At little bit about EUI...

I'm writing this post from the courtyard of the Badia, where once there were cloisters attached to the church, which is part of the EUI complex (for those of you who don't know - I'm visiting at EUI for the semester - EUI being the European University Institute). In this church Lorenzo di Medici (Il Magnifico)'s son Giovanni was made a cardinal at the tender age of 12 or so.

Then there is the Villa Schifanoia, which is where the law department is. This is where Boccaccio supposedly wrote his Decameron. It is also mentioned in the book Room With A View within that context (an English lady inhabits it in that book).

I still can't get over the fact that I'm going to school here, if only for a semester.

It's mid-September and I'm in shorts and a tanktop, my back to a column, a gentle breeze blowing, with wireless internet. That's what really gets me - the wireless internet. It's nice to live in the 21st century but be surrounded by edifices whose origins go back centuries. Let's face it, I don't think I would have much enjoyed living even as recently as the renaissance. As a 25 year old woman, I would be married, with a pile of kids, if lucky enough to afford servants, ordering them about, or else doing all the chores myself. And forget about clothing comfort. Medical care would be nearly nonexistant, my odds of dying in childbirth great. Worst of all - there would be no wireless internet...