Two nights ago Luciana and I were talking over dinner, she mentioned to me that she needed to get gas the next day.
The next day at dinner the news was on as usual, and Luciana tells me, “I tried to get gas today but I couldn’t, I got there and there wasn’t any.” I thought this was strange and asked why, “Communisti!” she replied and then pointed at the television where the news story was playing about there being no gas available in all of Italy due to a strike.
Strikes are something I’ve already gotten used to in Italy, they happen all the time, though it is mostly the buses or other modes of transportation. When something is happening politically that people disagree with, they strike. The transportation workers most directly serve the public so they are the first ones to go. This shows the government immediately where they would be without the people and it usually only happens for a half day or so and then ends, I never really hear if they are successful, or what the strike is really for, but we are usually told a week or so before, “just so you know, no trains Friday from noon to midnight.” Or something like this.
When we first got here the high school students were striking because they felt they were being treated unfairly by being forced to take certain exams or something. They organized a protest and actually did something about the causes that they disagreed with in their own lives.
This passion and involvement in political goingson astounds me. It is something I find refreshing; can you imagine American high school students taking anything into their own hands? While it is incredibly inconvenient a lot of times I think it is important to remind everyone that the things you depend on daily depend on someone else doing their job. The lack of gas yesterday was because the group of truck drivers who usually deliver the gas all over the country were striking. I asked Luciana why again and she responded “Because they’re communists,” as if that explained it, and then she added, “but they’re right.” They were working without contracts for meager wages and they realized how unfair this was—the country literally depends on them—and they showed the country just how much simply by making them go without for a day.
People couldn’t drive, taxi companies were driving until their cars were on empty, the fresh fruit and vegetables weren’t delivered to the grocery stores this morning because there were no trucks to deliver them, the gas stations saved what gas they had left for ambulances and emergency vehicles, and yet Italian life went on. And those commie drivers got the attention from the government that they wanted.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Some Christmas in Italia
The lights on Via Calzaiuoli, outside of my school.
Roasted Chestnuts. Mmmmm.
The Store windows! Fashion meets Christmas. Italian Style.
More lights.
Me at the Christmas Market at Santa Croce after my crazy Italian haircut!
Christmas Tree at the Christmas market!
Luciana
The past couple weeks I have gotten closer and closer with Luciana, my host mom. The third girl living in our house ended her program and returned to Switzerland, and with just three of us now at the table the conversations have gotten increasingly personal.
Luciana is an amazing woman, she curses every night at dinner as we watch the news, she hates politicians, and criminals and judges everyone initially on their appearance, though she is willing to change her mind if said person turns out to be a good person inside.
She told me the other day that her sister has always had to tell her, “Luciana, count to three before speaking.” She told me that she is just blunt and she never lies. And I believe her. After using a curse word she laughs and looks at us, “we only use these words in the house, right?”
Her husband died of lung cancer fifteen years ago, I think this is the same year she started hosting exchange students. It is also the year she quit smoking. Now she has two sons and three grandsons. All but the youngest grandson are smokers, and she calls them idiots for it. When Katherine and I first got here we couldn’t figure out if her husband had died or if she was divorced, over time we knew he had died. She speaks of him often and always fondly. He was a professor, he sounds brilliant, and I’m sure he was because she is too.
I think Luciana is in her eighties, though when I first got here I thought she was in her younger sixties. She doesn’t have a wrinkle on her face and she is always smiling. She says when she was younger she was beautiful, and I believe her. She says men used to follow her every time she left the house, but that back then it wasn’t a scary thing. She said her husband was one of those men. She never paid attention to them, but he figured out a way to get to know her. Even today she says men will offer her wine at restaurants or ask her out on the street, but she says, “they are all old,” and she will always love her husband.
Sunday over breakfast she told us this year has been hard. She has three friends in the hospital, two, she says, she’s sure will be going to the other world, one she’s not so sure about. Friends call her house all morning and all evening and she is out almost every day going to the movies, or going to lunch with them. She told us you reach an age where you have more dead friends than ones alive. She is never overly romantic or emotional, just honest. She looked at us and said, “but we’re all here, and you two get to go to the soccer game today!”
Luciana is an amazing woman, she curses every night at dinner as we watch the news, she hates politicians, and criminals and judges everyone initially on their appearance, though she is willing to change her mind if said person turns out to be a good person inside.
She told me the other day that her sister has always had to tell her, “Luciana, count to three before speaking.” She told me that she is just blunt and she never lies. And I believe her. After using a curse word she laughs and looks at us, “we only use these words in the house, right?”
Her husband died of lung cancer fifteen years ago, I think this is the same year she started hosting exchange students. It is also the year she quit smoking. Now she has two sons and three grandsons. All but the youngest grandson are smokers, and she calls them idiots for it. When Katherine and I first got here we couldn’t figure out if her husband had died or if she was divorced, over time we knew he had died. She speaks of him often and always fondly. He was a professor, he sounds brilliant, and I’m sure he was because she is too.
I think Luciana is in her eighties, though when I first got here I thought she was in her younger sixties. She doesn’t have a wrinkle on her face and she is always smiling. She says when she was younger she was beautiful, and I believe her. She says men used to follow her every time she left the house, but that back then it wasn’t a scary thing. She said her husband was one of those men. She never paid attention to them, but he figured out a way to get to know her. Even today she says men will offer her wine at restaurants or ask her out on the street, but she says, “they are all old,” and she will always love her husband.
Sunday over breakfast she told us this year has been hard. She has three friends in the hospital, two, she says, she’s sure will be going to the other world, one she’s not so sure about. Friends call her house all morning and all evening and she is out almost every day going to the movies, or going to lunch with them. She told us you reach an age where you have more dead friends than ones alive. She is never overly romantic or emotional, just honest. She looked at us and said, “but we’re all here, and you two get to go to the soccer game today!”
La Parrucchiera
Well it has been a while since I have written and I am trying to figure out if it is because I have been busy, or just because life is beginning to feel so normal here that I don’t feel like it is exciting enough to write about!
Looking back on the last couple weeks I have been busying myself, with midterms, making plans for winter break, going to my first Fiorentina soccer game, getting my first Italian haircut, trying to convince the Italian post office to release my package (the stories are true, they are insane), and all the while going to class, volunteering, and continuing to get to know my city better.
I can tell that my language skills here are improving because as I write this in English it seems incorrect and I want to use the Italian words for a lot of things. I am also finding myself more confident to speak to Italians. When I got my haircut I was really nervous at first to make an appointment, I picked out a salon and would walk past it day after day, too nervous to go in and say anything. Finally the day came where my hair was just too long, so I went in, and I made an appointment, and it was easy.
