Ravenna Trip

Hello!

I finished my first week of classes and had an absolutely crazy yet wonderful weekend. Now tomorrow it's back to school for another extremely busy week.

On Thursday night I went to a cooking class held by the school. We all thought we would be following instructions and getting to cook ourselves, but what actually happened is that one of our professors came in with a bunch of already cooked food and just lectured us on how to prepare it. This could have been cool, if the food was interesting. But the professor wanted to make things that she thought we could cook at home, simple foods...what ended up happening was we paid 8 euros to eat noodles with cheese on it. I paid 8 euros for mac and cheese? PSH. I went home and cooked my own meal!

After the cooking class fail, my friends and I went to the bars and had some drinks - then went to a club. It was pretty dead on a Thursday night, so we headed home around 2 and went to bed.

Friday my friend and I walked around for a while taking pictures and exploring the hills of the city. We crossed the Ponte Vecchio and walked up into the hills where all the villas are. I think that's when it hit me that I'm actually IN Italy. It was absolutely beautiful. We both decided that someday soon we will be knocking on doors and trying to become best friends with whoever lives in one of those villas with the acres of trees and swimming pools in the backyards, so that we can spend our semester with them. As we were walking we met a few guys that had just arrived on a different program. And since our program only has about 10 guys on it, and half of them came with their significant others and aren't too interested in making new friends - we decided to hang out with the boys we ran into for the rest of the day.

A few hours of walking went by and we headed off for Gelato and then to relax for a bit before heading to a big dinner with 15 of us at some random Italian restaurant, where we got free champagne, lemon cello, and all got to hang out for a while before heading to the bars. I always forget that when you go out to dinner in Italy, even if you aren't ordering the 4 course meals they provide, you still get finished with dinner around 10:30!

After dinner my friend Jenn and I headed to the bars to meet up with the two boys we met. It was fun! We went to this American bar, which is always packed - and has about 400 college tshirts posted on the walls and ceiling, of every college you can think of. I haven't found Scripps yet - but I'm sure I will eventually! I ended up crashing on Jenn's couch so I didn't have to walk home around 3:30am alone and then I woke up at 5:30 to catch the bus for my Ravenna field trip!

Ravenna...not too sure what to say about this trip. Anyone who went on it would probably agree that it was painful. Not only did we have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get on a bus, the lady who runs these field trips, is PYSCHO. I didn't have to go or sign up because I'm not in her art history class - but my friend Heather and I decided to go just to see a new city and get to explore. We did NOT get to do any of this. We went to 15 churches, ran around all day, it was FREEZING outside, and we had one, one hour break for lunch. Ravenna, is actually just like a bigger florence, but not as interesting and unique... Nothing too interesting about it. All the churches looked the same, and this lady - can go on. FOREVER. I never even plugged my ear piece in, because she just NEVER SHUT UP. Ok i do admit that I am not a museum or church person, and when I found out we were going to 15 of the same thing, i almost died. BUT even the art history lovers were so fed up with the field trip. She wouldn't even let us go to the bathroom. We had one break - for one hour - to eat and go to the bathroom. You all know how I have to pee every 30 seconds. From 8am until 2pm we didn't have a bathroom break. We thought the people not involved in the art history class would be able to explore the city and chose what museums and churches we could go to? Absolutely not the case. I will not be signing up for one of those trips again. Did I mention it was FREEZING? And we got home at 8pm.

The only great thing about the trip, was that I got a lot closer to a few people on my program. We bonded over our misery.

Anyway, after getting home at 8 a few of us decided to stop by a little tiny Italian restaurant, because we were sick of not eating out at authentic places. We are usually so tired and hungry that we stop at any random sandwich place and then head home. But this time we asked around and found a tiny restaurant. The first good sign, was that their menu was all in Italian and none of us could understand...half of it... PERFECT. The food was amazing, the wine was fantastic, we had some gelato after to treat ourselves, of course. And the museum day of hell didn't seem so bad after that!

Today I walked around with the guy Jenn and I met up in the hills in Florence. He is from Connecticut and is studying in Florence for the semester as well. We walked around for a few hours getting lost in the city and taking photos - very relaxing. Then I went grocery shopping and finally stalked up on meat. I MISS MEAT. I need to start making myself take the time to cook meat every night, or I am going to go crazy. I feel like I'm hungry all day long without it. Then I did some homework, caught up with Meredith which was truly needed. I didn't think I would miss someone THIS much. Now I'm writing and then going to bed so I can start a new week of classes!

I am starting to love this city. I'm having an amazing time, and I am so glad that I decided to study abroad. It was hard getting settled and having the first week of classes kick my ass - but now i'm starting to get the hang of things!

I am planning to take a train next weekend to either Capri or the Amulfi Coast with a friend. I'll update more once I figure things out!

Love,
Devin