New apartment tomorrow!

Hey all,

Sorry for the posts and emails getting a bit sporadic – I still cannot log on to basically any website that requires a login (gmail, hotmail (in utter desperation I attempted to use a MS product), blogger, facebook etc etc etc) at the house I am staying at and am writing this at a cafe without wifi – would have got online at school after class, but had to go check out the new apartment, which I will definitely take. Hopefully I will find somewhere to post it from tonight. It is about 20-25 minute walk from the school, which is in central (centro) - and although I got horribly lost on the way out it is just the one road all the way in to the school, so once I practice not turning any corners a couple of times I reckon I should be able to manage it without ending up in the wrong suburb... I am still unclear on exactly how I got lost on the way there, as it really is a case of one road. It seems to happen.

It is an apartment with another student at the school, who I have not met yet, but who is on to his second course, so will hopefully be able to give me some pointers, which the family I am with does not seem wildly interested in doing – I can use the stove when I want, the laundry more than once a week, and although the unit looks like someone has basically renovated a spare cupboard (seriously, I have to crouch to get in to the bathroom and walk bent in half to use the laundry – will take some photos but did not want to piss off the new landlord by doing so when she was showing me around), the bedroom has a ceiling that is high enough to stand in, a window, even a fan. Best still, the internet there works correctly, so I will be able to answer emails and do blog updates in a fairly timely manner. Joy. Have felt horribly cut off for a few days. I can live without my balcony and surely it won't be that bad sharing a bathroom with a single German, despite what Southpark suggests about their habits.

Anyway, I will tell the school I will take it tomorrow morning, and they will inform my current host family, then the new landlady will actually pick me up in a car tomorrow night so I don't have to trapse all over Florence with about 50 kilos of books. So, looking forward to it and feeling miles more positive – also means I get to sleep at least an extra 40 minutes or so before I have to get up in the morning. Win Win Win. I anticipate some dramas and arm waving from current Mamma, but then if she could have unclenched enough to let me use the stove I might not be going. Thanks to K for insisting that I get off my backside and at least ask about changing places ;)

In other news, I am pretty sure I am the dunce of the class, which is an experience I have not have since going back to university two weeks after my motorbike accident with severe concussion. Once again it is an interesting (!) exercise in humility, although at least this time I am not living with the terror that the stupidity and total incomprehension might be permanent.

Photos – the walk to school from new apartment, a coffee shop on the way. Rewarding myself with a Nicaraguan cigar (D – email if you want the brand – worth trying) – I consoled myself with one too, before I found the place.

Dinner tonight with class, then have to figure out how to get back to my current flat after the standard buses stop. Am sure nothing can go wrong with that.

More joy – just checked again and the coffee shop I am at has at least three dopes in the vicinity with open wifi points. Am going to try to post this now.

Cheers, B.