Yep, you guessed it – this girl!  I am so excited!!!!!  Prior to departing the States my good friend Liz’s hairdresser, Amanda, cut my hair and all I remember her talking about is her boyfriend had just traveled abroad and his favorite place that he visited was Belgium.  To be exact is was Bruges, so I am going to try my best to get us there for a day, as it is only two hours or so by train from Brussels. Our plan is to leave next Thursday evening and take the train to Milan, spend the night for an early Friday am flight to Brussels and then return Monday morning.  I have booked what appears to be an adorable flat via Airbnb. Thanks to the suggestion from my friend Kelly, this  has been my go to for booking these days.  I have no idea what I want to do while in Brussels, but that is my next task to research for our trip.  Working out all the travel logistics sometimes gets quite tricky and can be time consuming, but I know that it will be worth it in the end.

The above pictures are borrowed from the internet, but just a preview as to what is to come next weekend!

Today’s weather is unfortunately rainy and chilly, but like I mentioned the other day Luca states that we want it to be rainy in January, as it will make for a beautiful Spring – which I am banking on!  Last night the students were very sweet and asked me to join them in a new game that they were playing, it was called pictionary telephone.  It was a really fun game, and we all enjoyed ourselves. The object of the game was to have as many blank pieces of paper as you had participants.  In the first round you wrote a word, phrase, or whatever you wished on the top piece of paper.  You then passed your stack of paper to your right and that individual had to take a new piece of paper and draw what you wrote on the previous piece of paper.  Then you passed to the right again and the next person had to guess what was drawn, and so forth.  Somehow my “a man and his dog” quickly went south and somehow ended up involving a depiction of drugs at the end… what?!?!?  But it was really a fun game, and I am thankful for the students for involving me in their fun activity.

The meals that Cristina (our cook) has prepard lately have been the most amazing meals that we have had to date.  We had one of my favorite dishes the other day for lunch, pesto!  I am not sure if maybe she got a new cookbook for Christmas, or maybe she is feeling a little more adventurous with this group of students, but I am in no way, shape or form complaining, I want her to keep this up!  The students are really enjoying her cooking and baking and one even commented the other day that she had only been her for a week, but could not even imagine returning back to the States and her way of life there.  I will have to agree with her, having lunch and dinner prepared for you on a daily basis is a pretty sweet deal.  With warm foccacia and all the tea and coffee anyone could dream of at your disposal every morning – I sometimes have to put myself in check and remember that in four short months this will all come to an end 🙁

This is not our actual focaccia – as it is already gone for the day 🙂