Cara Maria

I had the best morning in Florence and learned lots of Italian from the sweetest old man, Juan Carlo at a little street cafe.  I stopped there on my way to the Ponte Vecchio for breakfast.

This was my breakfast, a croissant and an espresso.  I am still getting used to ordering food in Italy.  The cafe was so cute, outside of course, and on a beautiful piazza (square) near an old cathedral.

Italians like it much better when you try to speak Italian rather than English so this morning I gave it my best shot and asked the waiter for my check in Italian and completely butchered it, which made me, the waiter, and the old guy next me laugh.  Juan Carlo the old guy ended up spending the next 2 hours teaching me some Italian.  He knew no English so I really did learn a lot of Italian.  He ended up calling me Cara Maria the whole time which I could not figure out but learned later it meant "my dear mary" literally but i think its a common term of a friendship.  I never made it to the Ponte Vecchio but it was an unexpected and amazing morning!

I have been doing homework this afternoon and I am about to go to my first school dinner but I also wanted to share some pictures of my hotel room that I am in for the weekend before we move into our apartment.

I have no clue what the other thing is, its like a urinal?

Ciao!!

~ML