The morning I went in I was nervous again and kept pretty quiet for the first little while. My hairdresser however was wonderful and he came over touched my hair and said “bellissima.” Then asked “you just want it a little shorter right?” I laughed because the night before I had told my host mother I was going to the hairdresser and she just looked at me and said, “No you’re not. Your hair is beautiful and curly and people with curly hair don’t need to cut it.”
I told him what I wanted, layers, more volume, more Italian, maybe some type of bangs? He told me he could do it but he was keeping it natural and soft (which also made me laugh because the Italian word for soft is ‘morbido’ which may sound like a good thing to them, but to me, not so much).
I usually get nervous even talking to my hairdressers in America, but I decided that this was a great opportunity to practice my Italian. Saurio and I hit it off immediately, he told me that he had visited California last summer, and loved it. He said he loved Americans, they’re much more relaxed he said, I told him he had visited the right coast. We chatted and then I also chatted with the girl who styled my hair. She asked if I was Italian, I said no, and she said, I thought I heard a little accent. Which is much nicer to hear than people immediately assuming you can’t speak the language. She then told me that with my new haircut I’d find my Italian knight in shining armor. I told her I had an American boyfriend, she stopped and looked at me shocked, that must be so hard! It’s true. Italians really do take the romance thing seriously.
By the end of my time at the hairdressers Saurio told me he loved my hair, gave me the Italian goodbye kisses and made me promise to come back again and I felt a lot more confident, not just about my hair, but about my ability to do normal things in a new language and culture.
Looking back on the last couple weeks I have been busying myself, with midterms, making plans for winter break, going to my first Fiorentina soccer game, getting my first Italian haircut, trying to convince the Italian post office to release my package (the stories are true, they are insane), and all the while going to class, volunteering, and continuing to get to know my city better.
I can tell that my language skills here are improving because as I write this in English it seems incorrect and I want to use the Italian words for a lot of things. I am also finding myself more confident to speak to Italians. When I got my haircut I was really nervous at first to make an appointment, I picked out a salon and would walk past it day after day, too nervous to go in and say anything. Finally the day came where my hair was just too long, so I went in, and I made an appointment, and it was easy.
The morning I went in I was nervous again and kept pretty quiet for the first little while. My hairdresser however was wonderful and he came over touched my hair and said “bellissima.” Then asked “you just want it a little shorter right?” I laughed because the night before I had told my host mother I was going to the hairdresser and she just looked at me and said, “No you’re not. Your hair is beautiful and curly and people with curly hair don’t need to cut it.”
I told him what I wanted, layers, more volume, more Italian, maybe some type of bangs? He told me he could do it but he was keeping it natural and soft (which also made me laugh because the Italian word for soft is ‘morbido’ which may sound like a good thing to them, but to me, not so much).
I usually get nervous even talking to my hairdressers in America, but I decided that this was a great opportunity to practice my Italian. Saurio and I hit it off immediately, he told me that he had visited California last summer, and loved it. He said he loved Americans, they’re much more relaxed he said, I told him he had visited the right coast. We chatted and then I also chatted with the girl who styled my hair. She asked if I was Italian, I said no, and she said, I thought I heard a little accent. Which is much nicer to hear than people immediately assuming you can’t speak the language. She then told me that with my new haircut I’d find my Italian knight in shining armor. I told her I had an American boyfriend, she stopped and looked at me shocked, that must be so hard! It’s true. Italians really do take the romance thing seriously.
By the end of my time at the hairdressers Saurio told me he loved my hair, gave me the Italian goodbye kisses and made me promise to come back again and I felt a lot more confident, not just about my hair, but about my ability to do normal things in a new language and culture.
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Italian boy who captured my heart
My thanksgiving was indescribable. I would never have even known it was Thanksgiving if I hadn’t been looking at the calendar and had we not had a dinner with our school. Even though I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in America or in any conventional way, yesterday gave me so much to be thankful for.
Each of us have been given a place to do volunteer work this year and yesterday was my first day going to Villa Lorenzi, a place where middle to high school kids from troubled families can go after school so they don’t have to go home to a bad environment or to an empty apartment. I was told I would be helping kids with their homework and playing with them, my shift said it was from 1:30-6 p.m. every Thursday, other than that I had no idea what to expect.
I took the bus about twenty minutes out of the center of Florence and found the address I was looking for—as the name describes it was a huge villa on top of a hill. I walked in the front door and introduced myself to the first person I encountered, who looked back at me completely confused, and it took a good five minutes of panicked broken Italian conversation until I finally found the right person, who immediately called someone else to sweep me away through the winding halls of V. Lorenzi. I was introduced to about ten different people on the way to the lunch room but I don’t remember any of their names, they all spoke so fast and I felt like I had forgotten every day of my two and a half years of Italian. I was finally introduced to the leader of the group I would be working with. She shook my hand and smiled “Piacere,” at the same time as herding a group of ten 11-13 year old boys into the lunch room. The smallest boy stood on tippy toes to see over the rest of the group asking loudly, “Chi è lei?!” Who is she!? The leader of the group told him to wait a minute and he could introduce himself.
We walked into the lunch room where the boys were already sitting and the same little boy was sitting at the end of a table with an empty seat next to him. “Bella! Bella! Sedi qui!” Beautiful! Sit here! He was told again that it would be more polite to introduce himself to me and ask me my name. He immediately pulled all four feet of himself up from his seat and offered me his hand, “Ciao, Mi chiamo Ivan. Come ti chiami?” Hello, my name is Ivan. What’s your name? I smiled back and said “Ciao Ivan, Mi chiamo Margherita.” Hi Ivan, I’m Margherita. “Margherita!” he screamed “Sedi qui.”
The other boys I’m afraid where more typical middle school boys, afraid to look me in the eyes, and mumbled their names to their plates of pasta when I asked for them. Ivan kept me occupied throughout the meal however, first asking me for my hand so he could show me a handshake, then asking me if I could understand what he was saying, since I was slow to respond to his extremely fast words. Finally Ivan tugged on my sleeve and asked “Margherita, hai un fidanzato?” Do you have a boyfriend? “Sì,” I responded, “Ho un fidanzato.” Yes, I have a boyfriend. “E come si chiamo?” And what’s his name? “Si chiamo Sean.” (Keep in mind that it is pretty much impossible to pronounce Sean in Italian) “Sean?” he repeated, “hmmmm…oh sì! Penso di Conoscere lui dalla televisione!” Hmmm..Oh yes! I think I know him from tv! After a few moments Ivan tugged my sleeve again, “Quanti anni ha il tuo fidanzato?” How old is your boyfriend? “Lui ha venti anni.” He’s twenty. “Venti anni! Ma ho solo dieci anni!” Twenty! But I’m only ten years old! “Mi dispiace Ivan, ma anch’io ho venti anni.” I’m sorry Ivan, but I’m 20 too. Ivan looked a bit sad for a few minutes, but it seems as though he wasn’t too upset by the ten year age difference after all, or intimidated by Sean as competition, because it didn’t stop him from kissing me on the cheek at the end of lunch and then asking me to hold hands with him for the rest of the day.
