I'm an utter failure at the Italian language. Seriously. I should be put in Italian Special Ed.It's not the entire language that I'm bad at…just the grammar part. I can't conjugate a verb to save my life. Marco, my Italian teacher for the first class, helps us out a lot. He speaks more English with us than the second teacher who doesn't believe in speaking English with us….so yea. That might be part of my problem. Still no text books for us but they should be here by Monday. That gives me 2 days to study for the midterm/not fail it horribly. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The temperature has seriously dropped here in the last few days! The weather here has been rainy and gray since we got to Florence but it was beautiful in Pisa yesterday. We got some really nice pictures from Pisa and Sienna so those should be up this afternoon. Speaking of Pisa, we saw the funniest thing yesterday. There are a TON of African refugees that hang out around the Leaning tower selling allthe knock off Prada bags and Rolex watches. I got asked if I wanted them at LEAST 15 times in the 3 hours we were there. All the sudden we saw all the refuges take of f sprinting and we didn't know what was going on. We turned around and realized that it was because the police were rolling through the street! Haha It was quite the sight.Our tour of Pisa was nice but VERY cold as was Sienna the day before. The bus rides are long but these trips are definitely worth it.

I opted out of the wine tasting today so I could go back to the hotel and rest a little. I feel like I'm never going to get caught up with all this traveling but I eventually will once it all settles down. The waiter at the hotel is named Giovanni and he reminds me of Grandpa J haha I think he's my favorite Italian so far. He helps me with my Italian at dinner which is nice. We've got our trip to the countryside coming up this weekend to see the soccer match and have dinner with the townspeople so I'm looking forward to that. Okay, I think that's all I've got for now. I'm going back to the hotel to take a nap while everyone else is out. Check the pictures, they're up. I miss you guys!!! Talk to you soon!!!

Love,

Michelle