English lesson, tutoring session

Ciao!

So yesterday, after being very productive on my work, I took the bus an hour away to Benedetta's house to teach her parents English, as promised. Antonio seemed to know a lot more than Annarita, but they were both hilarious and fun to work with. I didn't know where to begin, but there were a lot of things that Antonio wanted to work on, so we just started from there. It was soooo funny to hear them try to pronounce their th's and ed's. They had a really hard time with that... it's a work in progress!

We had dinner as a break between the lesson and it was very good. Roasted potatoes, green beans, salad, and steak, sausage and peppers on sticks. It was much more healthy than Maria Pia's cooking, thank goodness. (By the way, I asked Maria Pia to stop making me pasta and only serve me the main course. She fortunately complied. Phew. Save a few calories there.) For dessert, we had fruit, and cantucci with Vin Santo. So yummy. Then, we got back to the lesson!

Poor Annarita was having a lot of trouble with the alphabet because, in Italian, the letter E, sounds like the English letter A, and I sounds like the English letter E. So, she kept messing it up. Sometimes I do too when I'm saying the alphabet, so it's ok. We ended the lesson around 10:30 and I was sooooo tired.

Side note: Of course, Benedetta was there and was telling me about this huge party that she's having in January for her 18th birthday (18 is big here, just like 16 is big at home). It's going to be in a castle in Fiesole! Soooo cool! And, she has invited me, Kevin, Maggie, Maggie and Andrea! It was sooo nice of her and I'm really excited. Except, it's formal, so I'm going to have to find a dress when I get home for Christmas. Ugh.

So anyway, after all that, Annarita and Antonio brought me home.

Today was also a big day. However, it was exhausting. For Museologia tutoring, we all met at the Uffizi Gallery to do a quick run-through of the important pieces of art, etc. The biggest treat came second, with the Vasarian Corridor. The Vasarian Corridor is a long corridor (duh) that starts from the Uffizi, runs along the private area of the Uffizi, through the Palazzo Vecchio, over the Ponte Vecchio and the Arno, through the top of a church, and finishes in the Boboli Gardens behind Palazzo Pitti. It is about 1 km long and is filled with paintings on both sides of the corridor.

In the past, it's original use was for the Medici family. They used to use the corridor as a cut through from the Uffizi (their gallery) to their home in Palazzo Pitti (Boboli Gardens out back). Naturally (ha), they didn't want to have to go outside and walk to their home for risk of dirtying their shoes! They also created this corridor as a way of "walking over the heads" of the regular townspeople. Hmmm... a little arrogant I would say?

The special thing about the Vasarian Corridor nowadays is that it's not opened to the public because none of the works are protected by glass or rails, and the corridor is too small to handle large masses of people. The only way to see the Vasarian Corridor is by making a reservation WAY in advance and paying a TON of money. The Corridor is usually closed, so the reason it costs so much is because they have to turn everything on, and get a staff member to accompany you the whole way. Plus, you can only bring a max of about 10 or so people. To get idea, most websites I went to said that the admission price for one person was around 90 euro. I'm assuming that part of our tuition this year went to this tour, because we didn't have to pay anything today.

It was the coolest thing to see! We got to walk over the Arno and look down on all the places that we usually walk. The paintings were beautiful and we were able to get our faces right up next to them! Nothing in the way! It was also amazing to be all alone in this huge corridor. Elisa, despite being evil, is still incredibly knowledgeable about all of the artwork, so she made a great tour guide. That is one experience that I will never forget. So many Florentines still have not seen the Corridor and never will! Also, come January, it will be closing for 2 years for restorations. I didn't see anything that needed restoring, but whatever.

So after that, we had our Storia del Costume tutoring and now I'm back home. I'm dead and I have mountains of work today because I have two presentations due for next week and my internship resumes to work on. I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday!

More to come this weekend! Ciao!