(the group minus our professor)

The past few days have gone by so quickly--it really feels like we've been here more than 3 or 4 days. Yesterday we had to meet at the train station, so on the way a few of us wanted coffee and because of the time, they wanted it "to go," which is a relatively uncommon concept over here, so what we got was straights shots of regular espresso in tee tiny plastic cups. I can't imagine how strange we looked walking along the calle holding tiny cups of black espresso, but the caffeine was there and that's all that mattered. On the way, we ended up inadvertently splitting in to 2 groups, and apparently we're a very competitive crew, because it turned in to a bit of a race. I was happy to see that I remembered how to get there even though it's been a year or so since I last made the trek and my group happened to get there first... not that anyone is keeping track...!

Roberta and Laura met us at the train station and explained to the group a bit about the different types of trains and general train station procedure, then we walked along Strada Nuova and to the neighborhood known as Canareggio, which was once the Jewish Ghetto and is now a very residential, non-touristy part of the island. Then we took a traghetto (the "budget gondola" that ferries a dozen or so people at a time directly across the Grand Canal for approx. 50 pence) so that we could walk to the Ca'Foscari cafeteria (the Venetian university). I didn't get to determine whether or not Italian "dorm food" is any much like American because some of us had popped in to a bread shop in Canareggio and I split a baguette type thing and was stuffed. From there the group dispersed and I came home to try and bake a cake for Karen's actual birthday only to realize there wasn't a single ounce of flour in the house, so I had to hike back to the Billa, which wouldn't be so bad (especially given my somewhat unusual affinity for grocery stores), but I had slept maybe 4 hours the night before and was exhausted and hot! I got back from Billa and Christi, one of the men who works here, helped me light the gas oven and believe it or not, I managed to make a cake that people ate. I spent half the prep-time darting around the kitchen with the ingredients to avoid all the ants crawling around while wearing my crazy apron and my alarm clock (in lieu of a kitchen timer), so the students probably think I've lost it, but at least it worked out.

Today we had a long group meeting in the morning and now the students are in their first class of the semester. Everyone is dreading the end of the summer and the beginning of the workload, and I can definitely sympathize (especially considering how demanding my semester in Venice was last spring). Nevertheless, I literally had no obligations outside of my basic "student assistant" duties (still quite vague, really), and I'm still debating whether or not I plan to study for the LSAT while I'm here, so I have a ton of time on my hands. The group has treated me essentially like another student thus far, but I think now that classes have started, I might feel a bit more left out just by virtue of the fact that people tend to bond when they're enduring the same (academic) stress and I won't have that. But, plenty of things will involve me (group dinners, house meetings, birthday celebrations, trips hopefully, etc), so I'm not too worried.

Tomorrow the entire group is traveling to Verona by train (approx 2 hours) to watch an opera in the thousands of years old arena. We'll have to stay the night on the streets of Verona as the opera ends after the trains stop running back to Venice (we'll be able to head back around 5am, I think). I'm excited because I didn't get to see much of Verona the past 2 times I've been to Italy and I've never seen an opera, but I'm so sleep deprived from the last few nights that I'm not sure exactly how well I'll be able to pull an all nighter. Stay tuned...