First Days in Florence.

Hello everyone! If you're here, someone has pointed you to my account of my explorations of Europe and my studies in Florence. I can only say that I hope you enjoy reading as much as I'm enjoying being here! I'll try to do them justice, but I can already tell that it will be extremely difficult. Nonetheless, here goes nothing. (P.S. this first entry will be long, so if you skim, I won't be offended. My posts won't always be this detailed.)

The journey began December 30, when I left Kalispell in the afternoon for Seattle. I met Rob there and we spent an eight and a half hour layover catching up, reading, writing, playing cards, and generally just being excited to get to Florence. We boarded a very full red-eye flight to Chicago at eleven and tried to sleep, though it was a bumpy and unpleasant ride. We got there about five fifteen, looked for the shuttle to the hotel for about a half hour, and finally made our way to the Hyatt, where Uncle Rob and Aunt Dawn were graciously waiting to take us to breakfast. They'd stayed there the night before, so after we ate they gave us their room keys so we could nap and shower, and around noon we headed back to the airport for round three of flying. We boarded about 2:30 and slept most of the way to Germany, thanks to some wonderfuls sleeping pills Uncle Rob gave us. In Frankfurt we had a little trouble finding our connecting flight and getting boarding passes but eventually figured it out and boarded a shuttle to get out to our very small plane. Unfortunately, when we got to the plane we waited for about fifteen minutes in the shuttle and then they took us back to the terminal, where they informed us of mechanical problems and made us wait an extra hour for another plane. They then drove us out to a plane that looked mysteriously like the old one and we boarded. After a mostly uneventful flight, we began a very bumpy descent in to Florence. With the landing gears engaged and about fifty feet from the ground, we very suddenly and violently changed gears and headed very quickly back in to the air. With no explanation for several minutes, Rob and I were sure that something had gone horribly wrong and we were going to die. Figuring I'd rather die in my sleep and feeling rather exhausted anyway, I willed myself to sleep and slept through the next hour of rapid circling, ascending, and descending. Eventually they gave up the effort, citing "rare weather conditions," and landed in Pisa, about an hour west of Florence. After getting our bags, they bussed us back. While making the already long trip even longer, it was very nice to get to see the Tuscan countryside firsthand.

Some 40 hours later, finally arriving at the Florence airport, we took a taxi to our hotel and desperately looked for food before the eventual crash. We tried to stay awake as long as possible, thinking a journey around the city on foot looking for food and getting acclimated would be a good idea. Unfortunately, it was mid-afternoon, a time at which apparently, Florence shuts down completely, especially for food. It was also the first of January, a huge holiday in Italy, so many shops were closed. The first directions we got to the touristy Duomo district where there was bound to be food open were bad, so we set off in what felt like a sketchy part of town on a very grey day. After half an hour of getting nowhere, we headed back to the hotel, got new directions, and found both the Duomo and a half-decent restaurant to have a quick, not that great bite of food before heading back to the hotel. About fifteen minutes of phone calls later, we gave up and crashed. Bad idea, because come 1am we were wide awake. It was kind of fun, because we just studied Italian all morninng until breakfast, but we were not set up well for the rest of the day at all.

After breakfast, we set out in search of school. Our hope was to find school and our pensione, come back to the hotel, fetch our bags, leave them in the pensione, and go exploring, but it didn't work out quite like that. While we found both school and the pensione with little issue, neither were open, which was scary. We had a checkout time of 11am that we had to adhere to at the Hotel Arizona, and a not that friendly staff that was more than likely unwilling to find a place to leave our bags for a while, so we walked a few times back and forth between school and the pensione, ringing bells and trying to find people. Our last-ditch effort at school found us a few employees in student life who were conveniently right outside the gate waiting to get in. They assured us that they would keep our bags until the pensione opened at 2pm, so we dropped them off via taxi after walking back and checking out and set off to explore. We pulled out our map and tried to acclimate ourselves and walk by all the big sights, namely the Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, and the markets at the Piazza di San Lorenzo. We also got some gelato, a trademark thing of Italy, but unfortunately we got it (a) rather early in the morning, and (b) too close to the Ponte Vecchio, so it was touristy (which means not that delicious, way too large, no prices displayed, and overpriced overally - 8 Euro a piece! Ugh.). We did tons of walking that first day, basically from eight in the morning to one in the afternoon, after almost no sleep, so when we finally found a restaurant near the open air food market by San Lorenzo, it was a relief to sit down and eat. The food was refreshingly inexpensive and very delicious, though they were a bit grouchy at us for splitting only an appetizer and a main course. It came to just 12 euro after service charge and a bit extra for tip, though we know now that the tip is not expected and is in fact not that much appreciated. Oops. After lunch we took our bags to the pensione, unpacked, and fell asleep way too early once again. I woke up at midnight, but took some sleep stuff and slept (thankfully) until morning. I couldn't be jetlagged forever! Overall yesterday was a very interesting and fun but completely overwhelming day, mostly because we were so tired, but also because while things are fun, everything is just a little bit different over here. It's interesting, for sure.

