This was taken in Volterra. We got to see how a sculptor works with alabaster. The end product was a small mushroom.

So it has been officially a little over a month since my arrival in Florence. I am definitely becoming more comfortable with finding my way around and knowing where to go for certain things. However, I am still exploring what Florence has to offer and every day I find a new store or market to venture through. Just a few days ago my roommate and I discovered a huge indoor food market that has pretty much everything. We were told about this market from a classmate after I was complaining about missing banana chips. It is far from our apartment but we are willing to make the trek because of the amazing produce and prices . . . and banana chips.

Another picture from Giglio Island. This is when we got to the beach. The water was crystal clear and it was such a gorgeous day.

Classes are going very well and the homework load is very reasonable. I expected to have a lot of reading and writing assignments since I am an art history major and taking three 4 credit art history courses here, but it really has been very manageable. My art history courses are really interesting and we get to go on a lot of field trips within Florence and Tuscany. For example, last Friday two of my art history classes went to Pienza which is a quaint town just about an hour drive from Florence. We went there to learn about why Pienza is considered the perfect Renaissance town and the history of the town in association with the Piccolomini family which has produced two popes. We went on a tour of Palazzo Piccolomini, the residence of the Piccolomini family, and the Duomo (cathedral) that has a Renaissance exterior with a Gothic interior. Both places were amazing and so rich with history that it was sometimes overwhelming. I think that it is sometimes hard to grasp the age and history of some of these places because being from America, a still relatively new country when compared to the rest of the world, we do not see things that are hundreds upon hundreds of years old.

View from the restaurant where we ate in San Gimignano.

I have also been exploring outside of Florence with SAI on excursions and with friends. Earlier this month I went to San Gimignano, which is the number one tourist destination in Tuscany. The town sits on a huge hill, walking around was quite the workout, and has some of the most amazing views I have ever seen.

Another gorgeous view from San Gimignano.

We went to this restaurant called Dulcisinfundo Ristorante and words cannot describe how amazing the food and wine was and, again, the views from our table of the countryside were breathtaking.

The ancient ruins that were found underneath Volterra.

Then with SAI I went to Maremma, Giglio Island and Volterra for a weekend. We did a lot and it was so much fun. We went to a vineyard for a wine tour, went to Giglio Island for a day at the beach and got to see the cruise ship Concordia still submerged in water (just a few days after we were there a salvage crew righted the ship and are now preparing to move it to a harbor to be dismantled), and went to Volterra (the town where the second book in the Twilight series is based in which has really increased the tourism there) to see a brick of alabaster be carved into a small sculpture and ancient ruins that were discovered recently underneath the city. I plan to do a lot more traveling during fall break which is in two weeks. My roommate and I are coming up with a list of places within and outside of Florence that we really want to see.

This is the cruise liner Concordia. We saw this on our ferry ride to Giglio Island.

Something also worth mentioning that was major for Florence was the World Cycling Championship that took place in the city just last week. It lasted for a week and brought many to the city. In the week or so leading up to the race a lot of us students and even our professors were nervous about how it would impact traffic because this is the first time that this competition has come to Florence, so no one knew what to expect. It did interfere with getting to and from classes but, at least for me, it was not too bad. I did not spend any of my free time watching the race because I could see a lot going to classes or when I was out and about in the afternoon. If nothing else, it seemed like it was great for business in Florence.

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Alyssa is a student at Saint Xavier University studying at Florence University of the Arts during the Fall 2013 term.