This Past Week

Life here just keeps on rolling and it is never a dull time. For my first class of the week (Italian 350) we went to a theater to see a concert. The performers were a group of middle-aged men singing Beatles songs and other music from the 60's and 70's. We had the chance to go because the lead singer/guitar player was one of the people that works in our program's office. His name is Walter and he is awesome. (http://www.waltermuto.it/public/) It was a really fun concert because the rest of the audience was filled with Italian middle school kids that knew every word to all of these English songs. On Tuesday I went on aonther field trip to the house of Alessandro Manzoni. Manzoni was a very famous author in Italian history and is credited with being one of the true founders of the modern Italian language. His house has been turned into a museum and is located in the center of the city. It was a very interesting place to visit and more interesting to have a tour in Italian. (Not much room for tuning out) I would have had to go back to the house on Wednesday for a different class but my professor told me that I wouldn't have to go again. (free class period!) I instead walked around the Duomo square and did a little shopping. It was the end of fashion week and there was still a lot of activity in the fashion district. (Not to mention gorgeous women walking all over the place) Last night I stayed in because my throat has been feeling a bit scratchy the last couple of days. It has been so incredibly nice out the last few days. Today we decided to walk around the town and do a little shopping. We went to a big store that had all of the big brands in it. (It is called the Rinascente) We were all wearing shorts and tshirts with sunglasses. The Italians were staring at us all day long because they are still wearing jackets and scarves. One of the highlights of the day was when we went into the Gucci store. They had just opened this store about a week ago, so they were "celebrating". They served us glasses of champagne while we looked around. We all felt quite rich. This weekend is a longer break than usual so I plan and getting a lot of things done. We have a couple of trips coming up in the near future so those will be pretty awesome. I put up a couple of pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Luke