Catching Up

Do you ever get to that point with friends where you haven't talked in so long that you feel like you just don't know where to start and because of this, you just don't talk.  I feel like I have been doing that here.  But I am back and will try to catch you up on my life in Italy without rambling like I sometimes tend to do.

Let's see...where did I leave off?  The Chianti Wine Festival?  My that was a long time ago.  I think I will just give you the highlights of life since then.
Last Saturday my roommate Becca and I decided to go to the calcio (soccer) game.  Fiorentina v. Lazio.  We went with four other girls and very excited to have one of our first real cultural experiences.  We all stuffed ourselves onto a bus with the rest of the calcio fans who were headed to the game.  When I say stuffed, I mean stuffed...like sardines.  We had to shove against each other to make room for the doors to open.  I was so glad that I left my purse at home and only brought the necessities in my pockets.  When we got off the bus we found that Lauren, with her oversized purse, had been pickpocketed.  Her purse was unzipped and her wallet was gone.  This all turned out to be in vain when Lauren, Becca and I found out that we could not get a ticket to the game without an ID.  Copied passports were insufficient.
If nothing else, I found out from this night that Becca and I both love to play games!  It turns out that she is just as obsessed with Banana Grams as my family and some of my best friends!  Of course, we didn't have Banana Grams here in Italy so we played cards and drank some cheap 1 Euro wine instead.  It's a rare find to find someone who doesn't think that games are a bore...in my age group at least.

Perfect weather mixed with a perfect traveling companion made a perfect day in Lucca!

The next day, Domenica (Sunday), Becca and I went to Lucca for the day.  It was about an hour and a half by train and ended up being an incredibly refreshing day.  As I talked about in my last blog, I have been missing the quietness that city life does not accommodate.  Lucca definitely had that peacefulness about it that I have been missing.  We didn't do much of anything while we were there but that was the nice part about it.  Neither of us had an agenda and we just wandered around, went into shops and markets and just sat and watched the whole day.  It was also here that I bought my first cappuccino!  Mmmm, it was good!  We paid 1,20 each and sat inside instead of falling into the tourist trap and paying 2,70 each sitting outside.  Besides, this way we were surrounded by locals.

A self portrait in Piazza Anfi Teatro in Lucca.

First time I've been able to do this since arriving.  Ah, it felt nice.

Tuesday, I finally had a real conversation with Victoria for the first time since arriving in Italy!!!!  That is almost a month that we really didn't know any details of each others lives!  Needless to say, we talked for 2 1/2 hours and probably could have gone on for another 2, but we both needed to get back to the real world.

My goal this past week has been to make myself get out and do things that it would be easier to pass up.  I went to a scavenger hunt on Monday for study abroad students and met people from Italy, Spain, Belgium and Sweden.  I have also been stretching myself by saying "yes" to going out and doing things with people when I would be perfectly content to be by myself.  Today I am going over to someones house to have omelets with an entirely new group of  people from my school.  And last of all...I AM GOING TO ENGLAND AND IRELAND OVER FALL BREAK!!!!!  This is also with an entirely new group of people who were gracious enough to invite me to join when they found out that I had no one to travel with over break.  I will tell you more about this trip another time.  Besides flights and hostels this is all still very much in the planning stages.

The past week and a half has also been a whirlwind of emotions.  The ups and downs that come with living in a new place with people who don't really know the real you, getting familiar with apartment dynamics, dealing with a new culture of men here in Italy, and lastly but most of all about 20 emotions all at once of life back in California.
On that note:

"I will praise you , O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.  I will sing praise to your name, O Most High."..."The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.  Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.  Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done." Psalm 9:1-2 & 9-11

Noticing Quietness

Well, I officially live here.  I know you already know that but I am still realizing this fact.  Salvo, our landlord, has left for his home in Sicilia and the apartment is ours for the year.  I did one load of laundry this weekend and for some reason this really confirmed the fact that I will be here for a long time.  Maybe because I never even did laundry in San Jose but brought it home instead (Thanks for the free water Daddy and Mommy!).  I still don't feel completely comfortable here, and I'm not sure why, but hopefully that will change over time.

Salvo left us a little drawing, a note, two bottles of wine and beautiful sunflowers upon leaving.

I have had the opportunity to visit a few cities outside of Firenze this week and it has been a very welcome and much needed break from the city.  From these day trips I have realized that being outside in a quiet place is extremely relaxing and refreshing to me.  I haven't found a quiet place here in Firenze and I think this will be a goal over the next week or so.  It also contributes that American college students are extremely loud as well and and I seldom spend time alone when I am out lately.

