The past few days have been quite a whirlwind! First off, we have begun our week of orientation to help us get accustomed to the new environment, and to prepare us for the start of our academic school year! We have covered things like important safety issues, medical services, introductions to instructors and advisors, and some basic Italian phrases to help us maneuver the city more efficiently and politely! We also touched on the rules and care of our school building, which happens to be a restored 13th century palazzo! It is gorgeous, and comes complete with a library straight out of Hogwarts. I'll have to take some pictures soon! Our actual classes will begin next week, and I am very excited!
Aside from orientation, a lot of exploring has been done, both successfully and unsuccessfully. On our first full day, some of my roommates and I decided to go to UniCoop, a large grocery store just out of town, to get some food for the upcoming week. Well, long story short, between the cab service's poor English and our absolutely embarrassing attempts at Italian, we ended up stranded there outside for over an hour before flagging down the only random passing cab with no one in it (cab guy: wherever you are, we are eternally grateful). I'm pretty sure the whole city of Florence saw us there with our 57 shopping bags. Also, we left the grocery store through the wrong door twice, of which one time I set off the fire alarm. So, we aren't going back to UniCoop until we're sure everyone has forgotten us. Day One: success, lots of success. But hey, I have a tub of gelato in my freezer.
The following days went much smoother, as I have gotten better at communicating and finding my way around the city. The less I stress about remembering which street I'm on, the more I have time to start looking around and noticing things. I'm falling more and more in love with this city and country everyday. As cliche as it may sound, the people and their way of life are beautiful. They have this effortless and relaxed coolness about them that I envy so much, and I think us Americans could definitely take a few leaves out of their book. One of the things I love is their daily afternoon breaks, much like the "siesta" in Hispanic countries. Each day around 1pm, the store vendors pack up their items and close their stores and markets, and go home to put their feet up, eat a meal, maybe nap, and wait out the hottest part of the day. They will re-open their businesses throughout the day, but some places, such as those serving dinner, may not open back up until the evening. My class schedule also allows me to take advantage of these "siestas", and believe me, I will be making full use of them!
I also love their eating habits (but, I mean, how could you not?). Just in the past week, it has really hit me just how much Americans stuff their faces, and with how much unnecessary junk we do so. For example, Italians will wake up and have coffee and a pastry, maybe a sandwich or slightly bigger meal for lunch, and dinner with a glass of wine basically anytime between 8-10pm. While these may not be viewed as "health foods" necessarily, they aren't constantly snacking and grazing, overeating, or over-drinking. In addition, there are markets everywhere selling fresh produce to snack on, and their food isn't loaded with preservatives and antibiotics. We don't even have a microwave in our kitchen, because there isn't microwavable food to eat! (Also relating to eating habits, you can buy cheap wine, and by cheap I mean €2. And we definitely aren't talking boxed wine!)
The city itself is absolutely stunning, but I'll wait to tell you more about it when I can get some good pictures up! We're in the middle of tourist season right now, which really detracts from the beauty. Side note, the Japanese tourists actually bring those poles with cameras attached to take selfies; that is real life. So, as commendable as that effort is, I would like my pictures of these beautiful Renaissance buildings to not have hoards of randos cramping the style. I'm going to wait to really take pictures of the city until the tourist activity has slowly died down! In the meantime, I'm going to photo bomb as many photo ops as possible. Also, don't try to take a pictures of the cute old accordion players, because they will ask for a tip in their jar, and when you only have 30 cents in your pocket, the will get very angry and rapidly become less cute. Just let them do their thing from afar. That's about all the advice I have for today.
Here are a few pictures I snapped from around town:
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