time tricks

For a city that never sleeps especially on weekends, even on Saturday mornings people are bustling throughout the city. Dodging tourists and vespas alike, Lenora, Olivia and I made our way over to the Bargello Museum. Filled to the brim of its old monastic stone walls with statues, reliefs and other assorted stone work and small little trinkets, the courtyard alone is a marvel to look at. Entering into a large open courtyard lined with amazing statue work, it is truly breathtaking. The combination of the old stone fortress- like walls adorned with countless stone family crests lining the top portion, and monumental statues in the corridors is truly a sight. After taking a moment to collect myself and attempt to take at least one thing in we began to make our way slowly through the courtyard constantly in awe of what we saw. When I finally came across the room with Donatello's David I, once again, was struck with a sense of disbelief that a pice that I have been staring at in text books for years was in front of me. The only problem I have with seeing these statues in person is that I have an almost uncontrollable urge to reach out and touch them. I have an extreme desire to be a part of such a monumental and beautiful piece of art and of history. I want to try and feel what the artist was when they created such a work and try and understand how they accomplished such a thing. The desire is deeper even than this and is almost consuming yet so far so good.The rest of the museum continually fascinated me both with the statues it held and the architecture itself. The cube like structure and pathways in between gave a sense that it would go on forever. It indeed might - we were only able to make it through two of the floors before out feet and immense hunger got the best of us.

We spent the rest of the day people watching, talking and window shopping and before we knew it it was time to walk home for dinner even though it seemed like we had just ate lunch.

Florence on a Sunday is a completely different experience than 24 hours prior. Store windows locked up, noticeably fewer bicycles and vespas zipping around in the streets, the din of italian spoken in the streets is considerably softer, and the only consistent flow of people are the tourists. Wandering around the mostly quiet and closed city for the day I tried and failed several times to picture Los Angels as tran

quil as this on a Sunday.

I woke in disbelief Monday morning to the thought that this was our third week, and final week of orientation. On the one hand it feels as if I have been here for so much longer, on the other as if I have just arrived. Monday was a blurr of language classes and my final history of Florence class. The rest of the day past in a continual blurr of Italian words some I understood and some I am still trying to figure out what it meant.

Today came a little to soon again with the feeling as if some time god was playing a joke on me. Im still asking myself how it can only be Tuesday but already be Tuesday in our 3rd week. I think this is right about the time I was talking about a little while ago when time starts slipping away from me all of a sudden its weeks later and I am still thinking its 2002. Pondering these things I walked to language class which was at Giovanna's appartment. We reviewed our reading and prepared a little for our exam (?!) on Friday. Being at Giovanna's also meant that I got my dog fix for the day with her two toy poodles - Cocco and Sparky. It also meant we got to have our last cooking class with Pam.

Literally bittersweet because although we all were looking forward to today's lesson it also meant we would have to start taking real classes and not be able take such an amazing class for credit.

Today we made not one not two but four different types of amazing risotto. 1 with saffron, 1 with asparagus, 1 with zucchini, and 1 with mushrooms. I believe I could have eaten all four in entirety if there was some way to stretch my stomach to allow such a thing. They all were so amazing. As if that were not enough, we also made a chicken with a spicy mustard caper sauce, and patate fritte aka french fries. And to top it all of Panna Cotta. Every bit I took (and I assure you there were many) was quite possibly better than the last.

I do believe I am still full. Yet if any of it were set in front of me right now I would have no problem eating it. I think I will be dreaming of i cibi italiani tonight...