Where Am I?!

Never fear, avid readers! I have not yet fallen off the face of the earth - just straight through it, I suppose.

First and foremost, I apologize fiercely for my absence of late - I've been incredibly busy getting ready to travel abroad (yes, you heard correctly), spending time with my familia, and loving my dogs to a pulp. Christmas was nice this year, despite the fact that we didn't get a tree...completely ruining our family tradition of Christmas Tree Hide and Seek. I got super drunk with my familia and friends at the surprisingly many parties we had, played a lot of board games, met and hung out with my brother's new girlfriend, and got last minute study abroad paperwork and stuff done. It was nice not having to worry about anything for a bit and enjoy my family's company.

But alas, the time has ended and where am I now?! In the center of culture and fashion: Florence, Italy!

I've recently been assigned to my host family and roommates (one from a college in Iowa and one from Brazil who speaks Italian benissimo e Inglese, anch'io). See, look how good I'm getting? Giorno 3 in scuola Italiano :)

I'm super excited to be able to talk in Italian. Though my host mamma speaks pretty good English, she can't understand me very well, and I'm sure would prefer we speak Italiano. It was so cool, the first night at dinner, there were all these different languages being thrown across the table just trying to understand each other! English, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, French, Spanish! It was so fun just trying to understand one another and get ideas across. After that, Karena (the girl from Brazil) invited us out to an Irish pub with a bunch of other Portuguese students at Linguaviva, which was awesome. Hannah and I both had a "Sex in the Duomo." If you're unfamiliar, the Duomo is a MASSIVE religious monument in Florence.