European Adjustments

So it's Saturday afternoon and we all just got up. It's probably going to be a slow day. I haven't been able to sleep in since we got here so this was definitely good for my recovering body. We finally got the heat to start working so we don't freeze throughout the night. The first night of sleep was unbearably cold so I'm very happy to have a good night's rest. The weather is much colder than I am used to but it's nice to have a change of everything. The people, the climate, the language, the atmosphere. Learning about this culture gets more and more interesting everyday.

I keep hearing, "Florence is so small, you can walk across it in about half an hour" but the first couple of days I found myself getting frustrated because I couldn't seem to figure this city out. Unlike many American cities, Florecen is not on a grid system at all and the streets are never numbered. There is never a 5th Ave or a 17th Street so if you get lost you can almost immediately figure out where you are and get where you need to be and since it's all in another language, it just adds a little more stress. For the past few days I have been determined to become more acquianted with my surroundings and not stick out like a sore thumb as a typical American. I was feeling rather hopeless until yesterday when everything clicked.

We had an appointment with the Italian police to sign some residency papers and then Brooke and I decided to do some exploring. Wednesday and Thursday was full of random exploration, curiousity, and aimless walking. I somehow figured out how to get to Ganzo from the river on Via de Macci without getting lost. The way that the streets and addresses work here are completely different from the U.S. There are two sets of numbers, red and black. The red numbers are business addresses and black numbers are residential addresses but neither one of the correlate to the other. The only similarity that I found was that the odd numbers are on one side and the even on the other but that doesn't mean that they match up with each other. It could be black 35 on one side with a red 88 directly across the street. I'm sure it makes sense somehow but it feels as though there is no solid, continual system of how these addressses work.

After I did my business at Ganzo, we discovered a HUGE market around the corner. We were outside of the touristy area that we live in near the Duomo so we went to check it out. This was a pretty cool scene. It was centralized by an indoor market reeking of raw meat and seafood surrounded by an outdoor fruit and vegetable market. We also found very cheap clothes, books, and vintage articles. As we walked around I realized that I could not sense a single word of English. I'm not exactly sure where we were but it seemed very residential, hard core Italian people. We managed to communicate enough to get some fresh oranges, bananas, spinach, and olives for a good deal since it seemed like everything had just been picked that morning. As we started to walk towards Apicius to pay our lab fees we stopped by one of the cafes that we had tried the day before because we liked old man running it.

-- SIDE NOTE -- I have two new Italian boyfriends. They are both the cutest men that I've ever seen in my entire life. They are both between like 5'5" and 5'7" I'd say and are probably around 75 years old. Oh yea, and neither one of them speak a word of English. The first little old man is my landlord and he'll randomly break out into song and start dancing. Oh my god, he's hilarious. His wife is really cute too. She'll take our faces in her little, cold hands and say "BELLA! BELLA!" The other man is the espresso guy. I loveeeee his lattes! I also love that he doesn't close during siesta because his place is bordering the Duomo. I still need to try one of his pastries. He made me laugh so hard because he's so friendly and nice and he's ALWAYS smiling but when he took a picture with Brooke and I he didn't smile. He looks mean and angry but he's not at all. When he saw the picture he said "Yes! I look like THE BOSS!" (In Italian of course). Ahhhh! I'm in love with him. He's the best.

Anyways, later on in the day I was out with my friend Carlos (who I later found out knows a lot of the same people that I know from back home) as we went searching for a computer charger. I had no idea how I was supposed to communicate that someone who doesn't speak English but fortunately Carlos can speak English, Spanish, and French so picking up a new language hasn't been hard for him (or so it appears). I wouldn't have been able to do it without him. We had lunch at a cafe and then walked home before getting read for our night out at SPACE.

Last night we had this like school mixer thing at a club. I know it seems kind of lame for school functions to try forcing us all to be friends but it turned out to be a great time. Apparently SPACE is a pretty famous club here and we had free admission and two free drinks. Everyone was a little awkward at first (of course) but once we had some wine and incredible food, everyone got a little more friendly. I was surprised by how much fun I had. My roommate Brooke and I got to bond and get to know each other a little better which was good for us. We had several options on what to do after SPACE so we sporadically ventured throughout the city for the rest of the night meeting up with new people. Catherine, Brooke, and I wore heels out for the first time and the three of us towered over everyone. It seemed weird at first but then we worked it hard. It seemed like we made our mark every place we went. Go big or go home.