Frightfully Cold

Until this trip, I had only been to Italy in the summer months, July to be exact. So, I have this picture of Italy in my mind that is full of sun and at times unbearably hot. Even rumors of how cold Florence can be in the winter did not convince me that the weather would ever be too cold, too windy, too rainy. Florence is my Italian paradise. Come on.

This week changed all that.

It all began Sunday when my roommate, Chelsea, came down with a cold. Sue had warned us that around week two a lot of us would start getting sick. Well, it started. This cold beat Chelsea up and I knew that it was only a matter of time before it tried to knock me out too. I woke up on Tuesday morning with that telling sore throat and I knew that I was done for. However, on that morning I was still hanging on to a little hope. Maybe vitamin C and a good rest would help me fight this thing off before it took a hold of me.

Enter Tuesday morning art history class.

As you all know, my art history classes are rarely in the classroom. It is awesome and definitely one of the reasons I came to study here. There is absolutely nothing like having a lecture on Donatello's David in front of Donatello's David (fyi it is very shiny in person). Of course, outside the classroom does not only mean in museums. It can also mean the real outside. Hence, our Tuesday lecture took place on the steps of the Duomo, in front of the Baptistry doors, and outside of Orsanmichele. This time outside was punctuated by a brief 20 minutes inside the Bargello Museum. Other than that, my class was outside in the 20 degree weather with huge windgusts and, to top it all off, a little bit of rain.

We all sat on the steps of the Duomo, our eyes watering from the cold wind, listening to the stories of how Florence was under siege from the Duke of Milan in the 1300s which came to an end only when the Duke caught the plague. Frank, with his booming God voice, tried to drown out the street cleaners and the ambulances that went by. I had my eyes pealed for gypsies but then thought that if a gypsy did attack me, at least running after them would warm me up. Then I thought that it would be nice if Frank got the plague because then class would be over. My pen hardly worked because the ink was getting too cold. I was a cold, tired, sick, cranky mess. I tried to cheer myself up that afternoon with shopping. The excursion to Zara with my friend Katie was only a temporary fix, however. My two new dresses did not keep me from coming down with a fever by 9 that night. The two dresses are really cute, though. Very chic. I am just so European.

The cold did not end there. Wednesday and Thursday were equally frigid and sometimes included rain. My Thursday morning art history class with Linda the magnificent art historian was pretty tough, but thankfuly inside. The class is three hours and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it until Linda said a few magic words that made her my new favorite person on the planet: "Let's walk back to school and before we begin the second part of our lecture we'll stop at our favorite little cafe and have a cappuccino."

YES! Italy is awesome and so is Linda!