Passport to Firenze

Saturday, September 8, 2007

My third full day in the country of Italia, and a splendid September day it was. But to start off lets travel from Rhode Island to Europe so I can fully talk about every aspect of my experience.

Tuesday, September 4th 2007
The plane. When mom, dad and I arrived at the airport and got my overweight bags checked through to Florence, (lucky since they were overweight and I wasn’t charged for them) I was so beyond a nervous wreck that we sat down to have a bite to eat and a drink at the place in the international terminal. The beer felt so good, calmed me, just set me in an ok mood – enough to say goodbye to my family for 3 months. It’s different than texas, at rice I have access to internet wherever I am, and always have my phone, plus I usually fly home twice during the semester… mom and dad waved to me during the security, and said goodbye. Nervousness came right back over me. But after I found my fb friend elli and hit it off with her, we had some food and another beer and finished with enough time to call our parents for one last voice chat to hear their voices.

The plane ride went fine, I didn’t sleep however, so jet lag has lasted longer than expected. Also I am nervous about ordering un café- so… that’s a problem too. One thing to note is that when the Florence airport says we lose luggage a lot, it is damn true. So many lost one or both of their suitcases and either now have them, or are still waiting for them to arrive at the school!

But once the situation about so many with no luggage was fixed, we headed out for saci to dump us in a taxi and send us off to our apartments. I got in the taxi with elli who had lost her luggage so she didn’t really need to go to her place just yet, we went to mine, FINALLY understood the European locks, and met my roommate Khris and apartment-mate Jamie both who are cool, but older- Khris 49 and Jamie 29… whatever. Then we walked to Elli’s place- and got lost, but who cares- because we found the duomo, it was like we were supposed to see one big Florentine monument before we crashed for the night! After we found her apartment, we grabbed the healthiest dinner ever, also an Italian staple- gelato chocolato. È fabuloso.

Day Two. The start of orientation, we went and found breakfast, Jamie me and Chris --- Cappuccino e Pasty. I had a chocolate croissant. Ha. More chocolate. Woops. Orientation was a blur of facts mostly repeated from the orientation papers they had given us when we had arrived, or from the handbook which I had read earlier in the summer. We then headed through to the market for a fresh lunch. I had un mele (an apple) and a piece of white veggie pizza from the paneria around the corner. After unpacking my bags, my roommate wanted to head out to find some adapters for our electronics, we found them, but Khris was utterly convinced that she knew a shortcut to get back. Note to self. Don’t believe her when she says that. A nice old lady who didn’t speak any English was trying to help us by pointing us to the Duomo, and once I figured out where we were I got us back to SACI in time for dinner there. After 3 pieces of ravioli and a small spoonful of risotto I headed to the apartment, there I met up with Jamie and Khris and decided to go out and find something to eat. We shared a pizza and each had a glass of preseco before hitting the sack. Man jet lag is a killer.

Day Three. Day two of orientation was a blur of literally running through the city of Florence. Got some jet lag? Feel a bit tired still? Can’t quite sleep normal hours yet? Too bad, lets run around and take a 3 second glimpse of every monument in the city, and at the same time expect you to still be able to figure out where you are so you can go back. So of the 18 sites we saw in and hour and forty five minutes, I could barely tell you where things were in relation to each other… a few of us skipped out of the last two monuments since we lived around them and decided to get some lunch around the center of town. We grabbed a pannini, I had tomato and mozzarella, and a diet coke – woo… caffeine that was quick and American! After that we all headed back to check our email etc. Which we did, then we crashed for an hour to nap- and then our lecture on political and cultural Italy- learning about the two miracles, of the revolution and how Italy has become one of the top economic countries in the world when only a hundred years ago when immigrants were racing out of Ireland, there were actually many Italians racing to Ireland because Italy was actually that much poorer than Ireland during their potato famine. Really fascinating information. Our tour around Florence for the post office, cinema etc. was just as fast as the morning jog, and helped burn off some of the calories that the gelato had brought us! After the tour, Elli and her two roommates, Allie and Veronica both from MICA- Maryland Institute of Creative Design, and myself went for pizza and we bought a bottle of wine and enjoyed time at a café, plus the sight of our waiter was relatively nice as well…

After that we bought some wine from the market below my apartment and went back to their apartment to chill and drink. Then we called our friend Owen to see what he was up to- and we went to meet him and two of his roommates at a paper lantern festival where kids made paper lanterns and paraded them throughout the streets later to burn them in the square by the Hospital of the Innocents- the first Renaissance building in Florence. We had a beer and chilled, later to go back to the apartment and hang out before crashing at our own pads.

Day Four- Saturday—slept in. Till 11am. Fun! Then Since another of our roommates had arrived we went to the market for some food, the abundance of meats and veggies and olives and wines and olive oils is amazing, there’s also dried fruits and the most amazing selection of cheeses I’ve ever seen ever.