Photos

I'm going to be uploading my pictures to this link from now on.  The internet here is unreliable, and I've had more luck with Picasa than with Flickr. I'm surprised by how few pictures I've been taking. I think it's because the pictures I take don't do Florence any justice! Also, photography isn't allowed in most of the museums and churches.

Things I've Been Doing

Every night since I’ve been here I go to bed thinking “There’s no way life can get better than this” yet somehow, each day surpasses the last. There’s something about Florence that makes you appreciate every little beautiful thing in life.

Yesterday morning we had a field trip in my Museology class to the Palazzo Pitti to talk about the museum. The museum is in all the old bedrooms and sitting rooms of the palace. It’s baroque style museum so the walls are completely covered in art – some walls probably had 30 paintings on them. It was great to go through the museum with our professor and we talked about the importance of the rooms and the paintings and learned why the museum was set up like it is and all that. I had to leave after two hours to go to my Italian class, but Allison and I went back later that afternoon to take advantage of our free ticket. We ended up spending three more hours walking around and I still felt like I missed so much! With so many paintings it was easy to become oversaturated with all the art. It was great though. My Museology teacher keeps telling us that many scholars believe that museums are the modern day cathedral. They show the power and wealth of the nation and visitors flock to worship at them. I’ve thought that before, but being in Florence has shown me how true it is. After spending hours looking at the work of Raphael and Caravaggio and Rubens and Titian, it felt like a religious experience!

Later that night, after a great dinner for my roommates’ friend’s birthday, Allison, Jessica, Tiffany, Amelia, and I went to Santo Spirito. We stumbled upon it during the first week and knew we had to go back. It’s a little square where people come to just hang out and drink wine. Last time there was a jazz band playing in the middle of the square. When we first got there we weren’t sure if we were out of place or not. Everyone was speaking Italian and we only saw two people we thought might be American. But, like always, we were surprised by how friendly and welcoming people in Italy can be. After a little while, two guys came over to us with a guitar and a bongo and started playing music. There were guitars and bongos and other instruments everywhere and people were just moving around playing with each other. Jessica is a violin major in school, so she went home to grab her violin. She came back and started playing with everyone and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I met so many interesting people last night from all over the world – Turkey, Iran, France, Greece, India, and of course, Florence and other places in Italy. The guy from Greece was a fantastic musician and was singing a lot of really beautiful songs in Greek. His name was Tuna! Almost everyone there was an artist of some kind. I met painters, and printmakers, and installation do-ers (is there a term for that?). And what was so awesome about last night was that we were all able to talk about our interests while talking very little of each other’s languages! Luckily most people speak at least a little English, and a few people speak Spanish, which Allison and Tiffany can speak.

Tiffany took this video of Jessica playing with some Italians if you want to listen. She’s an amazing musician and was able to play along with everything people were playing.

I just got back from a trip to Fiesole. There are Etruscan ruins in Fiesole that date back to the 9^th century BC. The bus ride was short and it was a perfect fall afternoon. Fiesole is up on the top of a hill, so we had a great view of all of Florence – this time from the other side of the valley. I have a lot of pictures I need to put up, hopefully I’ll get around to it soon!

School Day

I feel like writing out what I did all day, so here it goes:

8:45 AM : Wake-up. Luckily I’ve already learned how to sleep through the Duomo bells. I sit around for a while, study some Italian, eat some figs I bought in the market yesterday, and get ready for class.

10:45 AM : I walk to Italian class. The San Lorenzo market is between my apartment and my classes, so I try to find ways to get around it. It gets so crowded that it’s faster to walk a little further than to try to get through the people.

11:00 AM : Italian class. We have an easy quiz and go over things like Italian adjectives. I know I haven’t learned it yet, but Italian’s very similar to Spanish and Latin, so everything I learn seems to come a little easier.

12:00 PM : Mercato Centrale. On the walk home I think about what I’m going to eat for lunch. I remember that I bought a piece of bread last night and I decide to stop in at the Central Market to get some turkey. I do my best to order in Italian (“cento grami di tacchino, per favore”) and walk home to make a sandwich.

