I am really not a journal writer. But I will try. I guess I should begin with Florence (Firenze in Italian). Florence is very touristy. And it smells. There are always a million tourists wandering around the city. The streets are cleaned every night because there is trash left all over the city from the day. There are outdoor markets all over the place. I walk about 40 minutes from my hotel to school every weekday. It's a nice walk, although it is long. There is a bar (caffe) across the street from the hotel, and I go there every morning to get my italian breakfast. The owner and her husband are really nice. They always smile at me and welcome me when I walk in. Our school is in Piazza Santo Spirito. The school is on the secondo piano, which is the third floor. But I understand Doug and the steps at the Centro Volta much better now because each flight of stairs is like 2 back home. It is a loong way up. I like Florence, but I don't love it. I have realized that I am not really into art history as I keep walking off from my professors at the museums and galleries. Oops. I am learning a ton from my italian class, which I have for four hours each day. I'm finally getting to practice conversational italian. If I am walking around the streets of the city by myself, most italians think I am italian. And they speak to me in italian. But if I am walking with people from school, then they know I am American. Sometimes it is easier to walk by myself. The inspector from the polizia gave us an orientation on safety while in Italy, and he was amusing. He called immigrants boat people. He also explained that Italian men don't bother Italian women because the women are unfriendly. And this is pretty much true. Most of them walk around with scowls on their faces. And some of the italians wear some pretty ridiculous clothes. But onto Venice because I loved Venice. Venice is a beautiful city, probably the prettiest city I've been to. I loved it. I loved the water and the boats. Smelling the salt air was almost like being back in Daytona. I loved how everytime I stepped out onto the street I wasn't almost hit by a motorino or a car or a bus. You can't drive or ride a bike in Venice and that was amazing. You walk everywhere. San Marco was gorgeous and huge. When we came out of it, the piazza was starting to flood, as it does many times a year. We took a gondola ride across the grand canal, which took like 2 minutes, but it was still a gondola ride. I bought this amazing glass necklace in a little store near our hotel. The owner was crazy. He tried to speak in english, but he really wasn't making sense. (Venetian italian has a lot of latin and greek in it.) He started playing some number game with me, and then he gave me a free gift and started calling me Maria. It was funny but I don't think it sounds as good written. Venice didn't smell. I went to my first mass in Italian at La Chiesa dei Gesuati (the church of the jesuits). it was interesting. there was no music and minus the 2 year old that was there with her grandmother, I was the youngest person there by about 30 years. It was a nice break from the constant go that we've been doing. Oh, and I had some amazing clams in Venice and the best wine I have ever had. Venice was amazing, definitely better than Florence. Yesterday we went to Siena for the afternoon. We were walking around the city and it started pouring. That was not fun at all. But Siena is pretty, but you can't stay there for more than a few hours because there isn't that much to do. The Piazza del Campo is gorgeous and somehow they pack 40,000 people in there for the Palio in July and August. The Palio is a horse race in Siena. I don't think it has entirely hit me yet that I am in Italy, but I am. More to come later. This afternoon I am going to Fiesole and Saturday I'm going to the Cinque Terre!