Even more pictures!

As something to notice, the links to the left will be continuously updated with new photos each week.

As I said before, after our arrival to Florence we had the rest of the evening to meet with our landlords, settle into our apartment flats, and become acquainted with our roommates. You can see a few pictures of my flat when you move through the pictures in the link below. It will be much better for you to look at them than for me to describe it. I hope to get more pictures of my apartment and neighborhood posted soon.The neighborhood that I live in is Via Marconi, and is located approximately twenty five minutes by foot from the center of the city, which is a nice walk during the day. (‘Marconi’ is the name of a scientist who, in the 1800’s, laid the foundations for the modern day radio.) I live amongst many of locals here and for that reason the prices are less and the neighborhood has assumed a personality that more closely reflects Italian city life. There are a variety of shops—a Pizzicheria, snack bar, Pasticheria, Il Centro (our supermarket), and a café just below my apartment. Many of the shop owners are also patient with my limited knowledge in Italian language and speak English when they realize I can’t hold a conversation past “Ciao!”. This is very helpful and allows me to function in the city without having many problems. I would, however, love to speak more Italian and hope that I can have a basic conversation by the time that I leave. I am not sure how over or under ambitious that goal is, but I will soon find out. Also, speaking with others, it seems as though our neighborhood is very unique and a desirable place for 20-somethings to live as it has a low key night life with

aperitivos (wine+all you can eat appetizers for 5 euro), pubs, and the soccer stadium (Campo di Marte) nearby. Although I am not big into night life, with everything around us, I am looking forward to living here!

left to right: Allie, Brittany, Megan, and Me

The first night of our arrival, my roommates and I also met with our landlord… who doesn’t speak English. To say the least, any interaction we have had with her on this night, and on other occasions, have been both confusing and comical. On the first night, I was lucky to have two of my roommates present who had taken intermediate Italian at the University of Minnesota. They acted as the interpreters for the landlord, and did well for the most part, with a few inaccuracies. With one inaccuracy in particular, my roommate had thought that we would have a fifth roommate. Not just any roommate, however, but one that would show up randomly every now and then to sleep; then, the next day, he/she would just pack up and leave…like a hobo, a missing convict, or something… nothing too unusual. That was one of the last conversations she had with the landlord that night and was what we were left pondering for a week. She finally realized that she had confused two similar words and that the landlord had really meant to say that she would be coming back throughout the semester to pick up blankets in the locked bedroom for other flats. The next visit from our landlord was to pick up the passport copies. She decided to do this very early in the morning, in which I woke up to my third roommate (who also speaks no Italian) trying to talk to talk to her, “I’m sorry! I don’t know! I can’t find it, it… is…lost… I …. am… trying… to look for it.” I walked into her bedroom to find the landlord standing there with her arms crossed, watching as my roommate threw items out of her desk drawer trying to find the copies of her passport. Standing there, the landlord takes notice of the fan and blanket on the floor and points to them in question. Allie (my roommate) had used the fan to create a soothing noise at night, making it easier for her to fall asleep; she also had placed the blanket on the floor to do sit-ups that morning. Once we understood what she was asking, we pulled out a phrase book, an Italian dictionary, and our best gestures to try and explain. To keep a long and embarrassing story short, in the end, she didn’t understand. Instead, she wondered why the traffic outside wasn’t enough noise and how the blanket could have possibly gave volume to our hair. I really believe that she needed a glass of wine after that. Within a few minutes after that incident, Allie (my roommate) was able to recover two of her own copies to give to the landlord. This seemed to satisfy the landlord and she wasted no time in leaving. Oh the joy of language barriers:)!


In any case, to quickly describe my apartment situation, I have a single room (thank you to a random drawing) and three roommates. Fortunately, I get along well with each of them and look forward to our little excursions through Florence and the rest of Italy. To give you a quick FYI, their names are Megan (University of Minnesota), Brittany (also U of M, I think that organizers, in general, find it funny to pair people with the same name), and Allie (IU). I will talk about them a lot more I am sure!

PICTURES!

You can find them by clicking here for the first site and here for the second. The batteries in my camera have been dying without warning, so I have been using Michael's to take many pictures. For that reason, I don't have many posted on Flickr, but if you look at his, you'll see a more comprehensive picture show. Enjoy!

PART 1: THE FLIGHT

Buongiorno, once again! I am now able to blog aobut my personal experiences so far--to speak modestly, it has been an exciting and interesting week. My last entry was more of the different aspects of their culture that initally gave me some "shock" when I first arrived. Since then, I have become more (only slightly, there is so much more to learn) aware of why those observations are so, amongst many others. However, I will save that for a future entry, and for now, let you know how and what I have been doing.My flight left on January 11 from the Chicago O'Hare airport for Amsterdam, where I boarded onto a connecting flight to Rome. This trip would be the second time that I have ever flown and luckily everything went smoothly except for a few scares at O'Hare. (At this point, Mom, you should probably stop reading, I donàt want to start giving you any visible grey hairs, everything worked out in the end.) Anyways, continuing on, at O'Hare I went through the normal processes with luggage drop-off and moved through the line of travelers toward the security checkpoint. As I approached the conveyer belt for the x-ray machine, I placed my carry-on suitcase, laptop, and shoes onto it and stepped through the metal detector to its right. At that moment, my suitcase had set off the warning light and a security official was required to perform a search for the source of the signal. As he was digging through my items (a week's worth of undergarments, clothes, socks, books, and the sort), the official found that it had been the lip gloss in my make-up bag that had caused the trouble. Looking up and grabbing a quart-sized sandwich bag he asked, "Do you need this?"

"Not necessarily." I shrugged.

"What do you think about the war in Iraq?"

