September 24th

The last few days have been rather exciting, or at least rather busy. Thursday in particular. Basically, we had our meetings with our proff last week. Third years on Tuesday and fourth and fifth years on Thursday. I'm not all that sure what happened in the third years meeting, but the fourth year one went well. It was pretty much a glorified show and tell, while you give ideas on how you plan to spend the rest of the next seven months. A lot of the folks have very impressive artworks and I'm very excited to see my colleagues work progress. I showed my water colour sketches I've done at camp and while I've been here. After seeing them, my proff told me just to keep on doing them and not really change what I do. I was expecting some suggestion of doing something else with the water colours, like to push myself or such nonsense, but my Proff, Sarah, thinks that's not necessary.

Wednesday, we visited the Brancacci Chapel, which features fresco's painted by Masaccio and Masolino. Most notably, Masaccio's Tribute Money painted in 1424. Stunning stunning cathedral, however you're only allowed to be inside for fifteen minutes at a time. So basically, the amount of time it takes to pick your jaw off the floor.

Thursday night, was the "Welcome Day" celebration for all the American university's and colleges. As OCAD is from North America, we tagged a long as well. Located in the beautiful Pazzalo Vecchio, we sat through speeches from various people of significance (representatives from the Prime Minister and Regional president, An American Ambassador and even the Mayor of Florence). Very nice, but also a bit boring. As OCAD is the only Canadian School, no one mentioned Canada at all, so I felt displaced from a vast majority of what was said. Afterwards though there was a fantastic bloc party on the steps of San Lorenzo and we got to meet folks from other schools (in the states) and enjoy free food, drink and pumping music. Apparently, there is at least 130 folks here from California alone, a small group of people from over thirty American schools which have abroad programs in Firenze.