Volterra was a beautiful city.  Extremely medieval and much more quaint than Firenze.  I know it sounds like I am just bashing my city, but in actuality I think a lot of my frustration is due to tourists oozing out of every crack.  I think things will be a lot different in a month or so when the tourists are chased away by the brisk autumn weather and the students come back for school in October.  The only thing that would have made this visit a thousand times better would have been if the sunflower fields were in bloom.  Unfortunately they were brown and crunchy for fields and fields as we drove by, leaving it up to the imagination to picture the hills covered in yellow.

Volterra on a beautiful day.

San Gimignano was another city I visited and it was by far the most beautiful place I've seen in Italy since arriving.  Although the piazzas were swarming with tourists the outskirts of town were quiet enough to hear the laundry flapping in the breeze.

San Gimignano was breathtaking!

This captures the peacefulness on the outskirts of the city.  It was as quiet as it looks.

Yesterday, Sunday, I went to the Chianti Wine Festival in Greve with five of my new friends and was able to enjoy the same tranquility in some areas of the city.  We paid 10 euro for a glass and sampled wines and walked around for a couple hours.  Who knew there was such an enormous array of wine flavors even within the same colors of wine!? (Probably everyone except me.)  At one point we were all feeling like we should take a break from sampling for a while and decided to rest on the steps.  Two men walked over and started talking to telling us how we all had beautiful feet and that most Americans did not have very nice feet.  Then they gave us a Touring Tuscany book they had won at an auction and obviously didn't need since they were Italian.  This gave them the brilliant idea to also break open the bag of make-up each of them were carrying and hand out each piece of make-up to the five of us individually..."This one is for you. And this one is fooorr...you." Ect...  After all their cheap cosmetics were distributed they realized they had also won a poetry book, pulled it out of their bag and began reading to us poetry in Italian and then trying to translate it into English (which proved quite comical).  Well there ya go, if that isn't the Italian stereotype I don't know what is! Two men performing poetry and giving out gifts and compliments to five women with wine glasses seated on the steps in front of them.  It's a shame the men were so unattractive!

Ballet classes all over the city should be starting back up this week so I am looking forward to being in my own little world and speaking that universal language of dance very, very soon.  I feel like it will help to bring me out of this funk that I've been in since I've arrived.  I'll let you know how it goes because no doubt it will still be a different experience than I'm used to.
(Some of you may know that I absolutely hate proof reading so I apologize in advance if there are any typos.  I did not want to re-read this time around.)

Tourist Alert!

My U.S. roommates, Becca and Maleesa, on the terrace of The Duomo.

I have finally participated in some tourist activities in the past two days, but in my mind, I like to think of the first as more of a "cultural event."
Wednesday night, we watched out Valentina and Ilaria's window as a parade proceeded to the end of our street to down our street to Piazza della Annunziata.  People held lanterns on long rods with candles inside, children shot pea shooters (Or something like it.  This was not so pleasant as I was shot in the cheek while standing in the window.) and bands played; some in t-shirts and others in medieval costumes.  The parade was to commemorate a pilgrimage of some sort of a group of people who came to Firenze down our street, Via Dei Servi.  Clearly there was a language barrier when being told about the significance of this parade or I wouldn't be so vague.  I think it has something to do with the Virgin Mary.
In the Piazza there was a concert being held, candy being sold and children dancing around as nuns walked by and a statue centuries old stood watch in the Piazza.  It is so strange to see modern day society meshing with hundreds of years of history.

Yes, that really is The Duomo down the street from our window.

Event number two, which I would classify as a definite tourist event, but not a frivolous one, was climbing to the veranda of the famous Duomo on Thursday.  It is only open to the public once a year and it is entirely free!  We were afraid that is would be closed off due to the rain and the risk of slipping but everything here (including walking on the sidewalk) is much more "at your own risk."  The line was relatively short and the view was amazing!  By the time we got to the top the rain was petering out and the sun decided to drop by.  It was absolutely perfect.

Surely the closest you'll ever get to The Duomo.

What a view!

