Day 13

     Today I took my first quiz in Italian. Lets just say that it was ok... Grammar has never been my strong point; so trying to understand grammar in another language has been a struggle. However, I was sitting next to a kid that speaks Italian fluently, so lets hope his knowledge was passed to me for those good 15 minutes or so. The rest of class was good though. I am starting to really like my Italian teacher! She always keeps things real and is willing to tell us more about Italian culture and why they do certain things, from which we may have observed on the streets of Florence or in our homestays. Today we learned that Italy is a very masculine country, which lead to a further discussion on the many ways to call a female a prostitute. It was definitely interesting, not something I was expecting to learn here, but that is what makes this experience that much more fun! After class, it was back to the same sandwich place as we went yesterday. Which I learned it actually called the “Olive Shop”, it was delicious again! Then I took a trip across the street to the most fabulous gelato place there is, not the same one as yesterday. It is Vestri, one of the first places I went. Today it was exceptionally good! About 10 minutes later my roommate, Regina wanted to try a different gelato place she had heard a lot about. I didn’t want to be rude and not join her in enjoying her first gelato for the day, so of course I went with her and had some more gelato! This place was overwhelming; it was way touristier and had so many flavors to choose from. I am pretty sure my stress level shot up after standing there for 5 minutes deciding what to get. In the ended I got a small cup of banana gelato, which actually was really good. With in the past two days I have been eating an average of two gelatos a day! I couldn’t be more pleased with myself.

       Afterwards, it was back to the markets to look around. I had absolutely no intention of buying anything, but an hour later I purchased a beautiful leather/suede tote bag. I learned that you cannot go out and look for a specific style, shape or color; the bag has to find you! Following my spontaneous successful shopping trip, it was back to school for leadership class, where we gave presentations on the papers we had just written. We were all split into three groups and assigned to one paper per group. The best part of this story is that is complete and our presentation went well! One of the other groups discussed health informatics in the US and Italy and brought up HIPPA’s regulations. This brought upon a very interesting discussion on how their regulations are preventing healthcare professionals to be more compassionate towards patients and giving off an unsympathetic vibe. It was a great class to be apart of today. After class, we all sat in on a lecture on social media, which was held at the school and given by a professor from the University of Florence. I have never realized how many sources of social media there are in this world, its insane! Finally, by 7:00 we made it back to our homestay just in time for diner. Our host mom had three friends over for dinner, which at first made my really nervous, because I knew they only spoke Italian. However, between Regina and I (most Regina), we were able to understand the few questions they asked. Diner was great again, we had the wonderful quiche made in a philo dough along with tortellini and grilled eggplant. It was interesting our host mom and her friend’s barley eat anything and meanwhile I was stuffing my face.

      Tomorrow we our off to Rome for the weekend and I am very excited!!! Ciao!

The good luck pig near San Lorenso Market! Supposedly if you rub its nose and drop a coin in its mouth, you will return to Florence again!