With that question I provided him with a concise response (my plane was leaving in 30 minutes!), but he followed with a very long, detailed opinion. When he was finished, he finally sealed the bag and handed it over. "Here is your make-up, if you wouldnàt have given me your opinion I would have just thrown this away. Good luck and continue on with your flight."Perhaps he was new, but I doubt he was allowed to make such subjective remarks to travelers; security officials are often stoic and terse if any conversation is present at all. In any case, I looked down to gather my belongings and proceeded toward the gate for my flight. I pulled off my suitcase, tossed my shoes onto the floor, and grabbed... my laptop was missing. Immediately, my stomach dropped and my face turned hot as I thought of someone carrying it away as I listened to the security official. How embarrassing would it be to call my parents after they had just lectured me on responsibility before I left? This trip was a new level of independence and I couldn't lose a valuable item within the first hour. (yikes!) Fortunately, my planets must have been aligned with homeland security (or something weird like that), because after a long fifteen minutes they had recovered it. Apparently, it had not been claimed quickly enough and so as the security official had been carrying on about his opinion on Iraq, others had picked up my laptop and stored it in a secured room. I took a very deep breath after that and perhaps I should have done some Tai Qi; and yes, in the airport. I was taught a very valuable lesson in maintaining "street smarts", and hope that I will pay more attention in the future. Otherwise, I could very well regret it in Florence!

The second "scare" happened to Michael, which you read about in his travel blog. I will give you a hint, it involved a "speeding wallet", short for a truck quickly moving away with one.
Aside from those two incidence, the flight and the connecting one to Rome went very well. It took approximately 6.5 hours to travel from Chicago to Amsterdam and about 2 from Amsterdam to Rome. Once in Rome, we took a three hour bus ride into Florence. To my surprise, the view driving in was underwhelming, lacking the usual skyscape of the Duomo and cathedrals that typically characterizes the city from the hilltops of its entrance. Now that I am more familiar iwth the city, I realize that we took a back way around the hills and on the opposite side of the river which avoids the traffic surrounding such tourist attractions. When we did arrive in the heart of the city, taxis took us to our apartment and we met with our landlords. The next day, we were given an orientation through the city and settled into our apartments.

The past few days have been both overwhelming and exciting as I continue to proceed through the stages of cultural shock. So much has happened, yet I don't even know where to begin! There is no way that I can possibly talk about everything but I will do my best to highlight the most interesting points so far. Eventually, my blogging will catch up with my daily interactions and the entries will be more personalized. With that in mind, why not start with the differences?



1. Cars and Driving- They move around like maniacs, and I like it. There's a disorderly order in the way they drive. They move fast for driving through a city, stay on pace with each other to not create congestion (sort of like a river current), and do not pay much attention to the lines on the road except for the double yellow line in the middle. They manuever around each other using the best and most effective route possible. If other cars, motorcycles, or mopeds are in their way, they honk and the vehicle moves; or, they just whiz around them without making a scene. They are very courteous and effecient that way, I think that it must be a general acknowledgement amongst Italians--get where you need to go, using the best way possible, and do not be offended if someone is doing the same. In essence, it is best said by a movie quote from Under the Tuscan Sun, "The traffic laws in Italy are only a suggestion."

The cars they use to accomplish this are very compact, where Smart cars, Toyota Golfs, and motorcycles are popular choices.


Ah, and I must not forget about their parking skills! These small cars also come in very handy for parking. They are typically aligned alongside a road with three to four inches at most between bumpers. Aside from the blue lined squares marked off for vehicles, cross walks and sometimes sidewalks are also acceptable places to leave your vehicle. Towards the outside of Florence, these cars may also park in intersections of small roads, leaving just enough room for a small car to manuever through if they need to use that route. Basically, within subtle limits, they do what they want.

2. Clothes- Italians are very classy! Their style of dress is similar to what you would find in Banana Republic and their color palette often consists of blacks, browns, and moss greens. For this reason, Americans are very easy to point out in a crowd. We are the ones wondering about in bright colors and pastels--tones and hues of pink, blue, green, and violet.

3. General shopping- They have a separate store for everything. There are a few supermarkets or chain stores but they are typically very small and more difficult to find. Instead, you find many individual shops for different things; such as, for example, you would go to separate stores to purchase meat, milk, and even vegetables. Therefore, you're usually running around to trying to find out where you can purchase each individual item. I would assume this may help with excess spending on food or novelty items? Who really wants to be running from place to place all day?

4. Food- The food is fresh in most places--it's wonderful. If you order a sandwich (panini, or another name), the bread would have been baked within the past few days, the mozzarella fresh from a cheese farm (or small privately owned factories), and the proscuetto (like ham, only drier and has the appearance of raw bacon) from the butcher

5. A glass of wine at a restaurant is cheaper than ordering water or pop, AND, you can purchase a bottle of quality wine (Chianti) for under 3 Euros.

As I said before, I will post pictures soon! I also hope to tell you more about my neighborhood and the "naive American" experiences that I have had. You will laugh I am sure:)

Ciao! I have arrived safely in Florence. More than likely, I will not write in my blog until tomorrow with my interesting encounters. Today is the first day of classes and I would like to feel slightly more adjusted! In any case, I have pictures on below that should satisfy your appetite in the meantime; (By the way, sorry for the bad choice in punctuation, I am still trying to figure out their keyboard, many of the symbols are in different locations)

My favorite scene--flying over the Alps in our trip from Amsterdam to Rome:

This is the location of my flat (apartment) relative to the Duomo (the picture of the dome below in my first entry). The school that I will be attending is approximately 2 blocks away from the Duomo, so I will pass it every day. Incredible!

I like their thinking.