ciao ciao,

How is everyone doing?????
Don't be jealous of me guys, cause it's hard work here and this is only the introductory week :S
I am at the monastery from 9 am till 6 pm and we have classes which go on for 1 1/2 hours without any breaks, so that's a lot of fun. For the philosophy lovers among you: I am taking a crash course and I am not liking it at all. Sorry for you :(
During the weekend it has only been raining, which was a real shame, but still we were able to do some sightseeing. We just took the really touristic tour (of course) and went to see the San Marco and the Rialto bridge. Furthermore, we took the vaporetto n.1 which takes you all over the canale grande, which is really nice and gives you a nice view of the city.
I have had many pizzas already, and they are sooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than the Dutch ones!!!!! Yes, and nice too sweet breakfasts as well, since the Italians have the strange habit of not having breakfast.
Real life started on Monday and it takes some time getting used to the long hours. I am very much looking forward to the second stream courses, which will be a lot of new information for me. Next week there will be one on violence. But................................. first a lot of reading which needs to be done :S And I am faaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr behind. Yes, socialising takes time and effort :) But there are a lot of great people here, so I am really enjoying myself.
Hopefully we are going to be able to move to the Lido soon where we will be able to share an appartment and have our own rooms :) Very much looking forward to that!!!!!! Especially since it is getting really cold here and taking the vaporetto in the morning is not the most healthy thing to do. Furthermore, it appears that public transportation is on a strike at least once every month which it is not handy if you need to take a boat twice a day :)

Well, that's it for now, cause I have to catch the vaporetto and start reading!!!!!!

Talk to you all again soon and a big hug from Venice,

Chantal