The first of Spring

It's been awhile, I'm sorry I haven't written. I've been really busy as of late, doing schoolwork and such.

So last week was pretty crazy. I couldn't decide whether to travel or not because I felt so dragged down by the upcoming papers to be done. However, I finally decided to go with some great girls to see Bologna and Verona coming home a day early, to rest. It turned out to be the best decision I could have made. I got to know these girls better and they are good people. The kind that won't let you walk home alone.

But more on that later. First I'd like to tell you about the day before I left, Thursday morning, the first day of Spring. It was a weird, weird, day. Following im's with people from home, I went to Italian class for a quiz. Since it was quiz day, all of the desks were turned into rows, from the half circle that they usually formed, to face our Professor. Behind us was the door. Behind her were two windows, one on either side, big, covering more than half the height of the lifted ceiling.

It was an over cast day: which soon turned into a drizzle. After the quiz, we continued on with a lesson until some one interrupted our teacher with, "Is it snowing!!?" Professoressa whipped around and everyone in the class squinted harder at the soft flakes floating past the third story window.

Just the day before, on Wednesday, I made plans with a newly found friend (her name is jaclyn too) to go for a run with her and a few of her roommates, on this day. They recently found a park that was great for running in-- (a rare commodity in this hilly town.)

So, while my Professor was giving a lecture on Pasato Prossimo verses Imperfecto, my eyes were focused on the falling snow, wondering if Jaci would still be up for a run. After class she called to say they were still going to go. After all, the snow had slowed down to a drizzle, melting before it hit the ground. I asked my roommate, Tina if she wanted to come and we got excited about running in the new park.

We headed, on the Mini Metro, (pictures of the amazing Mini Metro, soon to come) towards the soccer stadium and park. In the slow public transportation, the snow began to get heavier and heavier. Tina kept looking at me anxiously, and I returned her uneasily glances with an over excited grin. I never lived in a place where it snowed before and it was extremely rare for me to be in actual snow fall. I was pumped.

But by the time we arrived, the snow actually started sticking to the ground and growing, instead of melting. It got colder. This was such a random thing, who would have thought? Snow fall in Italy, not in January or February, but in March?

I was still intent on running, not only because of my fascination with the weather, but because Tina and I were determined to stay disciplined and stick to our new running schedule.

So we went out into the seemingly-lovely-but-impossible-to-tell-because-it was-all-white park, and began. At first it was great. It felt good to move and reminded me of those hard core soccer days of mine, when we played in hail, rain, sleet, mud, desert storms, heat storms, etc. We even decided to play a game while running involving the alphabet and naming things that we could bring to "grandma's house" But it wasn't long before we both got brain freezes. I'm convinced that we would have been fine if we had hats. But our heads got cold, and that eventually made our bodies incapable of moving any longer. So we gave up after a 9 minute jog and sprinted to the Mini Metro. Not bad if you ask me. After all it was snow. A winter wonderland on the first day of spring! We came home to take some pictures at our overlook.