After my lunchtime romance we all put our jackets on and went outside to play a game of calcio. They had already asked me the most important question, if I knew how to play soccer, and when I told them I had played for a long time I was recruited to even out a three on three game, (though I think they were still dubious of my ability, and after not having touched a soccer ball in almost 3 years now, so was I). When I finally was passed the ball and took a shot, the boys cried “Mamma mia!” “Che forza Margherita!” And after the game they all asked if I would play on their team next time. It was hard to tell through a language, culture, and age barrier whether they were poking fun at me or genuinely impressed, but either way they seemed to warm up to me after the game.
I was assigned to help Alessio with his English homework, during study time. And I quickly discovered how difficult it is to explain grammar rules that I barely know in a foreign language, then we moved onto math. I was blown away by the speed that Alessio could do algebra in his head, and I enjoyed listening to him rattle off numbers in Italian as he added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Each of the boys needed individual attention and Alessio was off in another room every fifteen seconds he didn’t have a set task in front of him.
Finally, after a few rounds of Uno with the boys after homework, and an afternoon snack, we were back out on the soccer field when it was time for me to leave. “Ok,” I said, “Devo partire.” Mohammed, one of the boys on my soccer team, looked at the other adult outside with us and laughed. “Devo partire?” he mocked me. The man urged him to tell me the right way to say it instead of laughing. Mohammed looked at me, “Devo andare via.”
“Grazie,” I said my cheeks burning, because of course I messed up one of the only things I had said out loud all day, “Devo andare via. Ci vediamo ragazzi.” Thank you. I have to go. I’ll see you later boys. When I arrived twenty minutes late to my Thanksgiving dinner at my director’s house I felt as if I had just had the longest day of my life, but when she asked how it had gone at Villa Lorenzi I could only smile and say “Bellino.”
Each of us have been given a place to do volunteer work this year and yesterday was my first day going to Villa Lorenzi, a place where middle to high school kids from troubled families can go after school so they don’t have to go home to a bad environment or to an empty apartment. I was told I would be helping kids with their homework and playing with them, my shift said it was from 1:30-6 p.m. every Thursday, other than that I had no idea what to expect.
I took the bus about twenty minutes out of the center of Florence and found the address I was looking for—as the name describes it was a huge villa on top of a hill. I walked in the front door and introduced myself to the first person I encountered, who looked back at me completely confused, and it took a good five minutes of panicked broken Italian conversation until I finally found the right person, who immediately called someone else to sweep me away through the winding halls of V. Lorenzi. I was introduced to about ten different people on the way to the lunch room but I don’t remember any of their names, they all spoke so fast and I felt like I had forgotten every day of my two and a half years of Italian. I was finally introduced to the leader of the group I would be working with. She shook my hand and smiled “Piacere,” at the same time as herding a group of ten 11-13 year old boys into the lunch room. The smallest boy stood on tippy toes to see over the rest of the group asking loudly, “Chi è lei?!” Who is she!? The leader of the group told him to wait a minute and he could introduce himself.
We walked into the lunch room where the boys were already sitting and the same little boy was sitting at the end of a table with an empty seat next to him. “Bella! Bella! Sedi qui!” Beautiful! Sit here! He was told again that it would be more polite to introduce himself to me and ask me my name. He immediately pulled all four feet of himself up from his seat and offered me his hand, “Ciao, Mi chiamo Ivan. Come ti chiami?” Hello, my name is Ivan. What’s your name? I smiled back and said “Ciao Ivan, Mi chiamo Margherita.” Hi Ivan, I’m Margherita. “Margherita!” he screamed “Sedi qui.”
The other boys I’m afraid where more typical middle school boys, afraid to look me in the eyes, and mumbled their names to their plates of pasta when I asked for them. Ivan kept me occupied throughout the meal however, first asking me for my hand so he could show me a handshake, then asking me if I could understand what he was saying, since I was slow to respond to his extremely fast words. Finally Ivan tugged on my sleeve and asked “Margherita, hai un fidanzato?” Do you have a boyfriend? “Sì,” I responded, “Ho un fidanzato.” Yes, I have a boyfriend. “E come si chiamo?” And what’s his name? “Si chiamo Sean.” (Keep in mind that it is pretty much impossible to pronounce Sean in Italian) “Sean?” he repeated, “hmmmm…oh sì! Penso di Conoscere lui dalla televisione!” Hmmm..Oh yes! I think I know him from tv! After a few moments Ivan tugged my sleeve again, “Quanti anni ha il tuo fidanzato?” How old is your boyfriend? “Lui ha venti anni.” He’s twenty. “Venti anni! Ma ho solo dieci anni!” Twenty! But I’m only ten years old! “Mi dispiace Ivan, ma anch’io ho venti anni.” I’m sorry Ivan, but I’m 20 too. Ivan looked a bit sad for a few minutes, but it seems as though he wasn’t too upset by the ten year age difference after all, or intimidated by Sean as competition, because it didn’t stop him from kissing me on the cheek at the end of lunch and then asking me to hold hands with him for the rest of the day.
After my lunchtime romance we all put our jackets on and went outside to play a game of calcio. They had already asked me the most important question, if I knew how to play soccer, and when I told them I had played for a long time I was recruited to even out a three on three game, (though I think they were still dubious of my ability, and after not having touched a soccer ball in almost 3 years now, so was I). When I finally was passed the ball and took a shot, the boys cried “Mamma mia!” “Che forza Margherita!” And after the game they all asked if I would play on their team next time. It was hard to tell through a language, culture, and age barrier whether they were poking fun at me or genuinely impressed, but either way they seemed to warm up to me after the game.
I was assigned to help Alessio with his English homework, during study time. And I quickly discovered how difficult it is to explain grammar rules that I barely know in a foreign language, then we moved onto math. I was blown away by the speed that Alessio could do algebra in his head, and I enjoyed listening to him rattle off numbers in Italian as he added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Each of the boys needed individual attention and Alessio was off in another room every fifteen seconds he didn’t have a set task in front of him.
