Rotarians and Royalty

Okay, so my adventures in blogging have kind of failed.  But hey, I never kept a journal as a kid either, and I've only sort of kept one during my travels here.  I guess I just don't like writing.

Anyway, not too much has been going on for me, but this week I did meet the princess of Jordan!  However, I hear princess and think of Jasmin, but I think she was in her 60's or 70's.  I believe she is currently the ambassador of Jordan in Rome, but I'm not completely positive.  She was very nice and spoke a lot about womens' rights in the Islamic world, and it was quite interesting.  She was very strong about not pushing beliefs onto others, so as to allow everyone to have their own minds and own opinions.

me and H.R.H. Princess Wijdan F. Al-Hashemi

It's finally gorgeous and sunny most days here in Florence, which really lifts my spirits.  It will make it really hard to leave.  I know I'll miss Italy somewhat, but I'll really miss the Italian friends I've made here, and getting to speak multiple languages on a daily basis.  However, I do miss having my own car, and my bike.  Man, do I miss having my bike.  I have one lent to me, very kindly, by a Rotarian here, but it's no where near the same.  I also miss having some source of income.  Here, I have nothing.  The scholarship is great, but I'm constantly worried about my fixed budget instead of having a regular incoming check.  Also, I miss my own clothes.  I mean, I have clothes here, but I've been living in Europe since the second week of July, so I've basically only had what I could pack in a suitcase for almost a year now.  So very little variety.  But, other than my fantastic friends and speaking other languages, I will definitely miss the food.  Not just Italian food because I can't eat out very often, but the freshness and quality of everything here, along with how cheap it is.  Vegetables and fruits are extremely cheap and most of my meals have become vegetarian because it's just plain cheaper to eat that way, and it tastes great.

So far as my Italian goes, it's gotten much better of course, but I still do make mistakes.  I've started reading a short Italian novel and I'm underlining all the conjugated verbs in one color and the words I don't know in another.  I'm underlining the verbs so that I really pay attention to all the different conjugations and exactly what the author is saying.  I thought about trying to label all of them with what tense they were in, but I think that would be far too much like actual homework.  And I've also sort of stopped my Italian language work, partially because I'm not in any classes for Italian this semester, and I've started working on the Tuscan/Florentine dialect.  I bought a book called Vohabolario which is the Tuscan dialect spelling of "Vocabolario" or vocabulary.  It's very interesting, and of course all in Italian, so it's forcing me to work really hard.  Now I just need to find one for Neopolitain dialect!

my new Italian book

Okay, that's it for now I think.  I couldn't find the pics I've taken of sunny Florence on my iPod, so until I figure that out, a picture of our puppy that is no longer a puppy.