Today was a completely different day altogether, and was so far the best one we've had. It was another gorgeous day, though equally cold as the last two and a little blustery. I met Rob for a rather sparse but decent continental breakfast at the pensione around nine and then bundled up for a day of exploring. Because we had seen most of the touristy stuff yesterday and been overwhelmed by the crowds, we headed in the complete opposite direction today, hoping to get a better taste for the real Florence. We wandered through residential areas and little markets and shops, eventually finding a park near the river and stopping for a while to work on our Italian. It got chilly though, so we kept walking, crossing the river and heading out of the historical city center and up the hill to get a better comprehensive view of Florence. We found a very cool old guard tower that, try as we may, we couldn't find a way to climb up, but behind it was a fun set of gravel paths winding up a hill to a palazzo overlooking the city. It had beautiful views, and surprisingly, a group of about ten Asian brides and grooms! It was a crazy situation. They were all taking pictures and videos...I guess today must have been a group wedding day in Florence or something. From there we headed up the hill further and stumbled upon an old monastary, church, and cemetery, which was very beautiful. The frescos were incredible, which makes me excited to see the rest of the more famous ones, as they must be truly stunning. There was an organist inside the church playing Bach fugues, which of course made me happy as well. By the time we got done at the church it was close to lunch, so we headed back down the hill and found a cute place with four or five tables and really, really delicious fresh spaghetti with basil and tomatoes. I would definitely go back there, in an instant. After we wound back up the hill along a different path and found all the giant houses of the wealthy people of Florence, which was also really interesting to see. The views weren't bad either. We wound our way back to Florence following an ancient city wall which had been left up and built around in modern times. We made it back to the pensione around five and met up with some students from school at about six thirty, heading to a really fun dinner with sixteen people in the students' favorite restaurant, whose name in English is The Cat and the Wolf. The food was giant, so Rob and I shared, and the wine and champagne was plentiful, as it was our first night there and many students' last, so there was lots to celebrate. After, we headed back to the pensione and I made some phone calls via Skype back to the states and we just relaxed. And that brings us up to now!

Let me make a note now and say that not every journal entry will be this long and complicated. For sure it won't. I just wanted to recount the first few days, since the accliimation process has lots of crazy parts, and it's been such a long journey. From now on I will keep it much shorter (hopefully), just commenting on those things that are particularly interesting or frustrating or different from back home.

For instance, I have a few stories/comments now I want to make before I sign off. First, the pensione. Let me tell you that while it is not any colder in Florence than it is in Spokane, the pensione is FREEZING. They don't really turn on the heat at all. I thought maybe this was a Florence problem, but in fact it is just a Savonarola problem (this is the name of my pensione). I hate to moan and groan, but today as we were picking people up on our way to the restaurant, we stopped by Laura's House, another pensione, and it was SO NICE! They had a television, a really nice dining room, well decorated rooms, and best of all, HEAT. I felt a little bit shafted, ending up in Savonarola. The room is spartan at best. It looks mostly like a dorm room, except that the only place the two twin sized beds fit are right next to one another. Very awkward. My roommate isn't here yet, but I assume it will be very, very weird. And cold. Maybe I've just been spoiled, but I just feel like especially for the price and for the quality of the school, the quality of the housing could be much better. Even more frustrating, I hear that Laura's House is not even the best of the pensione. Gr. I guess this will be a learning experience. I just hope I find somewhere warm and comfortable to study. Maybe somewhere at school, we'll see.

Another frustrating thing is being pegged as American. Though I try to speak all the Italian I know, often the people in the streets or people in restaurants don't even try to speak Italian to me, but instead switch directly to English. Especially in the markets, I feel as though they think I'm stupid and they're trying to trick me in to paying higher prices. I guess I just know how much people get frustrated with Americans abroad, and so I try not to propagate the stereotype and blend in as much as possible. It's really hard though, when people don't give you the chance.

The other thing I'm a little worried about is that many of the Gonzaga students don't seem to be immersing themselves very much in to the Italian culture. Their favorite bar is Finnigan, the only Irish pub in the city. They go to McDonalds on a regular basis. Maybe it's just the group I met this evening, but it seems that while they're really nice, they're just pretending like this is Gonzaga with some cool sights and close travel. I hope that in my four months I can manage to integrate myself a little better, or at the very least learn the language.

Other than that, I'm really excited to see what the next few months bring. I'm going in with as open a mind as possible, and I look forward to the things I discover and the ways that I grow. I'll keep you all posted! Until then, ciao!