Finally, after a few rounds of Uno with the boys after homework, and an afternoon snack, we were back out on the soccer field when it was time for me to leave. “Ok,” I said, “Devo partire.” Mohammed, one of the boys on my soccer team, looked at the other adult outside with us and laughed. “Devo partire?” he mocked me. The man urged him to tell me the right way to say it instead of laughing. Mohammed looked at me, “Devo andare via.”
“Grazie,” I said my cheeks burning, because of course I messed up one of the only things I had said out loud all day, “Devo andare via. Ci vediamo ragazzi.” Thank you. I have to go. I’ll see you later boys. When I arrived twenty minutes late to my Thanksgiving dinner at my director’s house I felt as if I had just had the longest day of my life, but when she asked how it had gone at Villa Lorenzi I could only smile and say “Bellino.”
Sunday, November 18, 2007
"Piano, Piano"
It has gotten incredibly cold and hearing the temperature in Celsius makes it seem even colder. Today the low was 2 degrees. The weather keeps threatening snow, though thankfully we haven’t gotten any yet, and I’ve heard it doesn’t get much colder than this which will be a welcome change from Massachusetts. On the bright side, since there is no such thing as Thanksgiving here stores have already started putting up their Christmas window displays and some of the little streets and alleys in Centro have strung lights and garlands in between the buildings. It’s beautiful and I already can’t wait to celebrate an Italian Christmas.
Last night a group of us bundled up in our layers of coats and scarves and returned to the Libreria/Café that has live music and we had some wine and listened to a group of Italians singing Indie-American songs. The place was so crowded that we sat on the floor of the loft and just watched everyone else mill about. Rachel and Sarah met a group of Southern Italians and when the café closed at midnight we all headed to a jazz club and they came along. On the way they kept repeating how incredible it was that they had found American students in Italy who actually speak Italian. Then they asked us what our honest opinions of Italians so far were. I told one of them that it was hard to tell because there seemed to be so many different types of Italians, but for sure they seem completely different from Americans. I could really tell for instance, that these people were Sicilian, as they were much more honest and open to talking to us than most Florentines would be. They seemed more genuine.
We then asked him what he thought of Americans and without even thinking he strung together five or six different words for “stupid,” both in Italian and English. Our new friend went on to explain, “You know when there is a house? And it is empty?”
Sara and I laughed and agreed, although he had to explain himself more clearly to our two Texan friends who were offended by his statement. “I know not every American is like this, I have many American friends who are incredible people, but for the major part this is the American image that I have.” He then clarified that for the most part the only respectful thing to come out of America is our art and music, “Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa.” Needless to say, these men were hippie Sicilian musicians who were reminiscent of the three musketeers.
In all honesty though I agreed with Davide and told him so, this is what the major part of Americans are like, and it’s sad. A little while later when the Musketeers left the jazz club for their next adventure Davide told me, “Don’t worry, it might be empty now, but you can fill it up, first a bed, then a couch, then a refrigerator. Piano piano.” One step at a time.
My only response was “Spero.” I hope.
Last night a group of us bundled up in our layers of coats and scarves and returned to the Libreria/Café that has live music and we had some wine and listened to a group of Italians singing Indie-American songs. The place was so crowded that we sat on the floor of the loft and just watched everyone else mill about. Rachel and Sarah met a group of Southern Italians and when the café closed at midnight we all headed to a jazz club and they came along. On the way they kept repeating how incredible it was that they had found American students in Italy who actually speak Italian. Then they asked us what our honest opinions of Italians so far were. I told one of them that it was hard to tell because there seemed to be so many different types of Italians, but for sure they seem completely different from Americans. I could really tell for instance, that these people were Sicilian, as they were much more honest and open to talking to us than most Florentines would be. They seemed more genuine.
We then asked him what he thought of Americans and without even thinking he strung together five or six different words for “stupid,” both in Italian and English. Our new friend went on to explain, “You know when there is a house? And it is empty?”
Sara and I laughed and agreed, although he had to explain himself more clearly to our two Texan friends who were offended by his statement. “I know not every American is like this, I have many American friends who are incredible people, but for the major part this is the American image that I have.” He then clarified that for the most part the only respectful thing to come out of America is our art and music, “Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa.” Needless to say, these men were hippie Sicilian musicians who were reminiscent of the three musketeers.
In all honesty though I agreed with Davide and told him so, this is what the major part of Americans are like, and it’s sad. A little while later when the Musketeers left the jazz club for their next adventure Davide told me, “Don’t worry, it might be empty now, but you can fill it up, first a bed, then a couch, then a refrigerator. Piano piano.” One step at a time.
My only response was “Spero.” I hope.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Il telegiornale
So with what we have all been seeing in the news lately that is pretty close to home (both Italy and Seattle) I thought I should write a little something. First a word about the Italian media: Luciana, my host mom (or host Nonna as she says), watches the news every night while we eat dinner. We have no choice but to watch with her. I am not against watching the news or being informed, in fact I think it is important that I stay informed about current events while I am here. However, if I had a choice I would not watch this during dinner, for many reasons.
First, the Italian news is not like American news, they don’t tell you about something terrible that happened, they tell you about something terrible that happened, show you the body, show you the blood stain the body left on the street and then show you footage of the person’s mother/father/girlfriend/sister etc. seeing the body. It is terrible and very upsetting to watch whether you understand what they are saying or not. They do it to get a rise out of people, and it works. Luciana eats half as quickly as we do because she spends all of dinnertime screaming “Bastardi!” “Creatini!” or “Idioti!” at every politician, famous person, or criminal suspect on the screen.
Second, the Italian media really likes to take stories like this one about the student killed in Perugia and cling to it as if there is nothing else going on in the world. This isn’t so different I guess from American media tactics but I feel as if they choose more personal stories to do this with, for instance a couple weeks after this happened a young man was killed in a car accident of some kind and people are now blaming the police for not acting quickly enough or something and now his face, his blog, pictures of him, his friends, his family are the only things on the tv. The newspaper even printed the sequence of events at his funeral, I don’t really understand why this one person was made such a public figure, but he has been, just like the people involved in the Perugia murder.
Though what happened in Perugia was tragic and scary I definitely don’t feel in any kind of danger. I obviously have no more of an idea than anyone else who really killed that girl, however I firmly believe lots of drugs and alcohol were involved and terrible decisions were made about the kind of company she was keeping. There are literally thousands of students who study in Italy every year and the only reason this is big news is because it is rare. I feel safe in Florence because I stay safe in Florence, I know there is crime here and I probably live in one of the worse areas (near the train station) for it, but common sense helps a lot and staying aware and with someone, especially at night makes all the difference. Luciana always asks us at dinner if we are going out that night, if we say yes she tells us, “Va bene, esca presto, ritorna presto. È meglio così.” “That’s good, leave early, come back early. It’s better that way.”
