Vecchio Mano

Time is flying. We have already been here for over two months and exactly one month from today I will be back in the United States!! I am feeling like a true Florentine at this point. We got a new roommate on Saturday and Mama Lo referred to me as an 'old hand' when introducing me and I took that as a huge compliment!

After my super eventful last week this one seemed a little more low key. A few less museum visits, not as many horses, and a lot more sleep! I have heard lots about the infamous swine flu striking Virginia with its mighty hamfist and something similar seems to be going around in Firenze. Mama Lo returned from Rome last weekend with a bit of a stomach virus and 3 out of 8 people in this house have a serious cold! I have been tossing back the clementines like its my job for a tad bit more of that Vitamin C. It was pretty bad earlier in the week, but at this point people are beginning to recover...hope it doesn't hit me in Rome this weekend!

This past weekend was pretty exciting, I had a photo shoot with Diana('12) one of the girls from the program. The grafiti is a great, colorful background that can really spice up any photograph. On Monday there were lots more colors when we visited the Modern Art Exhibit in the Palazzo Pitti with my Museum work class. The pieces were in extremely diverse frames but it was hard to notice behind the mounds and mounds of dried acryllic. There were mountains, oceans, clouds, boats, everything and anything abstractly pasted with globs and globs of acryllic paint. When standing up close you could see the movement in the artists hands and when standing at a distance the scene began to come together with a very blurry, underwater feel. It is always fun seeing modern art in Florence...anything within the past 200 years is a rare find, and something as recent as 2008 was a great treat! The feelings and emotions shown by the strokes are something you would never see in a work byBrunelleschi or Michelangelo.

The rest of the week seemed pretty normal, classes here museum visits there, accordian players on every corner(normal for Florence anyways). I won't be able to blog again until Sunday night or Monday morning because tomorrow morning we will be leaving for Rome. I cannot wait to see so many amazing pieces of art and, of couse, the architecture! I am so excited, and I can't wait to share all of the photographs and memories I will bring back to Florence with me :)