Felicità

I just finished my last class of the week, and let's just say four hours of Italian class every day is quite overwhelming. Sabina, my teacher, doesn't speak English to us at all, and it takes full concentration to completely understand what she is saying--something that gets tiring after four hours. The Villa is amazing though, even our classroom is gorgeous. I definitely don't mind the insane workload that comes along with packing an entire years worth of class into 6 weeks because the experience is so amazing. A few of us went into Florence last night and just walked around, and the Duomo is even more magnificent at night, when there aren't hundreds of people around, and when you turn a corner and BAM. Duomo. It's a completely different feeling seeing it when you're just walking around and hanging out with friends than seeing it on a tour. We must have stood around marveling at it for 20 minutes. We didn't do much else, but it was a GREAT night. We were all still caught up in the incredibleness of everything and got so excited about everything and were so happy the whole time. It was a completely amazing and indescribable feeling and I just feel so lucky to be here and be having the experience of a lifetime.

I'm realizing now how fast this trip is going to go. There is so much to do, we have so much planned, and there is so much more I want to do. The weekends are going to be AMAZING! Tonight most of us are going to go out in Florence, and tomorrow since we don't have class we're going to spend the day in Florence going to the museums, doing some shopping, and enjoying the incredible city. Saturday we're going to take a train to Pisa and spend the day there. We have our first test already on Tuesday, and as much work and studying that needs to be done, it is so much more important to enjoy the time I have here and embrace the experience. On my birthday we are taking a day trip to Siena and are thinking about possibly staying longer. The next weekend a couple of us are going to BARCELONA!!! The plane ticket was 50 euro roundtrip. Amazing. We also have trips planned to Venice and Cinque Terre. I can hardly contain my excitement and happiness when I think about the next few weeks.

For now, I am going to go outside, enjoy the CASTLE I live in, do some studying, and marvel at how awesome my life is.