Florence, Italy- Week Two

Ciao!

This week has gone by molto veloce (very fast)! Yet, I had a great first week of classes and a fantastico time in Chianti this weekend! My week started off with 8:45 am Collection Theory class- my first real fashion design class- even taught by a fashion designer here in Italy! Following that class I had Italian language and Graphic Design. I really like my Italian language professor, although it can be hard to understand her Italian accent at times! Tuesday I had Fashion Illustration, where we began drawing! Since I have never taken a sketching class it was really hard for me to begin drawing yet I will get plenty of practice with all the homework! We were assigned 15 sketches for next week! Wednesday I had Pattern Design, a class where we will begin making patterns for clothing! I have 8:45 am class Monday- Wednesday and Italian language everyday from 12:30-2:30- hopefully all that class time will help with picking up on the language quickly! Luckily all my professors speak pretty good English. They speak both Italian and English in class because there are Italian students, as well as students from all over the world! The best part of my schedule is having no class on Fridays! Yay for 3 day weekends! :)

Everyday is an adventure walking the fifteen minutes to school, passing by gorgeous architecturally designed buildings and churches, the most scenic areas in Florence, cute cafes, Italian shops, men trying to sell umbrellas' (which happened almost everyday considering all the rain we got this week!), tourists, and all kinds of people and languages!

Wednesday night, 5 of us girls went to a really cool bar called Art Bar where they use fresh fruit to create "art" around cocktails! It was super yummy, as you can see from my picture!

Friday I decided to take an adventure to visit my dad's cousin, Lisa, who lives in Florence and works at a Pilate's Studio! It was really cool seeing her after several years and seeing where she works! I will definitely have to take her up on her offer to attend her Friday 9 am yoga classes! My friend Jenna went with me and afterwards we explored an area of Florence that we had not yet discovered! It was nice to get away from the city center to an area with less crowds and more residential areas, since we live in the middle of all the excitement of the city!

The real excitement of the week was taking an overnight trip to Chianti with my study abroad program! We left at 5 pm Saturday and took a bus into the hills of Tuscany 30 minutes from Florence to an estate where wine and olive oil are produced! We ate amazing 3 course authentic Tuscan meals, learned about the production of wine, how to properly taste and drink wine and discussed culture shock. I am currently in the “honeymoon” stage of culture shock and have a feeling I may be in this stage the entire time! Probably not...but I absolutely love Italy! The slower pace of life, more enjoyment of food and beverages, cultured people, fabulous fashion, and beauty everywhere I look have made me fall in love with Florence. 

Well this blog post was supposed to go out this past weekend but sketching homework has postponed it! However I wanted to get this out before I leave for Rome tomorrow! I am meeting Alex there and I am super excited! He has been studying abroad in Spain since August and I haven’t seen him for 6 months. The next 5 weekends are booked with trips I am taking around Italy which include Rome, Venice Carnival, Siena and San Gimignano, Verona, and Milan! I am so excited to do more exploring of this amazing, gorgeous country! Keep reading in the coming weeks to here all about these trips!