1:00 PM : Drawing Class. Today we have a field trip to the Accademia. Our teacher reserved our tickets so we were able to walk by the huge line at the door and go right in. Everything you hear is true – the David is absolutely amazing and copies do it no justice. I spent about two hours sketching him before I got bored and started doing gesture drawings of tourists. Yes – I just said I got bored of Michelangelo’s David. I’m already spoiled by all this art.

4:00 PM : I show my teacher the way to get back to SACI and feel really cool. The city is so small that wandering for even just an hour a day has made me able to navigate almost anywhere. Plus, living next to the Duomo lets me look up to the sky and find my way home.

5:00 PM : I go for a wander. I brought my computer hoping I could do some homework in a bar, but no one seems to do the “chill in a coffee place and do work” thing here. I ended up just walking around for about and hour and a half. I love wandering because you get to see the real, non-touristy Florence. I found some really cute little stores and a place to buy coals for our hookah.

6:30 PM : I get home and tell my roommates I found coals for the hookah and they get very excited. We open a few bottles of wine and set the hookah up. We try to sit and talk in only Italian for a while, but “What is your name?” and “Where are you from?” gets old quickly, so we just talk in English for the rest of the night.

10:00 PM : Allison comes over and we go to Lucy’s apartment to get her. She goes to AU too, but we’ve never hung out here or in DC.  We stroll to Santa Croce to get gelato and find the best place I’ve found yet. There were mostly Italians inside and there were so many flavors of homemade gelato. Plus, it was the cheapest I’ve been able to find too. I get ciccolata all’arancia (chocolate with oranges) and mitica (chocolate with almonds). We continue our stroll over to Piazza della Signoria where a man plays Simon and Garfunkle covers every night. We talk about how amazing it is that we’re sitting next to the Palazzo Vecchio, and the Uffizi, and all these amazing sculptures, and we’re eating gelato, and listening to live music.

Amo l'Italia!

It’s going to be very hard for me to go home in December. In just two weeks I’ve learned to love the Italian way of life. The guys we’ve become friends with are trying to teach us Italian and how to slow down and enjoy life like an Italian. Jessica, Allison, and I just went out for coffee then made dinner and had a few glasses of wine instead of doing our homework right away – it was great!

It’s been really interesting hanging out with these guys (Savvas, Maurizio, Francesco, and Daniele). They’re from a town half an hour away from Florence but they come here almost every weekend to hang out. They all speak English very well and are interested in a lot of the same things Allison, Jessica, and I are. On Friday night we sat in Piazza San Croce talking until 5:00 in the morning – and we hadn’t even been drinking much! All of the things they have to say are so interesting and we’ve had a lot of fun comparing American and Italian culture. We were talking about food, and I told them how at home I usually only use a microwave. Danny was so upset when I told him that. He asked me why and I told him I usually have something else to do. He told me, “You don’t have to do something, you just think you have to do something. In Italy, we take an hour or two out of our day to make amazing food and spend time with the people we love.” I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it’s true. He said Americans work too much and he keeps reminding me to enjoy life.

Yesterday, we were supposed to go visit their home in Empoli and visit Vinci, the birthplace of Leonardo, but it was pouring really hard. Instead, we went later so they could make us dinner. We took the train, and it was my first time so I was really excited. We got there five minutes before it was supposed to leave so we were rushing around trying to find the place to punch our tickets. A nice old man who didn’t speak a word of English helped us. We sprinted onto the train, only to sit there waiting for another twenty minutes to leave. It’s the Italian way of life!

The dinner was so much fun and really funny.  It was like a bunch of frat boys trying to cook a nice dinner. It was really cool being in an Italian house and an Italian kitchen. The guys helped us understand what all the different foods were and taught us how to cook them right. We were also drinking wine that Savvas’s friend made! It was strong, but so delicious. The meal was delicious too even though it was so simple. We took hours to eat and the whole time they were teaching us how to speak Italian and different things about Italian culture. I’m starting to understand Italian when other people speak, but I usually don’t know how to answer in Italian. They’re working really hard on getting me to pronounce words correctly, but I’m not very good at it. It’s so difficult to roll my r’s and it’s almost impossible for me to get the double consonants right. (Although it’s very important – the word for years is anni, but Americans usually pronounce it ani, which means asshole!)