Language Exchange

Ilaria and Valentina moved in on Sunday and neither of them smoke!!!  What a rarity that is here!  For the past couple of days it has been a bit awkward as we pass each other with a polite, "Scusa" or "Ciao" since we don't speak each other's language.  Yesterday the awkwardness was finally broken when Valentina started to quietly hum Ci Vuole un Fiore, a famous Italian children's song.  She was surprised when Maleesa and I got so excited but understood when we whipped out the lyrics to the song and explained in extremely broken Italian that we learned it in class the day before! 
After this we began to communicate more with the help of Ilaria's generous knowledge of English.  We added each other on Facebook and showed each other pictures of our family.  One of the funniest moments of the night was when Maleesa showed Ilaria and Valentina a picture of her "ragazzo" (boyfriend) and Valentina excitedly said without hesitation of a language barrier, "Ah!  He is a nerd!"
After Becca, Maleesa and I studied for our test (or at least tried), Valentina and Ilaria invited us to go get gelato with them.  They took us to their favorite gelateria and we walked around exchanging language..."Como sei dice"..."How do you say"...

Firenze at First Glance

Here I am.  Finally.  I have been here for just over a week now and my what a week it has been.
I arrived Thursday and Friday afternoon began the house hunt.  We were given addresses of open houses and were sent into this foreign city, in this foreign country, with this foreign culture, and foreign language.  It felt like a mad dash to grab housing and roommates before they were all swept up.  Many of us (the students) had hopes of living with other Italian students, but we were quite discouraged after hearing how difficult it is to find a set-up like this.  After the staff spoke on the topic most resigned to U.S. American roommates, and many had already decided on roommates and found housing by Friday night.
Saturday was consumed by aimless wandering in the guise of "house hunting."  We were overwhelmed, discouraged, hot, lost (for the most part) and exhausted from the previous day and from jet lag.  After heading back to the school to sit down and eat lunch, the girls who I had been wandering with decided to head back to the hotel, another 25-30 minute walk.  I felt like I couldn't go "home" without making more progress than just seeing two overpriced apartments.  I checked the board at the school just as an Italian man and woman were posting an add for an apartment with one single and one double room for rent were already two Italian girls set to move in as well!  I was extremely interested and decided to ask Salvo, the owner, a few questions right there on the spot.  Rent and location sounded very do-able so I set up an appointment with him to see the place 3 hours later.
As I was walking home I got the feeling that this was going to be the one.  I really felt like I was going to end up living here but I only had one prospect for a roommate and another girl who I'd barely met who I would have liked to room with.  Maleesa and Becca came with me to see the apartment and after deliberating outside for less than five minutes, we went back in and took the deal.  The place was by no means perfect, but it would almost certainly be our only chance of living with Italians.
After the high of relief over finding a place to live was over, I hit a low where I feel like I've stayed since then.  In buying a cell phone, cashing traveler's checks, choosing an apartment and beginning school  I felt utterly overwhelmed and like I had made so many wrong and rash decisions just because I didn't know what the better option would be in this foreign country where I can't understand the language.  The low point of feeling sorry for myself came when I was alone for the first time in Italy, making the 30 minute walk to the hotel from the bank (after changing $1500 of traveler's checks into only 1135 Euro) and it started pouring rain.  Rain doesn't help raise anyone's spirits and certainly not if you are being soak through for 30 minutes in a foreign city.  I don't think I am feeling quite as discouraged now as I was then, but I definitely don't feel like I was ever in the "honeymoon stage."  I just don't think there was any time to enjoy things or else my trip might have started off differently. 
I was so relieved when Thursday came and I was able to move into my apartment and finally get settled, only to realize that my landlord, Salvo, was going to be staying in the front room until Tuesday.  He is an extremely nice man, but I still feel like I am in that stage of limbo between really living in a place and being a guest in someone's home.  That is where I am at the moment, but I know things will get better with time.  My Italian roommates will move in tomorrow and I can only hope that they are friendly and don't smoke (EVERYONE here smokes). 
At this point I feel like besides the beautiful, old buildings, Firenze is simply another city; swarming with tourists, pigeons and pickpockets and the streets smell like pee and garbage just as they do in New York City.  The men do not pinch your butt or yell "Ciao bella," at every corner as I was told before I came (unless you are blonde haired and blue eyed like my roommate, Becca).  Honestly, I was nervous for this behavior before I came, but hearing "Ciao bella" now might be a nice self esteem boost.  Instead, not  hearing it feels like a self esteem drop.  Today I even had a homeless woman come up and ask us for money while on the street and when we said "No," she snatched the last of my lunch out of my hand, took a bite, and rubbed her belly telling us in Italian that she was hungry before walking away.  I was stunned speechless as were Maleesa and Becca.I haven't even told you everything in this ridiculously long blog.  I suppose I need to practice being more succinct.  Bear with me on this.  I won't always be a Debbie-Downer.

Jeremiah 29:11