Thursday is the new Friday

Last classes of week were today, so it's a three day weekend for me! Now...what to do with myself? I don't feel like shipping off to some remote location by train yet. I still feel like there's much to do in this city - I just need to find things. I definitely should do more of what I did after class this afternoon: window-people watch. It's quite hilarious! Where else but Italy would a male go to a very chic salon to get his nails done?

When I got out of class at 5:30pm, I was absolutely famished but wanted to conserve my euros, so I found a little Chinese takeout place. It's disheartening when even a Chinese man can speak Italian, and I can't. After much gesturing and pointing, I settled with some lo mein and rice. The man didn't understand me saying "lo mein". How can he not know lo mein? I thought that was Chinese. :( I decided to not go with the literal "fried fish"....

The little fishies were smiling at me. Slightly disturbing.

I did meet some new people today in my Intercultural Communication class today, which I most likely will be spending time with tonight. I haven't really gone anything at night yet. But I did hear of another student at my school that went to a club, and foolishly took an inhale of a "cigar" that was being passed by friends of the performing musical artist. Ends up this seemingly normal cigar held something other than tobacco because the guy ended up wandering mindlessly for 6 hours and his friends found him 4 miles away from his apartment in the wee hours of the morning. What a way to start the semester. Hopefully it was a learning experience for him. Scary.

Other than class, the days have been uneventful for me. Although I've been doing the 20min bike ride to and from campus for the last 4 days, I wanted to change things up a bit today so I took the bus. Here's a shot off the bus windows as it was pulling up to the stop:


Last night, my school held a free dinner for students that consisted of little pastries, little bread pieces, and deli meats. Pretty adorable and very Italian. Oh, and there was cheap wine also. :) Couldn't argue with the setting though - right on the grassy edge of the Arno River right near a beautiful old bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, that was built in its current form in 1345. I believe the dinner area is actually a private club for rowers and their boats were stationed right near by. We were tempted to take one out for a spin but decided to be good (would be a shame to get in trouble so early in semester!).