Uno, due, tre...ottocento ottantotto!

(Villa Natalia - our house - from Villa Ulivi)

Well, we learned how to count, among other things, in Italian class. By the time 5:15 rolled around, after almost three hours of class, we were all getting delirious. To solve this problem, Gao (il professore) decided to play a game. Has anyone played the game when you sit in a circle and count off skipping multiples of seven (and eleven, and reversing, and all of that) ? - well, we played that, saying "ciao" whenever we hit a multiple of seven. You can imagine how ridiculous this was, considering we had just learned numbers and were not prepared to do math - nonetheless, we continued to play this game until we were just about at trecento. Dio mio, che pizza.

(il sole Toscana)

Had my first art history class this morning - "Early Masters of Italian Renaissance Painting" - like Jane's class but more focused on painting. I think I might have a little bit of background thanks to Jane (when il professore asked what was notable about the Madonna in various paintings, I said "blue!" acting all nonchalant and intelligent, like normal people actually know that. Blue means royal and heavenly, did I tell you all that? And it's my favorite color...), so hopefully this won't be too overwhelming, although I think I have to read about a hundred pages of reading for Thursday.

(on the terrace outside of the art history classroom)

That's all for today, no inspiring quotes came up - although you should try saying ottocento ottantotto (oh-toh-chen-toh-oh-tan-toh-toh), it's kind of fun. At around 5:00 we all found it incredibly amusing. A domani.

Ciao Amori!

Laura