First, the Italian news is not like American news, they don’t tell you about something terrible that happened, they tell you about something terrible that happened, show you the body, show you the blood stain the body left on the street and then show you footage of the person’s mother/father/girlfriend/sister etc. seeing the body. It is terrible and very upsetting to watch whether you understand what they are saying or not. They do it to get a rise out of people, and it works. Luciana eats half as quickly as we do because she spends all of dinnertime screaming “Bastardi!” “Creatini!” or “Idioti!” at every politician, famous person, or criminal suspect on the screen.
Second, the Italian media really likes to take stories like this one about the student killed in Perugia and cling to it as if there is nothing else going on in the world. This isn’t so different I guess from American media tactics but I feel as if they choose more personal stories to do this with, for instance a couple weeks after this happened a young man was killed in a car accident of some kind and people are now blaming the police for not acting quickly enough or something and now his face, his blog, pictures of him, his friends, his family are the only things on the tv. The newspaper even printed the sequence of events at his funeral, I don’t really understand why this one person was made such a public figure, but he has been, just like the people involved in the Perugia murder.
Though what happened in Perugia was tragic and scary I definitely don’t feel in any kind of danger. I obviously have no more of an idea than anyone else who really killed that girl, however I firmly believe lots of drugs and alcohol were involved and terrible decisions were made about the kind of company she was keeping. There are literally thousands of students who study in Italy every year and the only reason this is big news is because it is rare. I feel safe in Florence because I stay safe in Florence, I know there is crime here and I probably live in one of the worse areas (near the train station) for it, but common sense helps a lot and staying aware and with someone, especially at night makes all the difference. Luciana always asks us at dinner if we are going out that night, if we say yes she tells us, “Va bene, esca presto, ritorna presto. È meglio così.” “That’s good, leave early, come back early. It’s better that way.”
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Beginning to Feel Like Home.
I heard that week 8 would be the magical one, where everything would finally feel right and now I am a believer. Before fall break I was definitely emotional about my decision to be here all year and beginning to wonder whether I could handle being away for so long in a completely new world. Going to Sweden over break was like therapy, it was wonderful to spend time with family and to get away, and even more amazing to realize that coming back to Florence felt like coming home.
This week I felt I took complete advantage of living here and finally found a rhythm for my daily life. I’ve started running every morning that I don’t have class early either along the Arno or in a park near my house called the Cascine. It is really beautiful even though it too is under construction and one of the very few parks around here so I feel lucky to have it within running distance. I also went out three nights this week, my friends and I have been looking for different places to hang out at night and we definitely found some that were a lot of fun this week. Friday we celebrated my friend Linda’s birthday and we went out to a really fun restaurant that had been recommended to me by a friend who studied here last year. The food and wine was incredible, and the restaurant is completely authentic with a really fun, loud Italian atmosphere. There were ten of us altogether and we enjoyed a real multiple course Italian dinner that lasted several hours. I documented that day fairly thoroughly and will post some pictures from it, since I’ve realized I haven’t been putting up very many taken actually in Florence.
This week I also went to my first University of Florence class. It was quite the adventure finding a class that I had no idea where it was, that had already started 3 weeks before, full of Italian students in a University setting that I have never experienced. The class I decided to audit is called “Teoria e Tecnica della Communicazione di Massa” or “Theory and technique of Mass Communication.” Since I am unable to take communication courses at Smith and that is the field of work I eventually intend to end up in, the class was amazing. I found the professor brilliant, and I understood nearly everything, I even had a short conversation with the girl next to me before class and I felt like the University of Florence will definitely be an asset to me in meeting my Italian peers.
This weekend I have quite a bit of homework from my other classes, so I’ll need to get started on that after I have an afternoon coffee and pastry that I have come to cherish. Florence is becoming easier for me to navigate while still retaining its beauty and magnificence that I first fell in love with. It is incredibly hard for me to believe my family will be here for Christmas break in just over a month already, I can’t wait to show them my new world.
Feel free to look at all of my pictures if you’d like, here’s the link to my latest album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/maggie.mertens/UnGiorno
This week I felt I took complete advantage of living here and finally found a rhythm for my daily life. I’ve started running every morning that I don’t have class early either along the Arno or in a park near my house called the Cascine. It is really beautiful even though it too is under construction and one of the very few parks around here so I feel lucky to have it within running distance. I also went out three nights this week, my friends and I have been looking for different places to hang out at night and we definitely found some that were a lot of fun this week. Friday we celebrated my friend Linda’s birthday and we went out to a really fun restaurant that had been recommended to me by a friend who studied here last year. The food and wine was incredible, and the restaurant is completely authentic with a really fun, loud Italian atmosphere. There were ten of us altogether and we enjoyed a real multiple course Italian dinner that lasted several hours. I documented that day fairly thoroughly and will post some pictures from it, since I’ve realized I haven’t been putting up very many taken actually in Florence.
This week I also went to my first University of Florence class. It was quite the adventure finding a class that I had no idea where it was, that had already started 3 weeks before, full of Italian students in a University setting that I have never experienced. The class I decided to audit is called “Teoria e Tecnica della Communicazione di Massa” or “Theory and technique of Mass Communication.” Since I am unable to take communication courses at Smith and that is the field of work I eventually intend to end up in, the class was amazing. I found the professor brilliant, and I understood nearly everything, I even had a short conversation with the girl next to me before class and I felt like the University of Florence will definitely be an asset to me in meeting my Italian peers.
This weekend I have quite a bit of homework from my other classes, so I’ll need to get started on that after I have an afternoon coffee and pastry that I have come to cherish. Florence is becoming easier for me to navigate while still retaining its beauty and magnificence that I first fell in love with. It is incredibly hard for me to believe my family will be here for Christmas break in just over a month already, I can’t wait to show them my new world.
Feel free to look at all of my pictures if you’d like, here’s the link to my latest album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/maggie.mertens/UnGiorno
Un Giorno della Mia Vita Fiorentina
After a quick lunch on someone's doorstep.
Right before the weather turned on us.
The storm coming in over Santa Croce.
A baristo who fell in love with my friend Sarah and gave us free pastries!
At Zà Zà, the restaurant where we ate, there were so many beautiful things to look it.
Beginning the meal with bread and oil and vinegar.
Sara and me!
It was Linda's birthday and they brought her cake with a firework in it!
The remains of the meal.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Learning Experiences
I feel like I could write a travel guide just after one night’s experience flying back to Italy from Sweden this weekend. But after everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, I still made it home in one piece, and I feel like a much better traveler for it.
Here are some tips for the next time any of you are flying into an airport in Italy and hoping to get from there to somewhere else in Italy:
DON’T expect trains to be running on Sunday evenings on a holiday weekend.
