William and I at the CF pool! We went on Friday afternoon and it was so packed and fun! There were tons of Italians there, multicolored umbrellas everywhere, and fun Italian pop music while people did a "water aerobics" type thing called acqua gym. Practically all the men wore speedos and were all tan and very muscular. The swim team was actually practicing there that day too! If you notice it is also required to wear swim caps in the water and we all felt pretty dorky. It made us look like smurfs! This picture is from Sunday afternoon, the last day that it was open and it was really empty because it was late in the afternoon. 

 The pool was AMAZING because you could lay in the pool and look back up at the tower of CF in the distance! It was pretty cold but felt really nice because it has been unseasonably hot here for the past couple of days. Especially when you have crazy hills to hike in order to get anywhere! Funny story...I was in the pool for the first time and i left my sunglasses on and this really good looking lifeguard starts staring at me and walking closer to me, granted he has to walk all the way around the pool. He comes over and says ciao. I thought he was being friendly so I said hi back with a huge smile. He was actually trying to yell at me to take my sunglasses off in the pool. Super embarrassing. It was a good laugh!!

 Coming back from the pool. 

 Monday morning! The clouds were so incredible yesterday. 

 This is Paolo. He is a native from Florence and is an associate professor for A&M. He is the director of the non-profit that runs our school and may be one of the wisest men I know, just from knowing him for a week. The way that he talks about architecture and religion is so interesting. While he speaks Italian as his first language, his english is so cute! He was taking us around the town yesterday because he has been coming here for over 20 years and knows so much! As we were going up one of the MANY steep streets, he was walking up slowly but surly and so quietly said "this is the advantage of being 20" with the most jealous tone. He was adorable. He took us into the city all which is pictured above. In the medieval times, every town had its own identity and would have their own measurements. The ones in the picture where the length of stones for the buildings, pieces of wood, bricks, and such so that CF would have it's own type of design. 

 This is the view looking West from the top of the city. This is where the train station is located. 

Paolo also took us into the old library. It was awesome! I know I have said that 100 times but everything is amazing here. These were some of the books on the shelves. I thought it looked fake but it was super inspiring. We were even allowed to take some and open them. That would have never happened in America! 


After the tour with Paolo it made me love my little town of CF even more. Everyone here is a family and while it is small it has such a history. Could life get better?