First week of school in Italy: CONQUERED.

Soooo... I just finished my first week of school, and I kind of feel like a badass -- granted I am only taking one class. (Hey, this is a rare thing, so I'm savoring it). 

This week was great. It's nice to finally feel busy again, even if it means I don't get much sleep because I'm up studying Thursday night for our weekly Friday quizzes.... and okayyy doing other things as well during the week. 

On Wednesday we went to ANOTHER museum, that had Etruscan and Romanian artifacts from back in the day (from Bologna of course). It was pretty neat to see different ways people were burried, what their graves looked like, etc. 

Funfact: Etruscans used to be cremated and put in a vase either above or below ground. 50 years later, they started to have possessions burried with them.

That same day I got to go into the church San Petronio. The church was actually supposed to be larger than the Vatican (when it was being constructed in the Middle Ages), but the pope got all feisty about there being a church larger than the Vatican, and made them literally stop construction. So there are some parts of the church (on the side) that look like an arch was completely cut in half... well, that's because they never got to finish constructing it. 

It's pretty simple inside though, with different paintings on the walls. There's a sundial in the church, which is awesome. If you look at the picture of the ceiling you can see a star with a hole in the middle. The sun comes through there every day at noon. I think it tells the month and time? 

After checking out the church (not everyone went inside, some people started their break early), some of us went to a caffe that our teacher said had the best espressos. She said we would probably be about 10 minutes late to class, but not to worry and to take our time... Dude, they take their coffee seriously. This was honestly the best cappuccino I've ever had. SO GOOD. And they have amazing cakes/pastries that I wish I could eat for the rest of my life and suffer no consequences. 

Later that night we went to celebrate a friends bday. We spent some time in an Irish Pub -- it was happy hour, and then later headed to the park (that I go running in) where there is a cool semi-indoor/outdoor club. 

It was a fun night. I felt like I was in junior high school again because they were playing all the alternative rock songs from "back in the day" (I say that like I'm ancient). So we all had fun chatting and reminiscing til the wee hours of the morning.

Yesterday I was finally able to meet up with Jessica and we went for a run/work out in the park. We ran a lap in the park, which is a little over a mile, did some abs, ran another lap, came back did more abs, an insane amount of lunges and jumping squats, stretched, and then walked home.

Last night, once again consisted of great food, company, and ohhh... studying. My friend Lara (who is actually a Theta at UCSB!) figured out how to use our espresso maker that was here. So all day yesterday she made us espresso, so delicious. This morning we had a quiz, but I feel like I did well. I so far know I at least got the 20 T/F questions right :) Sooo yay! 

MARISA AND BENNETT cooking up a storm! 

But that's basically my life right now. It's raining off and on here, but it's extremely humid. Later today I'm going on another run with my friend Jessica (I'm taking her into the hills.... maybe I'll take my camera today?), and then her, Chloe (another student from UC BERKELEY!), and I are going to make dinner :)

Life is pretty simple and sweet right now. I could get used to this.