60 meteres up

today we had the unfortunate event of going to the old city of Fiorintina. Why was it unfortunate you ask? Well, we arrived at the museum at half past four. According to our book, the museum was supposed to be open until 6:30. According to the museum,it was supposed to be open until half passed one.(Never trust travel books when they tell you places are open). so we stood outside and admired medieval florence outside in the rain. Because we couldn't visit the museum i did some research on the old city. The houses that they lived in were called tower houses and were built at tops 60 meters high. Fiorintina started out as a fairly small city. One of fiorintinas countesses, countess matilda, had the walls of the city built to protect fiointina. Gradually, the city grew as it conquered more and more villages. But because they didn't have the money to build new walls they just tried to make the best of it. Soon the situation grew so bad that in order to build the houses they had to remove parks and forests etc. until the city was all buildings. Still it wasn't enough. Because the fiorintines couldn't build their houses over they built them up. they also built little enclosed balconies to the side of the house supported by wooden beams to supply as a waste room. They threw any kind of waste onto the streets from the balconies.(any kind of waste)(i don't think they took many strolls in the city). It was unusual for people to go out onto the streets very often because of enemy attacks.(rival families). So most of the people spent most of their time in the courtyard. The courtyard was a small square in the middle of the city with geese and grass. Probably like a small yard. Women and children were forbidden to leave the house because of the violence.

While we have been in Italy I have been to the Pitti Palace, Medici Palace, the Uffizi, and the Duomo. Soon we hope to go to the archeology museum. There are Etruscan ruins all over the hills by our apartment. My sister Taylor is coming to visit in April and with her we will visit Rome, Sienna, and Cinque Terra. I always liked pasta and pizza, but it really is so much better here than in the states. I had the best slice today at "Pugi's" which is famous for Easter cakes, so we just peaked inside to see them, but as usual don't leave without some snack. At my house here we just discovered that we have five tortises in our backyard and one is forty-five years old! Dad and him chat sometimes, being the same age and all. I enjoy walking to the library by my house in Italy because I love to read and we can rent DVDs to watch in Italian and English. My mom and I got a few good laughs out of watching Hugh Grant sing and dance in "Music and Lyrics," but could only get it to play in Italian (but after watching it twice we think we got the main idea and some good dance moves). If you need to share the amusement, watch link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvJw5OtpKc

i love lemons!

march 20-23

today (thursday the 20) we went to one of the Medici palaces called the Palazzo Riccardi. At the palace they had a chapel built into the palace because they liked haveing there own church so they didn't have to go out to another church with the commoners. But the Medicis did give a lot of the money to hire pepole like Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, Ghiberto, to make the churchs and chapels. Something really popular with the palaces here is that they all have courtyards inside the middle of the palace so they aren't seen by commoners. Also a way you can tell a palace from the outside is that the windows are barred and twenty feet off the groung. They made there windows like this because they didn't want the same thing to happen to there palaces that happend to the statue of david. for those of you that don't know the story of the statue of david it is that the david used to stand in the middle of the piazza della signore until a mad "commoner" threw a bench at the statue of david and broke off its arm. Also at the palace they had lemon trees! I have allways wanted a lemon tree so this made me happy.

i welcome you gratefuly spring.

spring has hit fiesole and the tourists have started to gather, all of them thinking that they will come before the big crowds hit in april may and june when it is nice and warm. they think to themselves, "well, it may not be super warm but it will be at least 80." and right they were for the first few weekes of spring, but the springs here are very different then the ones at home in utah. i shall explain what the spring weather was like this week for you: monday:sunny. tuesday:sunny. wedensday:breezy. thursday:monsoon. friday:blistering bitter coldness called wind. saturday:snow. and the weather man on our small tv predicts in italian that tomorrow people might want to consider staying inside. the first two days of the week were lovly indeed. my school went on a teacher strike so no school monday. me and my mother went to the university where my father is working and had lunch with the partners group (the partners group is a group of some of the spouses that have significant others at the university). the following photos are from the last day of sunny delightfulness this week.

the week of 45 anni

march 15.
today is my papa' s birthday. we made a lemon cake in our very small oven. over the weekend there were many exciting events. the reopening of the piazza del fiesole which had been under construction for seven years. there was free food, marching bands, priests, and mayors. there is a new visitors center that shows the old etruscan and roman roads. everyone in town came to see the red ribbon be cut. the band played a lot of disney songs for some reason. we also went to a really cool antique market down in firenze. mom and I ate great street hamburgers (dad had sliced pig head). we hiked up to the top of the hill in fiesole and looked at the old church and the great views of florence.

