Lauren's Adventures Studying Abroad in Italy: oh, ciao weekend!

SO basically, I LOVE my graphic design: advanced projects development class. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It was totally worth waking up at 7:45 AM for...

for our first project we have to design a label for either a wine bottle or coffee... oh hello graphic design italian style!! We took a mini field trip to the grocery store and stared at wine bottles. Amazing. Only in Italy would that be considered a legit field trip.

The class is super full though with a ton of students... I mean there is a total of three students, including myself. HUGE, right? It's pretty cool to have such a small class though, we each got a lot of individual attention... We decided that the class should not be held on fridays because everyone travels and we don't want to be stuck here without any friends (we are one of the only classes that meet on fridays...)....so we are trying to get the class switched to thursday afternoons...

Update on classes and switching classes? yeah that's a fairly confusing matter, but I'm going to go ahead and try to explain what is going on...

I really wanted to get into the flash for the web class (and the other two girls who i have graphic design with are the only ones in that class) but for some reason they put me in rendering techniques. Now that wouldn't normally be a problem, but rendering techniques meets on thursdays at 3, and oh because I have the luck I do, the graphic design class is being switched to thursdays at 3. So now I'm stuck because the office closed at noon today...and monday I have class from 9-2:30 straight and then the flash for the web class that I want starts at 3....

okay so that wasn't so hard to explain... how was it trying to understand it though???

Anyway after class and after the whole thing trying to figure out the classes, I bumped into my friend who I went to the art institute with (scroll down to see the older posts if you don't know what I'm talking about) and he said he was going to go to the natural food store and asked if I wanted to go. I said sure and he asked me if I was positive because the walk was pretty far. I told him that I didn't come all the way to Italy to sit inside all day... I want to see the city! I want to see everywhere!! I want to experience where I am!!! Anyway it turned out that the health food store was either closed, or we were just really lost...but we ended up going into a huge grocery store anyway... we must've spent at least an hour and a half in the grocery store...

It's funny because one of my mom's favorite things to do when she travels is going into the grocery stores. I never understood it. I thought it was so funny because, I mean, doesn't every grocery store have more or less the same things? Bread, crackers, fruit, frozen stuff, etc?? But today was the day that I had a complete epiphany! Grocery stores are so interesting to go into!! It was so funny, they had the condoms wayy high up. I couldn't even reach them if I wanted to... I guess the Italians figure that if you can't reach the condoms, you shouldn't be having sex. Sooo maybe that's why Italians are so tall...because short people don't have sex because they don't want to chance getting pregnant. I mean it makes sense, right? And if tall people procreate then that means there are more tall people in Italy... total common sense.

Annnnnd now Ladies and Gentlemen, picture time!

Hi, I'm Lauren and I'm a chocoholic.

Could these noodles be ANY bigger??? I took this picture for you, Jeremy, just so I could say "These are the 2nd largest pieces of penne I have ever seen." The package clearly wasn't lying when it says "pennoni giganti"!!

The tops of the wine bottles are so colorful here! I love it!

So these locks actually have a very cute and romantic story behind them... this gate is on the ponte vecchio and people who are in love come up to the gate, put a lock on it and then throw the key into the Arno river. There was a wedding here last week and the newly weds had a whole celebration throwing the key into the river together.... It's very cute, but coming from a divorced family, I have to wonder how many people have jumped into the river to find their key, open their lock, and throw the lock into the river after the divorce was final....

Confession: I am in love. Don't worry, mom, I'm in love with the Ponte Vecchio. It's actually a very mutual relationship. The Ponte Vecchio stays very still and looks pretty while I take lots and lots and lots and oh yeah, lots of pictures of it. Quite the mature relationship. I love it in the morning before all of the shops are open, I love it in the afternoon when it is busy and full of energy, and I love it at night when it is all lit up....