"Theres a gypsy to your left"

So my Italian Culture teacher named Francesca is a riot. For most of our classes we go on walking tours throughout the city. On Monday we went to Michelangelo's house and saw some of his original works of art. It was really pretty neat and his house slash museum is actually on the street that I live on (Via Ghibellina) so I thought that was really cool! But back to Francesca...so when we go on these walking tours since our group is so many (48 people total) we all have walkie talkie like things that have a special ear piece. Francesca talks into the microphone that she has and then we came all hear her through our ear piece. So the other day for example, we were walking through town and she says "theres a gypsy to your left!" or "awww cute puppy!" in the middle of her explaining an ancient building hahah. So at the Michelangelo museum, the lady that worked there took her job a little too seriously and did not care for us too much. She was yelling at us for taking pictures so the second she walked away Francesca tells us to take as many pictures as we want because this is a once in a lifetime experience. Of course we are all cracking up as she's saying this in our ear but the lady has no idea why we were all laughing. After our tour of the museum she took us to the only synagogue in the world to be built and designed by a Christian man. And during World War II it was occupied by the Nazi's and used as a base to store weapons. It was really beautiful as it has been recently restored. Then she took us to her favorite gelato place in town where I got chocolate hazelnut and vanilla almond flavored. The guy that owned the place makes all his own chocolate in the store and had every flavor imaginable including chocolate with chili powder! It was delicious!
All these Italian professors seemed to be characters. My Italian language professor named Manola is also quite the character. She explained to us yesterday that when you go out on a date with a boy there are two questions you must ask: #1. Are you rich? #2. Can you cook, clean, and iron? If the answer to #1 is yes...you sit down (if he has money you can pay someone to cook, clean, and iron), if the answer is no you hope that the answer to #2 is yes. If the answer to #2 is Yes than you sit down. If its no to both then you say "Arreviderci!" and walk away! HAhaha! She is really too funny! Today she explained to us that there is a strict dress code in class unlike class in America. She almost fainted when we told her that kids wear their pj's to class at Rutgers! Once the weather gets warmed we are not allowed to wear flip flops or shorts in class. This is going to call for some shopping as I only brought 3 pairs of flip flops and nothing else for the warmer weather! (Which I can't wait for!)
This cold, raining weather is doing me in. I have a nasty, lingering cough. Today I bought some cough medicine at the farmacia (thats Italian for pharmacy haha). It was a little challenging because the man barely spoke English but so far I'm still alive so it wasn't poison! haha. Who knows...maybe it works wonders...hopefully!!
Oh and remember that flood in the kitchen? Well it was never actually fixed and was even more of a flood on Monday morning and all day Monday when the whole apartment was out at class. We returned home to find the bucket (that was supposed to be catching the water) completely overflowed and water rapidly running down the sides. Of course the plumber was at other apartments because there were "emergencies" that were more important than the rapids that were quickly filling the kitchen. Finally after several turns of mopping it up and dumping the bucket the plumber showed up at 12:00 am!! (yes...12:00am..thats one thing I have learned about Italians...they do not rush for anything!...that includes a leaky pipe thats filling the kitchen!) So thankfully this morning we woke up to a dry kitchen floor!
Tomorrow its off to language class and studying for midterms. Then for culture class we are going to the San Lorenzo Market which has all fresh foods and produce where Francesca is going to teach us how to by things there. I'm excited. And then hopefully and finally to Ikea (said I-kay-ya in Italian) to get hangers so I can finally hang up my clothes in my closet!! I can't wait to get them!! And we need some other stuff for the apartment but then I think I will finally be settled in. Later gators!