New Plan:

NORWAY.
You know how I was talking about doing that WWOOF farming program in Italy? Now I want to go to Norway. The thing is, I have a lot of good, logical reasons why I should want to return to Italy, primarily the whole learning Italian thing. But despite the good reasons, I just found myself to be less excited about the idea that I should have been. I'm not sure exactly why. I'm very happy to be in Italy now, and I like learning Italian a lot, but I think I just want to try something different. Allora, no lo so. But the point is, if I'm not as stoked about it as I want to be, I don't think I should do it.
Now as it happens, when you become a member of WWOOF Italia, you also get access to another list of some random countries that don't have their own WWOOF program. On this list are Norway and the Netherlands (among others, of course), and both of these sounds new and exciting, so I'm going to look for a farm in one of them instead. A bunch of farms in Norway look beautiful, and I would love to go there if I could. Why Norway, I'm not sure I could tell you exactly. Maybe because it really is soooo different from Italy. Well, we'll see. And in the end, if I never find somewhere I really want to go in Europe, I'll come home a couple weeks early. As much as I want to adventure for as long as I can, when it comes down to it, I'm only going to do the things that I want to and am excited about. My funds are to college-student-esque  to afford to do things that aren't worth it. So Norway. We shall see.

Now let's see what I can fill you in on from this week in Italy. It's been slow, which is nice because I'm still making up for sleep lost over spring break. And the weather has been bellisima! Around 60-65 farenheit, which his nice. The best places to sunbath (or "take the sun," as it is in italian) are the Campo, where it's always fun to people watch (especially tourist watch), and by the university, where there'a a grass area overlooking Chianti. It's been nice. And Wednesday I returned to the soup kitchen, and had a really good time. There were more young volenteers, which I hadn't seen before, and I felt much more comfortable with them than the nuns. They were all so nice!
Oh, and there was a lady there from Holland, who didn't speak any Italian but spoke English, and she told me that she's walking (WALKING) the Francigena. This is the old pilgrimage road that leads to Rome, and Siena, back in the day, made a lot of money off of pilgrims enroute, and it had a hospital, which then meant a place for hosting foreigners, not for sick people. Now the old Ospedale is a museum across from the Duomo. The Francigena starts in Canterbury, but she began in Holland. Still. I think she said it was 18,000km. And she wasn't young, either. I would guess somewhere between 55 and 65. Anyways, she ended up at the soup kitchen because the convents host the pilgrims for meals and give them places to sleep.  It was really interesting talking to her, and I think she was glad to have an English speaker around.
Then today we went back to the Uffizi with my art history class. I have to say, I'm glad I'd been to Uffizi on my own before hand because I wasn't super thrilled with the class visit.  The problem is that the teacher, who is very nice and very knowledgeable, doesn't seem to really take us seriously as art history students. Not in a mean way, but he always makes comments like, "bad news, guys, we'll be here for a couple hours," or "good news, only two painting left." As if we don't want to be there. But we do. It also seems like he dumbs down the lesssons, and is afraid to use real art history terms. It bothers me. I see that he is only trying to cater to what he thinks our level is (which is probably based on former students he's had through the SIS program, which only gets LC students one semester every other year), but I think that we should be treated like serious art history students. If someone isn't interested, that's their problem, but I like to be challenged and I want to be expected to have to think and work. It's annoying. Anyways. It was nice to revisit some of the paintings and things, but I really  liked being there on my own better.
OH. In other news, my roommate Julia and I are planning on renting a Vespa on Sunday, just for fun. Wish us luck driving!