Make up time

Seth comes back from Indianapolis tomorrow! It will be great to have someone to clean out the shower drain ;o) Mom and Dad, too, returned from their cruise yesterday and are spending a few more days in Italy before flying home. I had thought about meeting up with them in Cinque Terre but the combination of threatening weather and quadruple the class workload made me think again. Both my professors doubled the assignments for the week, and I only have half the time to complete them so I can go to Rome for a few days without taking a bag of books with me. Before I get to work (and before I forget), I want to put up a mishmosh of pictures from the past week or two.

We spent a day at the Accademia della Crusca, located in a beautiful Medici villa on the other side of town. It is dedicated to the preservation and study of the Italian language. I'm still not totally sure what they do here, but they were awfully proud of their dictionary. Even more cool is that they had a wheat and bread theme! (After crusca, which is the bran of wheat).

Ponte Vecchio by night

I bought some baccala to try. It is salted cod, very popular in traditional Tuscan cuisine. To prepare, it must be soaked in water for three days. This salty and stiff stage reminded me of the preserved snakes I used to work with in Pfennig's lab. Disgusting.

The Saturday market buzzing yesterday morning.

Particularly creative vandalism

He looks innocent, but he is very mischievous! We usually let him run freely in the bedroom at night, but yesterday when I went in he slipped out without me knowing. When I opened the door to leave he was waiting on the other side, trying to get back in. I guess the freedom was a little too much for him (either that or he knows the treats are in the bedroom!).

Having breakfast together