DO book trains ahead of time if you can.
DO look up where the train stations are in relation to the airports.
DON’T be afraid to call a taxi to get to a train station to catch an earlier train when you know the next one isn’t for at least 7 hours.
DO go to a hotel instead of sitting in a train station until 5 a.m.
DON’T book a room at the first hotel you see outside of the train station.
DON’T go to any hotels that give you the creeps.
DO ask more than one person in the airport for the best way to get somewhere.
DON’T panic, ever.
All in all I ended up taking a train home Monday morning instead of Sunday night even though my flight had landed in Treviso (outside of Venice) 40 minutes ahead of schedule which should have been plenty of time to make it to the train station 15 minutes away, to catch the 8:10 train, the last one until the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the bus I was told to take to the train station didn’t come until 20 minutes after that train had left, and didn’t leave the airport until 45 minutes later. By the time I finally made it to the train station at 10 p.m., the train at 3:30 a.m. was already full and the next train wasn’t until 5:20 a.m. By the time my train pulled into Santa Maria Novella in Florence at 8 a.m. Monday morning I was extremely happy to be back.
Here are some tips for the next time any of you are flying into an airport in Italy and hoping to get from there to somewhere else in Italy:
DON’T expect trains to be running on Sunday evenings on a holiday weekend.
DO book trains ahead of time if you can.
DO look up where the train stations are in relation to the airports.
DON’T be afraid to call a taxi to get to a train station to catch an earlier train when you know the next one isn’t for at least 7 hours.
DO go to a hotel instead of sitting in a train station until 5 a.m.
DON’T book a room at the first hotel you see outside of the train station.
DON’T go to any hotels that give you the creeps.
DO ask more than one person in the airport for the best way to get somewhere.
DON’T panic, ever.
All in all I ended up taking a train home Monday morning instead of Sunday night even though my flight had landed in Treviso (outside of Venice) 40 minutes ahead of schedule which should have been plenty of time to make it to the train station 15 minutes away, to catch the 8:10 train, the last one until the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the bus I was told to take to the train station didn’t come until 20 minutes after that train had left, and didn’t leave the airport until 45 minutes later. By the time I finally made it to the train station at 10 p.m., the train at 3:30 a.m. was already full and the next train wasn’t until 5:20 a.m. By the time my train pulled into Santa Maria Novella in Florence at 8 a.m. Monday morning I was extremely happy to be back.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Svezia, Costume, Pisa e Un lezione di Fisica
Ciao Tutti!
I’m already coming up on the first of my vacations next week, our fall break, and for the Italians La Festa di Ognissanti, (All Saint’s Day) and I will be spending it visiting my aunt in Sweden. It’s amazing that I’m already hitting a benchmark, another reminder that my time here is flying by.
Last week was another full one, my classes are all picking up, I have lots of reading to do and papers to write but I’m still finding all of my classes incredibly interesting. In our Studio Art class we are following the same guidelines that Renaissance artists followed. During our first lesson we made ink pens out of feathers and our own silver point pencils and sketched with pieces of charcoal. It was amazing. Later we are going to the Accademia to sketch the actual David.
In the search for the perfect café last week, a few of us stumbled upon a little Libreria (bookstore) that is also a café, bar and live music venue at nights. After enjoying a cappuccino sitting down without being bothered by anyone but the owner’s dog during lunch one day, we decided to try back that night when an Italian folk group was playing. The music was amazing and it was the largest group of happy Italians I have seen since being here, everyone was dancing and smiling and the atmosphere was really fun.
Friday we took a trip to Palazzo Pitti, deciding to take on the eight-museum complex that was the Medici’s home for almost 200 years in baby steps. After looking only at the Galleria del Costume, the museum of the history of Florentine fashion, we felt culturally satisfied and also inspired to shop a bit. I’ve been pleasantly surprised lately that the overall number of tourists seems to be going down along with the temperature. Even while we browsed the jewelry store windows of the Ponte Vecchio it didn’t seem overly crowded.
Saturday brought with it my long awaited trip to Pisa both to see the sites and to meet Melissa and Luca, two of the connections I have in Italy. Pisa is reminiscent of a smaller cleaner Florence, it is closer to the coast and full of less people but has similar architecture and is situated across the Arno just like Firenze. The area with the Leaning Tower, the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Convent is where all of the tourists convene, but even so the sight is impressive. Pisa has the best lawns I’ve seen yet in Italy, and it makes the white marble buildings pop, the aesthetics were also helped by the blue sky and 70 degree weather we were graced with on Saturday (out of nowhere). While most tourists rushed madly into each of the buildings and museums the lawns turned into a kind of replacement college campus and many students were just lying out, soaking up what might be the last warm day of the year. We saw only the inside of the cathedral, a beautiful piece of architecture, less intense than the one in Siena, but just as beautiful, and the Cloisters which are famous for being hit with a bomb during WWII when all of the frescoes inside literally melted off the walls from the heat. Today it is in the midst of being restored and the half destructed artwork and architecture blend with the extremely graphic and base artwork depicted in what is left of the frescoes to leave an eerie, sad feeling with any visitor.
That night I enjoyed a true Italian aperitivi version of dinner with Melissa and Luca and their friends from the University of Pisa Physics department. I definitely picked up some new Italian vocab listening to their conversations about work, and enjoyed being a part of someone’s everyday life here.
Yesterday, after being extremely confused by daylight saving’s time, (which no one mentioned to me, and apparently the U.S. isn’t doing for another week?) my friend Castine and I did something I’ve been wanting to do since I got here: go to a movie. We saw Ratatouille dubbed into Italian and it was extremely bellino, and it let me have a little more interaction with my favorite Italian age group. Happy Halloween to everyone out there! Eat some American candy for me!
I’m already coming up on the first of my vacations next week, our fall break, and for the Italians La Festa di Ognissanti, (All Saint’s Day) and I will be spending it visiting my aunt in Sweden. It’s amazing that I’m already hitting a benchmark, another reminder that my time here is flying by.
Last week was another full one, my classes are all picking up, I have lots of reading to do and papers to write but I’m still finding all of my classes incredibly interesting. In our Studio Art class we are following the same guidelines that Renaissance artists followed. During our first lesson we made ink pens out of feathers and our own silver point pencils and sketched with pieces of charcoal. It was amazing. Later we are going to the Accademia to sketch the actual David.
In the search for the perfect café last week, a few of us stumbled upon a little Libreria (bookstore) that is also a café, bar and live music venue at nights. After enjoying a cappuccino sitting down without being bothered by anyone but the owner’s dog during lunch one day, we decided to try back that night when an Italian folk group was playing. The music was amazing and it was the largest group of happy Italians I have seen since being here, everyone was dancing and smiling and the atmosphere was really fun.
