It's been another busy few days...Thursday we had what are called Cafe Giovedi, which means we combine the Italian language and literature classes in the dining room upstairs and talk about a predetermined topic with Professor Bassi flitting back and forth among the tables to make sure we're speaking ONLY Italian. It was rough just because I did end up going out on Wednesday night with the group so I didn't get in bed til well after 12 and had to be up at 7.

After Cafe Giovedi, we all filled out insurance forms to take to the post office in what seems like a very sketchy "required" step in staying in Italy for 4 months (it cost us 50 euro...ouch). Then we dashed to San Marco in the rain/sleet/flurries to meet Professor Chiari, who is our art history teacher and has special access to churches and museums in Venice and takes us on visits once a week. I had a hard time enjoying the amazing basilica just because I didn't think to grab an umbrella OR hat before we made the 15 minute trek, so I was soaked and freezing (they don't do a whole lot of Basilica heating in these parts). Then Robert and I walked back home to warm up, eat, and try to rest since the city goes on siesta from about 1 to 3 and the places we needed to go were closed. We then ventured back out into the elements to buy our cell phones and turn in our aforementioned sketchy insurance forms (Venetian post offices are also suspiciously lacking in heat). I decided to stay in on Thursday because I was SO tired from the week of school/Santa Margherita adventures and also because we had to get up early for a day trip on Friday.

And get up early we did...Allie and I got up around 5:30 and got the boys up around 6 (poor Brad had slept maybe 2 hours since he went out the night before). Around 6:30 Robert, Brad, Tristan, Allie, and I left the house and ventured into the cold on our way to the train station. The ticket purchasing was uneventful, despite our rocky Italian, and then Tristan and I grabbed breakfast to eat on the train. On the train, Brad and I tried to sleep, but it wasn't very successful by the time the train guy woke us up to check out tickets and we changed trains in Ferrara. I also felt really badly because Brad gave me his ipod to listen to while he slept and it got stuck on a song and wouldn't turn off/restart/anything and I was just sure I had inherited Dad's bad luck of breaking whatever he touches, but luckily it's back in working order now. It was pretty cold in Ravenna when we got there around 10:30, but we headed off in search of the first of six churches that were part of an all inclusive ticket we bought.

Some of the six were ones we had seen various slides of in Professor Chiari's class, and some were not, but they were all amazing...the mosaics were just unbelievable. We walked around in search of lunch, but happened to hit a lot of places before they opened for lunch, and by the time we settled on an Italian buffet, we were absolutely ravenous (so the buffet was a welcome sight). After lunch we found the remainder of the churches (in one of which my cell phone rang...it rings like a fog horn/boat horn...mortifying), then got back to the train station only to realize we had 3 more hours before our train arrived. So we shopped. A lot. And got gelato and kabobs. But mostly we shopped...I bought 4 dresses (all of which were on sale and all of which I had been looking for...in a manner of speaking) and a hat (since the wind here is SO cold) and the boys made some purchases, too, which was hilarious to observe. We finally got back on the train around 6:30, read a little, slept a little, Robert and I even shared a set of ipod headphones and shagged to "Hey Baby" while the train was stopped for a long time on the tracks (the little old Italian lady looked at us like we were insane...I thought about telling her we weren't insane, just Southern). We rolled into Venice around 10 and ventured back into the cold...

While trucking it through the Rialto area to get home as fast as possible (we were tired and in need of hot showers) we got stopped by a group of girls Mal and I now call "the little Georgia girls" (a group of girls who were visiting Venice from Florence and who go to UGA). They were trying to find some random bar, but when they mentioned they were staying near the Peggy Gugenheim museum, we suggested they go to Campo Santa Margherita since it's so much closer and student friendly. Instead of getting our hot showers and rest, we decided to stay out and help the girls out, and also ran into a bunch of other American students in the area, which incited our possessiveness of Venice (we've been here just long enough that we don't feel like obvious American tourists, but others are, of course!), so we came home to our warm beds at a decent hour.

Saturday Allie and I actually slept in, which rarely happens, and after starting some laundry, we went to Bar da Gino with Mal, anticipating a quick trip like always. We stayed for 3 hours...I ate breakfast AND lunch there! We got to observe a steady stream of regular customers and their adorable kids/dogs (both of which are more prevalent than I expected), American tourists (with their dead giveaway Northface jackets), and European tourists (with their dead giveaway tight jeans/funky hair). We then made another Billa trip, where I loaded up on healthy food since I felt a little guilty about my cake at lunch-gelato for snack- giant box of cookies for dinner line up on Friday. We promptly decided to eat out that night, and I kind of blew off the healthy thing in favor of some great pasta and tiramisu. I mean you're only abroad once, right? At dinner, we decided that we attract Americans like a magnet, because there was a MASSIVE group of Americans there and they approached us for tips on where to go out since they're part of a program based in Florence and are visiting Venice as a group (of 180). One guy happened to know a sorority sister of mine, which was a really cool coincidence. Nevertheless, we kind of kept to ourselves and tried to be as un-American as possible (in the loud, obnoxious sense).

Today was much less eventful than Saturday, even, if that's possible. Robert and I decided to try mass at Salute (the massive, beautiful church about five minutes from here). It was a very amazing place to go to mass, but again, not so much on the heat...I kind of felt like I was in a refrigerator and not a church. It was also hard to understand the Italian because they spoke it so rapidly, and even being Catholic, I had a hard time following what was going on in mass just because they do things a little different (procedurally speaking, anyways) than we do at Wake. But, it still was nice to go to Catholic mass in such a cool church...how often will I have that chance again? Afterwords, I talked to mom and finally booked my ticket to the Canary Islands for my 10 day break coming up in about 2 1/2 weeks...I'm excited that she's coming, too, especially since it's essentially on her birthday and I'm not sure I've ever missed a birthday til this year. I've also been trying to figure out where I'm going for the remaining 4 days of my 10 day break since mom has to go back to work and Tristan wants to do Spain. A few of us are also plotting a trip to Switzerland for the second weekend in February and I'm booked for Barcelona for this coming weekend, so things are definitely getting crazy in terms of jaunting around Europe (so little time to study...).

I guess it's time for homework since I've spent the entire afternoon planning trips and searching for internships...