The answer? Travel to countries that all speak different languages! On my spring break I traveled to Paris and Barcelona, and on the way I confused most of the Italian I learned in the past six weeks. By the time I moved on from Paris to Barcelona, I was still saying "merci," and when I went to the market after my return to Florence I had an entire conversation over cheese in "Spanitalian". Funny thing is that the cheese-man totally understood me; it wasn't until later that I realized I mixed Spanish and Italian throughout the few minutes I was speaking with him.
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In the entrance to the Louvre |
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Finally some sun in Paris! |
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Gaudi's Casa Batllo |
Me and Maryann in Park Guell |
Bo de B in Barcelona - The biggest salad I have ever had |
In both cities, I ran into students on my Florence program many times. It is crazy how small the world is....these were not busy or touristy places to just 'stumble upon' an acquaintance! I saw four students from just one of my classes (all traveling separately) either on the metro in Paris or on random streets in Barcelona. I also saw a ridiculous amount of Chicago Bulls apparel in both cities, which made me smile. Weird to think that I will be home in less than seven weeks!
I can't believe my time abroad is halfway over. It is flying by and still unreal to me. Here are some random tidbits I haven't yet shared:
- Italians will never understand my name. I am thinking of changing it to Candle because that is automatically what they assume it is. Or an Amazon Kindle.
- As much as I try to blend in and not stick out as an American, there is only so much I can do on my way back from Pilates class with a box of cornflakes under my arm. At least I don't need the map to get around anymore!
- Italian kids are the cutest ever. Italian dogs are a close second.
- Blogspot is actually awesome - I can see where in the world my audience is located and how much activity is going on. Most of my audience is in the US and a chunk is in Italy, not surprisingly. However I have had 16 hits from Russia (which makes me wonder a bit) and also one hit from Bangladesh! I can even check which browser is most popular: Safari has almost 50% of page-views, with Google Chrome in second at 28%...Alright that is enough of my Blogspot stats for now.
In actual news, I am traveling every weekend for the next four weeks! Here is my schedule:
- London, UK
- Corfu, Greece
- Amalfi Coast (Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii)
- Munich, Germany
I am really excited because I have never been to Greece or Germany before! I will be so busy but I'll try and keep everyone updated. Ciao!
Dang you have connections all over the globe it seems.
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