Friday we took a trip to Palazzo Pitti, deciding to take on the eight-museum complex that was the Medici’s home for almost 200 years in baby steps. After looking only at the Galleria del Costume, the museum of the history of Florentine fashion, we felt culturally satisfied and also inspired to shop a bit. I’ve been pleasantly surprised lately that the overall number of tourists seems to be going down along with the temperature. Even while we browsed the jewelry store windows of the Ponte Vecchio it didn’t seem overly crowded.
Saturday brought with it my long awaited trip to Pisa both to see the sites and to meet Melissa and Luca, two of the connections I have in Italy. Pisa is reminiscent of a smaller cleaner Florence, it is closer to the coast and full of less people but has similar architecture and is situated across the Arno just like Firenze. The area with the Leaning Tower, the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Convent is where all of the tourists convene, but even so the sight is impressive. Pisa has the best lawns I’ve seen yet in Italy, and it makes the white marble buildings pop, the aesthetics were also helped by the blue sky and 70 degree weather we were graced with on Saturday (out of nowhere). While most tourists rushed madly into each of the buildings and museums the lawns turned into a kind of replacement college campus and many students were just lying out, soaking up what might be the last warm day of the year. We saw only the inside of the cathedral, a beautiful piece of architecture, less intense than the one in Siena, but just as beautiful, and the Cloisters which are famous for being hit with a bomb during WWII when all of the frescoes inside literally melted off the walls from the heat. Today it is in the midst of being restored and the half destructed artwork and architecture blend with the extremely graphic and base artwork depicted in what is left of the frescoes to leave an eerie, sad feeling with any visitor.
That night I enjoyed a true Italian aperitivi version of dinner with Melissa and Luca and their friends from the University of Pisa Physics department. I definitely picked up some new Italian vocab listening to their conversations about work, and enjoyed being a part of someone’s everyday life here.
Yesterday, after being extremely confused by daylight saving’s time, (which no one mentioned to me, and apparently the U.S. isn’t doing for another week?) my friend Castine and I did something I’ve been wanting to do since I got here: go to a movie. We saw Ratatouille dubbed into Italian and it was extremely bellino, and it let me have a little more interaction with my favorite Italian age group. Happy Halloween to everyone out there! Eat some American candy for me!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
L'auttuno arriva
Fall officially arrived this weekend, and after lying on the beach last weekend, it feels a little bit more like winter to me. Yesterday I stood in line for four hours after deciding it was about time I saw the Uffizi. Florence’s most popular museum, the Uffizi is 45 rooms of artwork once owned by the Medici’s. This four hour wait sounds like it would just be boring, but instead it was boring and freezing, two of my friends and I took turns standing in the cold and running to get coffee or tea, or just find someplace to stand that was warmer for a couple minutes. Katherine called it quits after two hours, but Hanna and I were both too stubborn to leave, and we were rewarded in the end with an amazing collection of art, housed in another of Florence’s most beautiful buildings. I saw Botticelli’s original “Birth of Venus,” and “La Primavera,” two that I was really looking forward to, along with a lot of other historically significant Italian art. It’s amazing that one family used to own all of that, and more, it’s really incredible that I have only been to one actual museum so far in Florence, I feel like everywhere I look is art.
I spent Saturday in Siena, another adventure dampered a bit by the frigid wind, but we got to see some beautiful architecture. Siena reminded me a little of a miniature, cleaner version of Florence. With a duomo and a Piazza with a really similar looking building to the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria. We mustered up the courage to pay the six euro entrance fee to the duomo (we are all feeling the terrible exchange rate and curse of being students with no income living in Europe) and were extremely glad we did. An older American woman leaving the church when we first arrived was rambling to herself, and us, that the nearly ten American dollars she just spent definitely wasn’t worth it to see just another church! But I think she may have been blind, or just crazy, because the interior of the church was one of the most intricate I have ever seen, the entire structure is striped between the green and white marble that is usually only on the outside of Italian churches, every floor tile was a different beautiful design, and their were sculptures in every spare corner including a bust of every single pope that circled the entire thing, it was incredible. The church wasn’t very big but we spent over an hour just walking through it, taking pictures, and trying to get them to turn out without a flash, it was so hard to capture, it was all just too much.
After lots of sightseeing this weekend I’m pretty wiped out before the second week of my first semester classes, but I think I can manage with three day weeks, and I already have “fall break” next week. My first real solo traveling European adventure to Sweden, it should definitely be an experience. I should be starting to audit my University of Florence class sometime soon as well, I am going to see if I can audit a mass communication course, something I would never have the chance to take at Smith and I think would be incredibly interesting given the state of the Italian media.
Un abbracciano a tutti!
I spent Saturday in Siena, another adventure dampered a bit by the frigid wind, but we got to see some beautiful architecture. Siena reminded me a little of a miniature, cleaner version of Florence. With a duomo and a Piazza with a really similar looking building to the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria. We mustered up the courage to pay the six euro entrance fee to the duomo (we are all feeling the terrible exchange rate and curse of being students with no income living in Europe) and were extremely glad we did. An older American woman leaving the church when we first arrived was rambling to herself, and us, that the nearly ten American dollars she just spent definitely wasn’t worth it to see just another church! But I think she may have been blind, or just crazy, because the interior of the church was one of the most intricate I have ever seen, the entire structure is striped between the green and white marble that is usually only on the outside of Italian churches, every floor tile was a different beautiful design, and their were sculptures in every spare corner including a bust of every single pope that circled the entire thing, it was incredible. The church wasn’t very big but we spent over an hour just walking through it, taking pictures, and trying to get them to turn out without a flash, it was so hard to capture, it was all just too much.
After lots of sightseeing this weekend I’m pretty wiped out before the second week of my first semester classes, but I think I can manage with three day weeks, and I already have “fall break” next week. My first real solo traveling European adventure to Sweden, it should definitely be an experience. I should be starting to audit my University of Florence class sometime soon as well, I am going to see if I can audit a mass communication course, something I would never have the chance to take at Smith and I think would be incredibly interesting given the state of the Italian media.
Un abbracciano a tutti!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Una Giostra nella Piazza
Today there is a Carousel in the Piazza della Repubblica, for no apparent reason. It is beautiful. I sat by it for an hour today and read my book and watched the Italian children run up to the cavallinos, begging for a ride. I want to babysit an Italian child and feed her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and have her grow up and remember her cool American babysitter that introduced her to this foreign delicacy.
