Loving the new weather...

Hey everyone. Clearly I'm getting worse at the blogging on time thing. I'm blaming my tardiness on the obscene amount of pictures from spring break, however I've given up on them. At least for now anyways, since it clearly wasn't a "day or two" job. Man oh man. But Grandma Sally said she'd just be excited to read something from me regularly even if I don't get to the pictures... so I'm going to work on that. Since Monday, my last update from the earthquakes (which by the way, felt none of the supposed aftershocks) not that much has gone down besides classes. However, the weather has been fabulous. Its been around 70°-75° and sunny everyday! Tuesday, Han and I went to the movie The Reader, with Kate Winslet, and thought that was really pretty good. Yesterday, in Michelangelo we went to San Lorenzo and then in Italian we went to an old pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella where everything is still made by Monks so that was cool (but everything was super expensive!). It was so nice out I just laid out on the terrace "under the tuscan sun" and attempted to get some color. Don't think it made much difference. I'm rather white still... Then I went out to my first "apperitivo" which is pretty much the italian "happy hour", and most restaurants serve a buffet of appetizer-like foods for free as long as you buy a drink, so basically you get a drink and a meal for €7 or €8. Yay! It was fun. After that we went to another movie, Easy Virtue, which was a British film and I really enjoyed as well. Then to today... what a fabulous day! My friend Michael and I hopped on a train and went to the town of Viareggio where the nearest beach is. It was so fun, because we went with no plans, (see Mom, you can do that! ;) lol) and we just explored the town.  Not to rub it in, but we spent a couple hours just walking on the beach, (if it makes anyone feel better, it did sprinkle for about ten minutes!) then walking back inland while window shopping along the "boardwalk" area. We ate at a pizza place that was absolutely fantastic (Mom, Dad, BETTER than Gusta Pizza even--both Michael and I thought so!!) and we had this bottle of beer that was made to drink out of chianti wine glasses! How bizarre is that?!? but it was super good beer... After that we went and sat on the beach for awhile longer while the sun went down (couldn't really see much, clouds were coming in) then caught a train home. Was a super duper day. We called it our scouting trip, cuz we will definitely be going back with swimsuits in a week or two when it is warm enough to swim. We thought the €13 round trip train ticket was definitely worth it!

So since it's easter weekend here there's a bunch of stuff going on and I'm going to try and hit up as much as I can with various people. On the schedule is and Italian Opera with Han tomorrow night (figured it'd be a neat experience), then watching the "explosion of the cart" tradition thingy-majigger (I'll explain it after I see it) on Easter Sunday, then going to a nearby town to see a Kite-flying festival that afternoon. Monday, we're taking a bus to Fiesole (remember, its one of the surrounding hills of Florence we went to during orientation) for a market and sightseeing and also trying to hit up the several markets here in town. Uffda... I'm getting tired just typing this!! Or maybe it's because its 3am my time?? Haha, better head to bed...

Hope everything's good at home--I hear the weather is warming up there?!?