And the classes have begun...

(top photo is the view from the villa balcony during sunset and the bottom is the view from my bedroom window)

It's been 2 days, so I guess I will start with day number one, which was Tuesday. With a fairly free morning, we headed out of the villa around 9:30 to go exploring, taking the scenic route down to the port. We walked through some wonderful alleyways full of meat markets, bakeries, and interesting little shops. The aroma was incredible with all of the fresh bread and food being prepared for the day. After taking this lovely walk through the city we arrive at Porto Antico, the old harbor area of the city which has been redeveloped fairly recently by a very well known architect, Renzo Piano, who is actually a native of Genoa. There's an interesting iconinc tensile structure used for all types of events. It currently houses an ice skating rink which is a definite for sometime soon, potentially this weekend. There's also and aquarium, and and glass biosphere. Wow, I love this city, especially after having my first gelato in a cafe by the port, yum! Then walking a little farther down the port, we encountered the pirate ship. So, so much walking back to the villa, but we finally made it back walked a little farther to explore the area around the castle that on our street. Italian class also started on Tuesday, which was actually extremely fun. I'm so glad to finally be learning the language! And then there was gelato number two of the day, an after dinner snack. Oh my, this is getting bad already. It's an addiction!

Then, there is today, Wednesday, we had class this morning starting with a lecture on European architecture, then learning some more Italian. Speaking of Italian, I was so pround of myself when I went to order gelato this afternoon, I had the entire conversation in Italian. It was quite and accomplishment! Studio started today also. We got a brief introduction of our project which I'm really excited about. It's located in the historic area of Genoa. We then got to take the long walk through extremely cold temperatures to do a site visit, fantastic!, no really, it was fun. We got to see lots of interesting things along the way including many shops that must be revisited for a little spending. We were able to go in the main cathedral of Genoa as well as visiting a more modern museum located in the cathedral that was designed by a local architecture school. And best of all, on the way back, we stopped in an adorable little linen store and bought blankets, this should solve the not being able to sleep problem since our bedroom is incredibly cold. Brrr, yes, i'm wrapped up in a coat a blanket and wearing socks as I sit in my bed typing this at 2am.