30th
Corri La Vita and The Plebs
Everyday is more eventful than the one before. Today was the Corri La Vita (Run for Life - a charity race / walk to benefit cancer research) in Florence. All of the HUF students participated, along with nearly 12,000 Italians and visitors. The walk was 6 K, and wound throughout some of the most beautiful areas of Florence. We started and finished at the church of Santa Croce (where Michelangelo is buried), and walked through beautiful gardens and parks, down ritzy commercial districts (featuring Gucci, Louis Vittion, Prada, Dolce and Gabana, etc) and by ancient and modern architecture alike. One of the benefits of participating was entrance into many historic buildings and museums that aren’t normally open to the public. It began slowly, as you can imagine with 12,000 people walking in a group down narrow European roads, but thinned out and sped up as the walk progressed. A few of us practiced our Italian by singing, rather appropriately I thought, a song we learned in class called “Camminando,” about walking together with friends. The entire walk, nearly 4 miles in total, took 2 hours and 17 minutes for the Logan, Will and me. We were startving after we finished, so we walked around some more looking for a reasonably priced caffe. After lunch we bought ridiculously large cups of Gelato, to balance out all the calories we had walked off.
We made it back to the villa with just enough time to take a much needed nap before class. We had class (Christian Home) outside in the beautiful courtyard, since it was such a nice day. After class, we had a worship service downstairs in the basement. Since its a smaller area, the acoustics really make our singing incredible. Our teachers made dinner, because the villa staff is off on Sundays. We had several guests, including a local ska band, The Plebs. The lead singer, Thomaso, was a Harding student a few years ago.
The band put on an energetic performance after dinner in the courtyard of villa. Several Harding rules were broken, as there was unchoreographed dancing going on (shh…). Everyone had a blast! I even caught a few glimpses of the Bartees (our professors) busting some moves. I took several pictures, and also a few videos, which I’ll try to post in the next few days. I know that I’ve been writing a lot, but we’ve been doing a lot, so if I don’t update often, I’ll get behind quickly.
