Soo the first week of classes went really well. I like most of my classes a lot. Its cool because for a lot of the classes were in the classroom the first day and then the second class is a site visit somewhere around florence. Its great because this way i get to see most of the big, famous sites with a teacher (and we have a museum card that gets us to the front of the line and in for free!)Our host mom Luigina is doing great...shes excellent at understanding us and helping us understand her. Weve been able to have some good conversations at dinner about obama and the war and florentine politics andd gelato...last night we talked about the origin of chocolate.

Speaking of which....today Im going to the chocolate festival. It happens once a year in Piazza Santa Croce and its supposed to be amazinggggg. all of these Perugian chocolate venders come with this artisian chocolate...in the shapes of silverwear, animals, etc. Ill take a ton of pictures! What else what else...Ive been going out at night a lot with friends. There are a lot a lot of fun bars but theyre mostly targeted at american students so theyre prettyyy expensive. Weve found a couple that we like a lot and usually start the night with. There are also tons of clubs/discotecas but you have to be in the mood-and there are a lot of creepy italian men. But it can be fun.

Everything is on sale right now..like fifty percent off or more..its amazing. So ive done a tinyy bit of shopping. Apparentlyy its the time to do it. Also by walking around all day im getting to know the streets pretty well. And its nice not being completely lost with a map all the time.. But I did get lost for about fourty minutes trying to run to the stadium one day... I think I asked 8 people "dove lo stadio". Everyone was really friendly and nice. The streets are not grids like NY so if you take one wrong turn you will most likely end up on the other side of the city. Ive also gotten some Obama comments...like congratulations on your president and then just random people cheering Obama. Its nice to hear and I think its one of the better times to be abroad. Syracuse set up the Inaguration on a big screen and it was packed with students and teachers...so cool. Va bene. Ciao.