Imagine if you were sleeping for several months or years and suddenly you were woken up. You would be a little confused, right? Wine is like that.

To finish my thoughts about this weekend....

Sunday was a day of relaxing.  We woke up late in the day to the sun shining into our window.  After lounging around we finally got ourselves together enough to go and find some little place for lunch.  We decided upon this place that is very good to students of Florence called Dante's. The drinks, cover-charge, and an appetizer were all on the house. I enjoyed a traditional Florentine pasta dish of penne pasta lightly covered in a tomato creme sauce with cooked Florentine ham. It was such a big portion that I got to eat it as my dinner also. 

After lunch Diana and I walked all over Florence and picked through a little antique market in our closest piazza, Piazza de Santo Spirito.  I didn't purchase anything but was so tempted by all the antique jewelry, purses and hats...I could go on.  

I actually did some yoga yesterday which, I am very excited to say,  the girls also liked so hopefully I can keep up with my yoga teaching skills while away in this beautiful carb-filled place.  

Getting to know the people in your group is inevitable, but I really suggest you find a close connection with as many people in your group as early as you can.  It's great having only 10 of us because we are small enough to do things all together, but we don't necessarily HAVE to stay together.  Another blessing about this group is each person is determined to get the most out of their semester in Italy.  Some have different goals than others, but we each have the same mentality of, "I'm in Italy for 3 months, I must experience as much as I can."  

Today was a full day.  Four classes and a meeting. Italian class is coming along slowly and my brain is struggling to remember what I've learned. English class...we'll see if it picks up speed.  My two new classes today were Political Science of the European Union and Wine and Food Pairing.  Both will be challenging.  We had a nice sparkling Prosecco that evidently can be paired with anything except super heavy meals and we toasted the beginning of the class and to many more wines!  Salute!