a little slow, but I was able to get myself (through a series of taxis and strangers helping me down stairs) to the emergency room at the Santa Maria Nuova hospital. There was maybe one person on staff here who spoke English and was able to process my info and get me in for an x-ray. It was very strange having nurses come in and wheel me off to different rooms, not able to tell me in English where it was we were going or why.

The view from my wheelchair immediately after getting out of the taxi, realizing that no one spoke English. Probably one of the scariest moments of my life.

The view from my wheelchair for about 4 hours in the waiting room. Not gonna lie, these shoes kind of helped me not feel like a complete mess today.

Anyway, after about 4 hours of that they let me know that my ankle wasn't fractured, luckily, but that I should stay off of it for the next 5 days or so. This is a big problem because I'm supposed to be leaving for a school sponsored weekend in Rome at 9am tomorrow. So at this moment I'm desperately trying to find crutches somewhere in this city at 9 at night, all while being completely unable to get out of my apartment without those crutches.

I'm determined to make it to Rome, because if I don't go I'm going to be trapped in my apartment alone all weekend with absolutely no one around to help me if I need to get out. I feel like if I can just get a pair of crutches and get to Rome all my troubles will disappear, or at least some of them, and at least for a little while. And I really need that to happen these days.

*I chose to come back and edit this post after a couple of hours of reflection (partly because I found out some of my mom's friends read this blog and I want to make sure she can be proud of me). I wasn't able to find crutches at 10 at night, and our ACCENT coordinator told me it would be a waste to try and walk through Rome on them anyway since it would be so crowded and such long walking times. So after trying to walk for a little while I have decided to go to Rome anyway, without crutches. I'm probably going to be slow, and I might be in pain, and I might have to sit some of the tours out back in the hotel, but I don't want to be a victim of circumstance. I decided this morning to stop being a floppy mess, and I'm not going to let a sprained ankle change my mind for me. Maybe I won't have as great a time in Rome as I would have with 2 good ankles but I know for sure it'll be a better time than laying in bed all weekend feeling lonely.

Siena

Friday morning started with a 6:45am wake up call. We hopped on a bus and left for our school-sponsored trip to Siena at 8am, and I'm pretty sure none of us were really prepared for. It's been about 30 degrees here in Florence for the past week or so, so we knew it would be cold, but when we finally arrived in Siena we were very surprised to see a 6 inch layer of snow on the ground.

Sun rising over the Duomo

Siena in the Snow

Hills and arches and snow

Siena was beautiful but unfortunately I think I'm going to remember very little about the trip except for how cold I was. I even had to do research afterwards to see what landmarks we actually visited because, at the time, each place was just a warm building to run into from the cold. So, here are some brief highlights from the trip:

First, we visited the Basilica of San Domenico which currently houses the mummified head and thumb of Saint Catherine. After walking by Saint Catherine's house we visited Siena's own Duomo cathedral which I think may be the slightest bit cooler than the Duomo here in Florence. Inside there was the Piccolomini library which was painted with some of the most vivid and completely unrestored frescoes I've seen.

Front of the Cathedral

Inside the Duomo

Colorful frescoes

Next we visited the Museo dell'Opera Duomo which was the warmest building by far and provided plenty of opportunities to sit down. Also inside was Duccio's Maesta which I thought was  kind of exciting to see, since it's something I'd previously studied in my Art History class. There were also tons of the original sculptures from inside the Duomo which had decayed somewhat before being replaced by replicas.

The last stop on our tour was the Palazzo Pubblica, the town's main political building, and the main Piazza del Campo. Finally a large group of us went to lunch, which was probably the highlight of my day. I had some delicious spinach and ricotta ravioli but most importantly I made quite a few new friends. :]

 

 

Palazzo Pubblica

Even though it was extremely cold I really enjoyed our excursion to Siena because it gave me opportunities to see things I wouldn't have thought to visit before and also make friends with people I might not otherwise have gotten to know.

The rest of the weekend was used for hibernating. I found out that my grandmother is in the hospital so I didn't feel like doing much, but I did manage to book a trip to Venice next weekend with my roommates and a trip to the French Riviera in March with my new friends. Meeting new people and making travel plans has helped me feel a little more comfortable here, I think, but I do still miss home. Tonight a bunch of us are going to a Super Bowl party, it's just too bad none of the bars around here are airing the Puppy Bowl.

Classes in Florence, part 2.

Wednesday evening (3pm to 8:30pm kind of sucks) I had my first design class, CAD II. There are maybe 7 people in the class, including Nicola and I, and apparently everyone else has been taking classes at LdM for a while now. This was very intimidating at first, not knowing what skill level everyone else in the class was at and wondering if I was going to be able to keep up. Also, the metric system. Trying to convert everything from inches into millimeters in AutoCAD was very frustrating and just added to my feelings of uncertainty. We learned soon, however, that we wouldn't be focusing much on AutoCAD this semester, but rather we would be learning to use Rhino and Revit. Since no one else in the class has learned these programs yet, the level playing field definitely put me more at ease. I've always really enjoyed the computer modeling aspect of my major so I think I'm going to like this class.

My Thursdays are very easily the roughest days I'm going to have each week. They start at 9am with my 20th Century Design and Architecture class. I'm sure this class will be somewhat interesting as most classes are composed of a lecture and also a mini field trip, it's just difficult for me to be inspired by anything at 9am I think. This week we visited the Odeon cinema. It's a really neat movie theater, way bigger and cooler than anything I've seen in Texas. I took pictures but now I can't find them. Sorry. (Edit: They're in my flickr photostream if you feel inclined to check them out)

At 11:30 when class got out, I thought I had half an hour to get breakfast before heading to my Italian class at noon, which was very close by. Then I remembered I left my textbook and homework in my apartment and spent the next 40 minutes almost literally running across the city of Florence in the freezing cold wearing my new boots which are really made for walking instead of jogging. I don't recommend this to anyone. I probably would have been fine without those things. Ugh.

View from Exhibit Design into the San Lorenzo market

Coffee machine near my class where I can get as many 70 cent hot chocolates as my wallet can handle each day.

At 3pm (another 5.5 hour class) I headed over to my Exhibit Design class right next to the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Having no experience in retail design and very little experience in actual design projects of any kind I was a little apprehensive about what to expect from this class. We spent the class period taking a "level placement test" which consisted of developing a concept, plan, and elevations for a product exhibit that fits the theme of "Beyond Graffiti", the subject of the school's art competition that we'll all be focusing our first project on. I really don't know much about graffiti culture so coming up with a brand was kind of challenging for me, but I was happy with the project I eventually came up with. I think overall I'm going to enjoy this class, but having my first project be limited by such a specific theme is not my favorite. Also worth noting, Nicola and I are apparently the only people in this class not skilled in Rhino or Revit, so I definitely felt like my attempt at conveying my project seemed very elementary compared to everyone else in the room.


I'm kind of nervous about how classes are going to go for me here. At TCU we worked with the same professors and students for 5 semesters so we had an extremely clear idea of what was expected of us. Being in a completely different environment with new professors and classmates of all different skill levels makes it difficult to judge just how easy or difficult this is all going to be for me, and that's unsettling. However, everyone I've talked to who's done this before has said that classes here are a joke, so I'm going to trust that everything's going to be fine.