I need some chicken soup!

Ciao a tutti!

This week has been a little rough for me. I've been sick for about 5 days now and I'm really missing my mom's homemade chicken soup! I made myself an appointment to see a doctor on Tuesday and I didn't know what to expect since I'm in a different country. I was pleasantly suprised. I called the office and got an appointment right away. When I went into the office, I immediately went in to see the doctor. He was a British doctor, so there wasn't any language barrier which was great. He gave me prescriptions for a few medicines and I was on my way! Plus, a sore throat is a great excuse to eat gelato everyday!

Last week, I went to go see an opera called "Manon Lescaut" with my class and it was awesome. Suprisingly, we had great seats for the 20 euro that we paid. It was really cool to see my first opera and to top it off it was in Italy. I highly recommend going to see an opera if you are going to be in Florence!

Over the weekend, I went to the top of the Giotto's bell tower next to the Duomo with my fiance, Bobby. There are 414 steps to get to the top of the tower, it was exhausting but it was SO worth it! Once we arrived at the top, we overlooked all of Florence. It was probably the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen. I felt like I was on the top of the world and I was so happy to share such a great experience with Bobby.

Before climbing to the top of the bell tower on Saturday, I went on a city tour with one of my professors to see an artisan fair called "lungoungiorno". We were able to see dozens of craftsmen and artists from all over Tuscany and their beautiful work. The artists ranged from fabric restorers, jewlers, ecodesigners, painters and sculptors. One of the artists was a jeweler named Paolo Penko who makes hand-made jewelry for celebrities like Paris Hilton and Madonna and the jewelry was absolutely beautiful. We also saw a fabric restorer who restores the fabric on the pope's hat! It was really nice to see things being made by hand, and not by machine like I'm used to in the U.S and I was so happy that I went. One of the sculptors even hand-made a little clay vase for me to take home!

There are so many different things to do here in Florence and I absolutely love it.

I'll write again soon! Ciao!

Kelsey