After the dinner they brought us to Maurizio’s villa in the hills nearby. It was so beautiful! They said one of the Medicis used to live on his land! We could also see out into the valley and see all the lights from the nearby cities. I can’t wait to go out into the country during the day.

I tell myself I could live in Italy because of the food and the art and the way of life, but I know there’s a different side I haven’t experienced yet. For example, we were all talking about politics (they all love Obama) and I asked how often they vote. They told me every five years, but it’s usually more often because the government falls almost every two years. I was so confused when they said that – I can’t even imagine such an unstable government.

Also, Italians are very racist – not just to other races, but also other areas of Italy. Many people in Northern Italy think that it should be a separate country from Southern Italy. The guys explained that you can even tell what part of Italy someone is from based on their last name. Northern surnames end in “i” (like Medici) while in the south they end in “o”, “e”, or “a”. They give Maurizio crap just because his mom is from Southern Italy.

But luckily, living here for four months, I don’t need to deal with any of that and I can focus on eating better meals and spending more time having conversations!

Medici Chapels, etc.

Yesterday I had my graphic design class and it seems like it will be pretty cool. At the end of the class my teacher took us on a tour of the San Lorenzo area, which is where SACI is. We passed by the place where Mona Lisa was born and buried. Today it's the worst street in Florence. We also went into the San Lorenzo Chapel and the Medici Chapels. I should count how many times I describe things as breathtaking over the course of the semester, but everything truly is. My teacher said one of her students fainted in the first Medici Chapel when she brought him there. There's a name for passing out because you're so overwhelmed with the artwork, the Stendhal Syndrome, because it happens so often in Florence. Hopefully I can stay on my feet this semester! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, and there's no way I can describe what it's like to stand in these places. The second Medici Chapel was really cool. It was designed by Michelangelo, but a lot of it was unfinished. There are ten or so sculptures, but many of them still have hunks of rock where you can see the chisel marks. One statue didn't even have a face. There are also two walls that are sketched on with pencil. They were supposed to be frescos but weren't finished. Most of the marks are believed to be done my students of Michelangelo but there is some handwriting and a few areas that they think are his. I could almost imagine Michelangelo standing and drawing on the wall! This link has some picture of the chapel.  This is what I mean by unfinished (you can see the chisel marks underneath the figure):

Last night when we went out we met a group of guys who spoke very little English. I'm so amazed at how much better I've gotten at speaking Italian in just a week and a half! Two of the guys didn't speak English but one of them spoke a little. Between three of us girls we could have a conversation, although it wasn't very meaningful. I can't wait to see how much I've learned by December.

Class

Today was my first day of classes.  I had Italian first and I think it will be really helpful. It has been frustrating not knowing any Italian. Most people speak English, but I feel rude not knowing a word of their language. I also had Drawing and Serigraphy. I like all of  my classes so far but it was a very long day. I want to drop one of them so I have more time, but then I’ll need to take six classes next semester. It’s a dilemma! I’ll need to figure it out soon though.

I also cooked my first meal today! It was only eggs and spinach but I’m actually proud of myself!

Ristorante

Last night I went out to the most amazing Italian dinner. My friend Jessica met a boy the other night named Nicki. He had invited Jessica and Allison to come with him to celebrate his friend, Dorian’s, birthday, and they invited me to come. They brought us to a restaurant called il Gatto e la Volpe – the Cat and the Fox. I’ve already heard from several people that it’s the best restaurant in Florence. It was my first restaurant experience in Florence, and it might end up being my best. The bill ended up being 260 euro, but Dorian refused to let any of us pay a dime! The food was unbelievably good, and there was so much!

The ten of us ate family style, so first they brought out a bunch of antipasti (I needed to looks a lot of these up to see what they are in Italian) – the best fresh mozzarella I’ve ever had in my life, focaccia (flat, soft bread with cheese and olive oil on it), and artichokes (carciofi). After we had a little of that, they brought out a plate filled with prosciutto, and salami, and other meats like that, and also crostini with things I’ve never seen before. I’m pretty sure one of them was mushrooms and the other was definitely pâte.

