It's Time to Make a Change...

Greetings All. Well this is probably the last time I'll write a blog entry from the lovely/annoying/beautiful/busy city of Florence. This has been our last week at Italian school and on Saturday, Emma and I are parting ways. Emma is departing for Vicenza to spend some time with her Italian relatives while I hop on a plane to Prague to explore more of Europe.

Last weekend wasn't as busy as I thought it would be, however, there was still lots to do. Thursday night Emma and I went to a performance of Cats in the Giardino di Bobili (Bobili Gardens) which is a MASSIVE garden south of the river in Florence. The performance was open air, (we were really lucky that it didn't rain!) and the performance was amazing! I've never before seen this show, and the garden was the perfect setting for it.

After the show, Emma and I commenced the walk home. We were planning a short detour to try to meet a friend of Emma's at a bar called the 'Red Garter'. En route to said bar we passed under a very small verandah. Just as we did there was a wet splat! and I saw a couple of drops hit the pavement. I asked Emma 'what do you think that was?' to which she replied 'who knows, water probably.' What I had not at this point mentioned to Emma was that a massive blob had also hit me on the head! I asked Emma to have a look as I could feel something slimy sliding down my temple. Emma had a quick look in the dark and declared that she couldn't see anything and so off we went. I could however, still feel something there, so when we reached a street lamp, I asked Emma to take another look. In the weak watery light of said street lamp, the story changed dramatically. Emma emitted a sharp gasp, at which point I began to panic.

You see faithful followers, it was NOT, in fact a blob of harmless water that had fallen on my unsuspecting head. It was infact a brown substance that closely resembled poo or garbage muck.

Let me give you a moment to recover from the fit of laughter your are no doubt experiencing at my expense.

Emma promptly went into action, ripping a sheet of paper from her notebook and scraping off the worst of aforementioned 'muck'. It was however in my hair, and there was no way to completely get it out other than washing. We still however, proceeded to the bar where I sat upon a stool, (pun unintended) trying to remain very still so as not to precipitate further sliding of the muck perched on my head.

After we had determined that Emma's friend was not there, we left, dodging the spew on the front step and trundled home, where I promptly washed my hair quite thoroughly.

On Friday, we had planned to go to the Uffizi (world famous museum) however, when we got there, we realised that it was closing early and we'd only have 1.5 hours to explore, so we ditched the booking and went to get our favourite gelati at Vivoli's. I can honestly say that I dare not do the math on how much I've actually spent on Vivoli's as I think I might actually have a heart attack. It would easily be at least €75 ($150AUD) over the last 6 weeks.

Sunday was spent lounging in the Bobili Gardens of which I have some fantastic pictures to be added soon! I actually fell asleep lying on the soft grass underneath a tree!

Funny moment: on Monday in class we were covering 'reflexive verbs' and had to write a brief summary of what we did the day before. I at one point wanted to say 'I was running late' which is 'ero in ritardo' (was in lateness). However, I decided to say it in a reflexive way (which wasn't required) and said 'mi sono ritardato' (I was retarded - kind of). As soon as this came out of my mouth I realised my error, and while Emma and Margerita (friend from the States) burst out laughing, I couldn't think of the correct way to say it. Finally, after recovering from laughing himself, our teacher, Marco corrected it for me.

How embarassment, again.

Hope all's well! Next post most likely from Prague. Ciao!