Day 17: A 6:30 am Beginning to a Busy Day

6:30am came too early, and yet I was out of my nice warm bed, getting ready for a very long day. I dressed haphazardly in the dark, tripping over my computer power cord, bumping into my desk chair and feeling around my wardrobe, hoping what I had pulled out actually matched. Since I had to get up early, I didn't have breakfast and instead I left the apartment at 7:05, before I would normally even be awake. I then headed across the city, past the Palazzo Capponi and finally made it my destination. Today was my very first day of my teaching internship. I met up with Caleb and Lindsey, two other students, and we went inside the faded yellow school building. There I met the teacher, Francesca. She greeted us with a handshake, then informed us she had just gotten over the flu (germs!!!). We then followed her, surrounded by a sea of pre-teen aged children, up the stairs and to the 3B classroom. In Italy, the teachers change classes instead of the students. So the classroom we entered was not Francesca's, but housed a class of level 3 (~8th grade) students. We began by standing up and the students asked questions, i.e. what is your name? where are you from? what is your favorite food?.
Then they broke up into three smaller groups and each of us monitored them while Francesca gave oral exams to some students at the front of the room. The group I talked to contained an Italian girl who spoke English very well, two Italian boys, and two Asian boys. They were studying American history, namely slavery and the Civil War. They asked me to tell them more about the topics, so I gave them a simple, brief explanation. Then they started asking me more questions like where I've been in the U.S. and if I've seen the Grand Canyon. The girl told me she has been to Florida and California before and we talked briefly about that. One boy, who donned a "Jeep" sweatshirt asked me some of the most amusing questions. He kept shaking the girls arm and saying something in Italian and she kept refusing him, saying something along the lines of you can't ask that. Finally he turned to me, and asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I started laughing and the girl smacked him, I answered "No, but I'm glad you figured out how to ask that in English." He later also asked me if I like Justin Bieber and if I like One Direction.

After my morning teaching, I went on a little adventure. First I stopped at the copy store and printed my plane ticket. Then I headed to my new favorite place, the bookstore.

Santa Croce

Then I met up with my classmates outside the BI for an outing to the Santa Croce church. This counts as a Art History outing, but everyone has to go since it is an important church in Florence. Since the Art professor is also my Architecture professor, I had to stay after to hear about some architectural aspects of the building.

The Crucifixion by Cimabue

I was somewhat near my apartment, so I went home for a few hours, had lunch and then went to the Palazzo Capponi for Architecture lecture. Luca lectured on the layout of churches and Italian gothic v. French gothic style construction.

A horrible picture, but this is my street and in the distance you can see the sun setting over the hill, with all the Tuscan style houses on it. So pretty in real life!

Finally, at 4:30pm, I was done for the day. I went home and packed for my trip.
Dinner was good tonight. Rosanna made pesto pasta and plain chicken. But there was one thing on my plate that I have no idea what it was. It looked somewhat like stuffing, but I think it was maybe potato and cabbage. Whatever it was, it tasted like smelly feet. For dessert, we had these small donut-like cookies filled with cream and rolled in sugar.
Now its time for bed so I can get up super early to head to Barcelona (whoop whoop!).