A Taste of Tuscany

a day at the market.today we went to the central market, the main market in florence.we bought cheese,meat,dried fruit,undried fruits and undried vegetables. some of the meat tables got a little scary.we got tiny tiny clementines the size of golf balls.i found an exiting tree in our backyard today.while pondering during one of my bigest windstorms.from ten feet away it looked as if i could climb it easliy. but when i reached the touring albero(tree) i was displeased with my oponent. i realised this would be a little harder than i tought.i tried....footholds and handholds.but the albero was not going to admit defeat that easliy. my next idea was climbing on a stump. once again unsuccessful. so while knowing that that was the last safe option i sat for a moment at the base of the mighty albero. thinking out my gameplan.i knew a couple of things about this situation.A.no way would either of my parents help me up.my parents lived by a rule called"if you can climb it you can climb it" meaning i'm not gonna help you get up but if you can get up and down without my help i have no problem with you climbing that.B.i couldent let my mother catch me doing this until i was absalutley postive it would work.so walked over to the picnic table picked up an aditinol stump walked over to the tree with my second stump and placed it ontop of the other stump at the base of the tree. then i climed ontop of the stumps and lunged for the closet branch got up and down the tree alive.

ps it 's such a cool tree.

what i normally do every twenty-four hours

i say three sentences in italian, all of which are something like, non capisco-i don't know, si mangia mela-yeah i am eating an apple, capisca-i know. i sit through four classes in italian and one in english. i practice trying to make my hand writing look italian (all letters in capital and super simple, making my 4s looking like a question mark, and making my 9's look like backwards g's). in math i have been doing a lot of different things to try to figure out where my level should be. for PE we have played volley ball and a type of rugby. we do not have a lunch break, instead we eat a snack for 15 minutes. after school i walk home by the "casa di popolo- the house of the people" to buy a treat. i come home and usually watch lost, go to the library, or do italian lessons. most everything is closed from 1-4pm so we stay at home until 4pm, at least until the weather gets warmer. some of you guys said that we should go to school six days a week and i would like to advise you all that you would not like that system. how many of you guys want to wake up at 7:30am every day go to school get out of school at 1:30? be grateful for your M-F school week.

Another Pet?

My mom and I have found some amazing creatures in our new home. We did some research on these tile roaming bad boys. They are known as dust bunnies. Definition of dust bunny: A small clump of dust, fluff and particles of skin, hair, etc. that tends to accumulate in a domestic environment in places that are not dusted; reputed to be held together by static electricity.


In some regions of Britain, dust bunnies are sometimes called '''beggar's velvet'''.

A dustbunny cleaner has been invented. It consists of a robotic ball with an electrostatic sleeve that rolls about under furniture collecting dustbunnies and other material. A more cost efficient dustbunny cleaner is also in popular use within Northern America. (People call this invention a BROOM)

Dust bunnies have large digestive tracks that can smelt metals of various kinds, dust bunnies can leap over entire cities provided the wind is favorable and have been known to overpower electronics on frequent occasions. Reports say that dust bunnies have also been known to eat blueberry muffins while hiding in mufflers. The best thing about dust bunnies is that if your mom sweeps them up, they come right back.

sicilian oranges

the school bellhop man likes to bring us scicilian oranges.

his oranges are large,round and extra juicy.they come in big

wooden crates.i belive he has a farm down south west.

A discovery almost as important as
Amerigo Vespucci’s

There are a few things in life that at a point everyone
Must see or eat. these things are found only in London England, or so I thought. I will provide some of them 4
You. Big Ben, changing of the guards, lush the soap store, Borough Market, as far as eating goes…….
Tangfastics, chicken tika masala, blueberry shortbread, Beard Pappa cream puffs (strawberry) but not all in one meal. while pondering the surroundings of the duomo looking 4 the film store I taught I taugh a lush sign I craned my head a little to the left and sure enough on a small street hidin’ among the streets of Florence a small sized lush. i screamed the word ”LUSH!” and ran across the street to the small store full of soap wheels. while pondering I saw all the classics “honey I washed the kids” bath bombs goldys locks and chocolate soap. then in the glory and mist of it all I saw some purple, blue, white and pink jello. when about to reach out and eat a piece a employee walked over and asked me if I would like to try a piece. i looked at her and thought to myself a what do you think I’m doing lady and then, it hit me. i was in a soap store this jello stuff was soap and the employee was asking me if I would enjoy washing my hands with blue lemon scented jello. This wiggly giggly thing is now the closet thing I have to a pet. and don’t get me wrong she aint’ no muddy puppy.

carnevale

carnevale is one of the biggest holidays in the year for italy.

we went to a church carnevale party. jill my young womens

leader was a french maiden and i was minnie mouse...my costume made by an italian seamstress. at the carnevale party a man was going around with a big plate of foccattia and telling everybody to take a piece. finally i took one and underneath was a plastic piece of poo. we bobbed for apples and had a pinata. it was a gathering of all of the young men and woman in florence-there were about 50 of them. three who spoke english. we also went to a carnevale party in the city of florence the next day where we saw dancers and lots of costumes. there was a ton of confetti in the streets and kids loved squirting string.