So, just a quick description of what my morning looks like nowadays:
7am--wake up, get up, open the shutters, gasp anew at the views.
7:10-7:45--messages. Check facebook and email on my blackberry, respond to whatever needs responding to. Read my Bible. I have been feeling really convicted recently that reading my Bible should be what I want to do first, but it isn't. I want to hear from people back home and communicate with them. Something to pray about.
7:45-8:15--make breakfast and lunch. I figured out how to make European coffee in European coffe pots (neither a drip pot nor a French press, it's on the stove and is difficult to explain). Breakfast so far is bread and Nutella (mmmmm) and lunch is a tomato, salami, and buffalo mozzarella cheese sandwich (mmmmm!!!!!)
8:15-8:35--get dressed and ready for school.
8:40 (ish) say goodbye to roomates and begin the walk to school.
I'm getting better at the walk to school--the first part is tricky for one with no sense of direction. I have to get to the road on the other side of the central train station, which means either being a total clueless tourist and crossing where there are no traffic lights or crosswalks (very very dangerous and bad idea) or navigating the convenient underground unmarked tunnel system that goes right under the dangerous plaza. The unmarked is a big problem for one with my sense of direction, since you have to rely on instinct to know which tunnel to turn up and down. Today was my best day so far, I came out in almost the exact right spot, which cut my walking time down by five minutes!
Next I walk through all the construction, and I've finally figured out which side of the street is the safe one with a sidewalk. After this street there is a difficult piazza to navigate, but again, I've finally figured out the correct cross walks to be able to navigate it without risking "death by motorino". The motorcycles are not as fierce as in Rome, but you still have to be on your guard.
While I am doing all this, I often see people riding bicycles in the middle of this traffic, helmetless, and talking on the phone! I am listening to my ipod myself, but at least I'm on foot and on the sidewalk!
Then I navigate down one more road, past one more construction site, through one more stoplight, over a bridge, and I'm at the dojo.
Yes, we have class in a dojo. The class is 19 people big, too many for the smaller rooms they have at the actual teaching institute. The dojo is three numbers down the street and has a large room we can all sit in. Often in the afternoon we pass the martial arts classes happening in Italian. This is often some of the only Italian I hear all day (unfortunately.) The rooms are always a little chilly, so I dress in layers!
That's my morning, to give you an idea of what my current life is like. The afternoons are so unpredictable so far that I have no idea if they will settle down into some sort of a pattern. We'll see!!
