Ciao! Sorry I haven't written all week - I guess you could say that's a good thing - I've been so busy here trying to see and do everything! Monday I went to the Piazza Michelangelo - which looks over the entire city of Florence. it was absolutely beautiful - unfortunately I accidentally deleted my pictures :( but I'm going to "steal" some from my friends here haha. Tuesday we went to Santa Maria Novella, and it was incredible. I saw Giotto's crucifix among a lot of other really great works. We also went to the Hospital of the Innocents. Wednesday one of the teachers at the international school, Lorenzo, took us on a walking tour of the history of Italy, so we could know more about Florence and Italy other than the art work - it was very interesting, but then it got rainy so we had to cut it short. Thursday we were supposed to go to the Boboli Gardens but it was rainy when we were going to go, so we just held class inside and talked about the paper we just wrote (about Botticelli) - when we were dismissed, of course later the sun came out - but we're going to go to the Gardens next week. Also next week, Avita is going to be on tour at the Gardens so I'm definitely going... I cant wait! Besides all the art and museum things, I've been doing some great shopping - I bought some Italian leather, and some little gifts. I also "had" to buy some clothes - I dont know what I was doing when I packed, but I didnt pack hardly anything useful. I've also been doing a lot of cooking, of course, and shopping for groceries at the market. The market is actually pretty stressful: I dont know Italian, the measurements are different and its just so big! I was cooking Gorgonzola steak for my teacher and roommates, so I went to buy steak from the market - I probably walked around for 2 hours just looking at huge slabs of meat - gross. I had no idea what I was doing. I finally googled the translation for "steak tenderloin" and managed to get something that was very close - so success. I cannot say enough how much I rely on my dataplan on my blackberry - google translation and google map with gps has saved my life.

I miss you all! And I will post soon, and also add more photos :) Love!