Io Studio! :-(

So in attempting to solve the mystery of the stomach virus, I’ve narrowed it down to a few options:

1. There’s some sort of parasite or bacteria in the water here and it is not sitting well in my stomach
2. The change in diet from basically starving myself all day long on my hiking trip to grossly overeating each night followed by partial starvation the rest of the day is not being received well by my body
3. I have giardia from my hiking trip and I need to find a doctor.

Let’s hope it’s not the third. I’m going to wait it out and see if I feel better. If I don’t feel better by Wednesday, I’m going to see the doctor. And for those of you who were curious, no, beer does not in fact make an upset stomach feel better. I’ve heard this from… a friend… who shall remain nameless. I went out last night while feeling sick and stayed out till 12:30. On a school night. Molto stupido. I was very tired today for the first round of classes. I’m in a pre-architecture/ art history class about the history of city architecture in the Mediterranean. It’s pretty boring so far, but we get to travel to crazy places, so I think I’ll stay in it. I also had Comedy in Italy class with a crazy man who enjoys acting out examples of comedy, which is funny, but also kinda weird and uncomfortable. He’ll be in mid sentence and then whip out a mask and start acting out his favorite Comedia Del Arte (sp?) character. Or fake getting beat up with slapstick. We ended the class watching a Loony Tunes bit. It should be a decent class. I also had Italian with a wonderful woman. Donatella Palli. She was very funny and while she’s probably only about 40-45, she still pulls off the cute little old Italian woman very well. I know nobody in that class, so I had to make a few friends in the clutch. While everyone in the class is all beginners, I feel like I already know Italian a lot better than they do. I don’t think that makes me smart. I think that makes them apathetic and lazy. That’s cool though. Maybe this semester can boost my GPA!

I’m becoming friends with a tall, beautiful girl named Izzy. She should be a model. She must be about 6’0” and weigh about 115 pounds and she does crew. We went on an adventure to buy books for our classes (80 Euros. It’s on the credit card. Thanks mom and dad). She’s really good at Italian, so I think I’ll keep her around.

Other than that, I just sat around today and battled stomach cramps (maybe I’m pregnant? Maybe it’s just that time of the month?) Tomorrow I don’t have class until 1pm! Woot! I think I’m going to sign up to volunteer at elementary schools in the area to read Dr. Seuss books to small children in English. I also want to record books on tape for the blind. Both of these are programs supported and endorsed by Syracuse in Florence.

To end, I would like to further sing my praises to my pants and my mother. These skinny jeans also are pretty much pick-pocket proof (wow, say that 10 times fast). They are so tight that I can’t even get things out of my pockets when I want to get things out of my pockets. Maybe that’s why Europeans where such tight clothing…

Bacci!

-AJC