That was all amazing and we couldn’t get over how good it was, then they brought out the main meal! It was some kind of pasta with pieces of ham in it and tortolloni. There wasn’t even room on the table for all the food we had. We finished off the dinner with espresso then limoncello and some other kind of alcohol. The dinner was great, but I don’t think I’ll be eating that extravagantly ever again!

And later that night, after I met up with my roommates and the other girls, I got my first ride on a Vespa!

Yesterday I walked around taking pictures so I’ll try to put those up soon!

Locals

Last night we ventured a little further away from our apartment (still only a 10 minute walk) and found a different side of Florence. We went to one the bars we had on our list that said it had cheap drinks and locals. But we realized that a big group of American girls, none of whom speak Italian, isn't necessarliy welcome in a bar that has all locals. No one actually said anything to us, but the looks we got when we walked by the groups of people standing outside of the bar let us know that we shouldn't even bother going in.

Luckily that didn't ruin our night at all and we ended up walking around for about an hour. None of us had any idea where we were and we didn't feel like opening up our maps either. Eventually we found a bar called the Australiano. It was a really cool spot with murals all over the walls and funky mirrors covered in records and things. We were the only Americans here too, but the Italians were all friendly. We ended up becoming friends with some guys from Empoli which is a town nearby. It’s in the country and one of them lives on a vineyard! We mostly talked to a guy named Savvas. He was very cool and had a lot of the same interests as us. (Allison is a graphic designer too.)  We made plans to go visit his town next weekend, and he said he would show us around. I really want to see the country and it’s a short, cheap train ride.

Day Two

I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep this thing updated, but I’ve only been here for two days and I’ve already done too many things to remember, so I’m going to try.

Tonight was what I imagined my trip to Italy would be like. My roommates and I didn’t feel like going out to a bar again because we’re working on 4 hours of sleep and jet lag, but we got a bottle of wine after the SACI Welcome Party just to see where that would take us. We decided to walk around and find a cheap restaurant where we could get a coffee and hang out. First we walked to the Piazza della Republica. I went there earlier in the day to go to the post office, but it’s even better at night. The carousel was still going, there was a band playing some kind of instruments I’ve never seen before, and the arch is even more beautiful all lit up. We ended up walking for about 45 minutes down a street filled with cheap bars (in Italy bars are more like restaurants, pubs are like our bars) and we checked out their menus.

We ended up choosing a restaurant, La Padellaccia, we found earlier in the day a few doors down from the SACI building. They block off a lot of the streets at night and put tables in the road. By the time we got there they were closing but the waiter, Emanuale, was nice enough to serve us, and since everyone else was gone he ended up talking to us the whole time. He used to play American football and was a huge fan so we talked about all kinds of sports. He’s a Dolphins fan because he loves Dan Marino! We talked with him for a long time about all kinds of things and we found out that his family owns the restaurant. His brother was also working, but he didn’t speak much English. Every month the family has a dinner for local artists and they hang their work on the walls to sell. We went inside when we were all done to check it out and the place is huge! They can fit 100 people. I asked him if it ever gets crowded and he said no one knows that they even have tables inside. It was really cool to hear all his stories. We finally thought we should leave and let him go home, but he insisted that we have a limoncello with him before we leave. He learned all our names and we promised him we’d be back soon.

After that we walked home and sat on the steps of the Duomo for a while. It’s absolutely breathtaking. I was disappointed because the baptistery smells like pee, but even though I wake up and see the buildings every day, I don’t think I’ll ever get over how intricate and beautiful they are. The piazza was, and still is at 1:30, filled with people. A few Italians came and sat next to us and tried to talk to us, but they didn’t speak much English so it was difficult. They gave us the names of a few places to go that aren’t as American as J.J. Cathedral (where we were last night, it’s across the piazza from us). We’ve already found that the locals are much more interesting, fun, and friendly than the Americans, and we want to try to hang out with more.

Now we’re all sitting in the living room updating journals and making a list of places we want to go before we leave. It’s been so hot that all of our windows are wide open. It’s pretty loud outside but I love it. There’s some kind of singing going on – probably at JJs, lots of cars, and the occasional ambulances. Even with 3 hours of orientation in the morning, day two in Florence was absolutely amazing.