Hello! Not much new to report here. Yesterday, we went on our first day trip. (We will be taking a day trip every Tuesday for my field studies class.) Sometimes we'll get to go to other cities, like Turin, Como, and Milan, but yesterday we just toured around the medieval district and the port of Genoa with our professor/tour guide, Guidita. (My photo shows the port.) The trip was really informative but absolutely exhausting! We left from the villa at 8:30 in the morning and didn't get back until after 7 at night. By the time we got back, I was completely drained and completely frozen through. Monday and today were full of classes. We have fewer classes here, but the classes are much longer. My contemporary architecture class this morning was 3 hours long.

This afternoon was interesting. Catherine, Judith, and I visited our site to measure about 20 nearby buildings, but since we couldn't find a tape measurer, we had to measure the width of all the buildings by counting out meter-long strides (which look more like lunges). We spent about an hour pacing/lunging out the length of the buildings, while the locals stared at us, wondering what those foreigners could possibly be doing. Our professor also told us to analyze circulation through the space, so Judith had to stalk several people to figure out the routes that they take through the site. From my experience, I've learned that site analyses always require you to act a little sketchy. On the way home, to reward ourselves, we bought flowers to brighten up our room.

Tomorrow we only have one class (yay!) and after our Friday class, Judith, Catherine, Ashley, Michael, Zac, and I are taking a train to Pisa for the weekend!