"In Fair Verona..."

Another quick update. The last week I have spent my time in Verona, Italy, and it is really a beautiful city. It is just what you would think of when you see pictures of Italy in books, or watch documentaries about Italy, except they really don't do it justice. You have to be here to truly experience it.

While we have been here, we have stayed in a classic Italian Villa and it is a beautiful place. While it doesn't have all of the modern efficiencies, but again, what a beautiful place. Our group has gotten quite comfortable with each other while he have been here; all of us, guys and girls, share our bathroom which contains three toilets, two showers, and is simply a wide-open room at the end of the hallway on our private floor. The doors lock at midnight, which is okay since Verona really doesn't have that much of a night life. So, we've kind of made our own nightlife.

I have also been fighting ear infection and allergies since I got here, so I haven't really feeling all that well, but I still keep trucking along. The other night was a lot of fun watching the entire group have a toga party and get completely smashed. I wasn't feeling well, and spent about ten minutes in a toga before I decided that I really needed to just go to bed. I had about 3o minutes of freedom when the party decided that it was going to move back upstairs, and into my room non-the-less. So while I didn't get to sleep earlier like I wanted to, the night was still amusing. I watched the entire X-Men Trilogy, and also watched as my fellow classmates at times made complete fools of themselves. I also discovered that Lynsey is absolutely in love with Hugh Jackman, and when she discovered that I was watching X-Men, she decided to join me.

The weather while we have been here has been absolutely beautiful, and I have been generally wearing just a T-Shirt everyday. It gets cool at night, but the days when it is sunny is rather nice. However, the other day when we made the trip to Venice we were not blessed with sunny weather. While the rain held off, the sky was certainly full of clouds, and the wind was rather strong. That being said, I was in Venice, which makes up for it. Venice was a very beautiful city, but also very confusing. The pathways are very narrow, and there are signs leading you everywhere in the city, and sometimes they say they are taking you somewhere and they actually don't.

Also while in Venice, a group of us decided to take a gondola ride. This was by far the most relaxing experience thus far on this trip. Our gondolier, Diego, was very talented with his craft, and was also very good at sharing his knowledge of the city with us. He also took us away from the touristy part of the city, and you could hear a pin drop.

Well, it is off to Paris for next week, and hopefully the weather will also be just as nice there.

Later,
Greg