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.