Here's to the nights we felt alive.

Yesterday I had one of the best days since I've been in Florence. It's so interesting, because nothing really 'eventful' or 'life-changing' happened, I didn't see something I'll never get to see again...it was just the feeling of the day and the people in it that made it wonderful.

First off, I woke up super sick and missed my morning classes. I was pretty sure it was going to doom the day, but I ended up just getting a few hours extra sleep and feeling much better with just a few remnants of headache. Then, lunch was a delicious pesto pasta and a really large chicken breast, so that was a delicious treat. After lunch, Rob and I walked and talked and had a really good time just running errands and getting gelato in Florence. It was a gorgeous day, which helped, but it was the company that really made it good :)

After errands, we came back to school and met for a backstage tour of the Pergola theater, a gorgeous little theater from the 1600s off the beaten path in Florence. It had incredible acoustics, and the woman leading the tour let me sing a scale on stage to test them. It really was a treat -- I'd love to get to sing there again, only maybe next time it will be for real! Mostly they just do plays there now, but they still do one opera a year to preserve tradition, so there's hope for me yet. Other cool things about the theater: there's a mechanism under the orchestra seats that literally raises the floor up to the level of the stage so the whole theater can be used as one big dance hall. Also, they have a hollow pipe embedded in a pillar on the side of the stage so that the stage manager can talk up to people on the catwalk controlling the curtain and the lights. This is incredible because apparently it was the guy who invented this who then went on to invent the telephone. Was it Alexander Graham Bell, you ask? Actually, no. Apparently ten years ago the Supreme Court of New York ruled that it was, in fact, this Italian man's intellectual property, he just hadn't paid for the patent, so Bell got all the credit. Interesting, no?

After the Pergola we ran a few more errands and came home with the intention of having a quiet night in. However, we got invited to a pizza place about ten blocks away which apparently won a world competition in 2003. We had to check it out, so away we went. The place ended up being closed when we went (6:30), so we went to play soccer in a park nearby until it opened, and I got to chat with Rob's roommate's girlfriend Emily for a half hour and finally get to know her better. It was really relaxing and great. Some Italian guys about our age even played with them for a little while!

Then we went to get the pizza. It was SO worth the wait...and I forsee myself going there quite often. It was just five euro for a giant prosciutto pizza to go, and they even sold us their house wine (which is ridiculously inexpensive but nonetheless delicious as well) for 4.50 euro per liter. They couldn't let us take the bottles outside though, so they just filled water bottles up with wine for us, which was a ridiculous but very amusing situation. We took the pizzas back to the park but realized a little too late that they hadn't cut them. Thus, everyone just had to fold theirs in half and eat it like a gargantuan calzone. It was so much fun. While we were eating, the Italian guys who played soccer came over and chatted with us for a half an hour. They were really nice and eager to practice their English, which is actually something that's really difficult to find in the city center. They were the first nice Italians who weren't either shop owners or working at our hotel. Such a treat.

After, most of the group walked to the soccer game, but we went home with Rob's roommate to play a card game called Swiss Joss (pronounced yoss). It's such a complex game, but really fun. We played with our friend Allison for a while, since you need four people, but she had to go to dinner, so we invited the guy who works at the front desk at night, Marco, to play with us. It was so fun to get to know him better. We spoke in a mix of Italian and English, and he promised to teach us some Italian card games as well. He also made us Italian coffee and told us about some places to find Italian friends (one of my goals while I'm here). He actually suggested finding a few conversation partners at the language school nearby, which is really a great idea.

Overall, I just had a really fun night getting to know some really fun people. Like I said, not super life changing, but just a really nice change. It's been difficult to find like minded people here interested in the same kinds of things I am (namely, having fun just exploring and talking and playing games, rather than bar hopping). Last night was proof that it can happen and they're out there, even if you have to catch them on the one night they aren't drinking. I'm optimistic. Hopefully there will be lots more nights like that one in the future.

As for today...I'm off to Venice for Carnevale! I can't wait. I wish I could do the whole gorgeous old-fashioned costume thing like they do, but they're horribly expensive to rent and rather impractical when travelling with a group. I just brought all black and white clothes with dark jeans though, and I intend to buy a mask as soon as I get there. It should be such a blast. We're also going to tour Murano and a few more of the islands where they make the blown glass, so I should come home with all sorts of fun things. We're also making a game out of seeing how well we can eat for how little money, especially since we want to buy so many fun things in Venice. We'll see how that goes. As for me, I'm off to grab some breakfast and meet the bus, since we leave in half an hour. Be back Sunday night, so look for really great pictures and an update on Monday!