It has become fall, there is a chill in the air that has forced me into a scarf and jacket and sweater combo and has me stopping at every shop window for the perfect pair of Italian stivali (boots) and drooling over the thousands of different colored guanti (gloves) that look so warm and stylish at the same time.
I find myself missing places to go sit and read. At home I grew up in Starbucks, which—say what you will about it—knows something about atmosphere, and for 3 bucks you can have a warm place to cuddle up with your latest novel all afternoon. At school in Northampton, café’s line up to provide students with the ideal study environment/escape from the harsh New England weather. While Florentines love their espresso, and it is extremely good espresso, they drink it standing up, and if you dare sit down without ordering food you can expect a dirty look from the cameriera (waiter).
Our University courses should start in the next few weeks and hopefully that will introduce me to what the students here do for fun, besides late night partying at the discoteca, which isn’t really my thing. This weekend they are calling for storms and rain, I don’t have any travel plans currently so I think I will finally take advantage of my museum pass and the bad weather and look at some indoor art, while still keeping an eye out for the Italian literary loner hangout of my dreams.
It has become fall, there is a chill in the air that has forced me into a scarf and jacket and sweater combo and has me stopping at every shop window for the perfect pair of Italian stivali (boots) and drooling over the thousands of different colored guanti (gloves) that look so warm and stylish at the same time.
I find myself missing places to go sit and read. At home I grew up in Starbucks, which—say what you will about it—knows something about atmosphere, and for 3 bucks you can have a warm place to cuddle up with your latest novel all afternoon. At school in Northampton, café’s line up to provide students with the ideal study environment/escape from the harsh New England weather. While Florentines love their espresso, and it is extremely good espresso, they drink it standing up, and if you dare sit down without ordering food you can expect a dirty look from the cameriera (waiter).
Our University courses should start in the next few weeks and hopefully that will introduce me to what the students here do for fun, besides late night partying at the discoteca, which isn’t really my thing. This weekend they are calling for storms and rain, I don’t have any travel plans currently so I think I will finally take advantage of my museum pass and the bad weather and look at some indoor art, while still keeping an eye out for the Italian literary loner hangout of my dreams.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Trovavo Paradiso
This weekend I heeded some advice from other people who have been to Italy and planned a trip to Cinque Terre in the Liguria province where it is apparently perfect temperature all year round. We hit it at the exact right moment, right at the end of “high season” for the tourists, but when the temperatures were in the high 70’s to low 80’s all weekend, warm enough to swim in the Mediterranean, and not intense enough to lie on the beach for two days straight without sunscreen and not get burned!
I will definitely post pictures because I can’t even describe how beautiful it is there, five towns that cling to the cliffs over the sea and you can walk between all of them on paths, find little rock coves to sunbathe in, or just jump into the Ligurian Sea (I think it is the Ligurian, or the Mediterranean, or whatever they are all connected anyway). Our spontaneous weekend turned out perfectly with us finding a three bedroom apartment for rent in the tiniest town of Riomaggiore for only 150 euros (which split between 9 girls was cheaper than any hostel). We made our own dinner for the night of fresh pasta and pesto, salad, peach slices wrapped in prosciutto, chocolate, wine, strawberries and mascarpone. It was a really amazing night and we definitely all bonded.
Riomaggiore doesn’t really have an actual beach but we found a huge rock jetty of these giant flat marble stones and brought a lunch out there and just laid around and jumped in the sea when we felt like it. Sunday we took the train to the largest of the five towns, Monterosso, which is more touristy but has actual sand beaches as well. Katherine and I got home late last night exhausted and covered in a fine layer of Mediterranean sea salt.
I slept incredibly well, remembering how much lying on the beach can take it out of you, and woke up this morning for my first day of the real semester. I went to three classes today: our required stylistics course, Italian literature, and the history of Florence. All of them were amazing and I was reminded during my literature class how much I love my major and the reason I am so in love with Italian literature. Learning about these things that I have been passionate about for so long in the language I have slowly been falling in love with is incredible. Sorry if it sounds like I am writing a college essay here but I’m really happy that I am enjoying even the academic aspect of being here. I will only have class three days a week at the Smith Center this semester, and don’t start auditing my University of Florence class for another couple weeks. Every time I look at the date I can’t believe how fast the time has been going, I’m coming up on my one month mark but still feel like I could spend the entire year here traveling as much as I have been and not see it all.
I feel as if I am getting more comfortable with the language, although every time I have a grammar lesson I realize how much I still don’t quite understand, and I also am getting much better at navigating the city and the transportation systems. It has also been difficult keeping in contact with people from home with the lack of available wireless here, which is proving a bit frustrating, but slowly I am figuring things out. Right now I am sitting outside of a café that lets you use their wireless if you buy something, Katherine and I had some cappuccinos, but there are also a lot of students bumming the wireless on the sidewalk next to us. I can’t wait for my family and friends who are coming to visit me this year so I can show them such an amazing place. I hope this blog is proving useful and/or interesting for you guys, and if any of you have questions or want to drop me a line you can email me anytime! maggie.mertens@gmail.com
Ciao!
I will definitely post pictures because I can’t even describe how beautiful it is there, five towns that cling to the cliffs over the sea and you can walk between all of them on paths, find little rock coves to sunbathe in, or just jump into the Ligurian Sea (I think it is the Ligurian, or the Mediterranean, or whatever they are all connected anyway). Our spontaneous weekend turned out perfectly with us finding a three bedroom apartment for rent in the tiniest town of Riomaggiore for only 150 euros (which split between 9 girls was cheaper than any hostel). We made our own dinner for the night of fresh pasta and pesto, salad, peach slices wrapped in prosciutto, chocolate, wine, strawberries and mascarpone. It was a really amazing night and we definitely all bonded.
Riomaggiore doesn’t really have an actual beach but we found a huge rock jetty of these giant flat marble stones and brought a lunch out there and just laid around and jumped in the sea when we felt like it. Sunday we took the train to the largest of the five towns, Monterosso, which is more touristy but has actual sand beaches as well. Katherine and I got home late last night exhausted and covered in a fine layer of Mediterranean sea salt.
I slept incredibly well, remembering how much lying on the beach can take it out of you, and woke up this morning for my first day of the real semester. I went to three classes today: our required stylistics course, Italian literature, and the history of Florence. All of them were amazing and I was reminded during my literature class how much I love my major and the reason I am so in love with Italian literature. Learning about these things that I have been passionate about for so long in the language I have slowly been falling in love with is incredible. Sorry if it sounds like I am writing a college essay here but I’m really happy that I am enjoying even the academic aspect of being here. I will only have class three days a week at the Smith Center this semester, and don’t start auditing my University of Florence class for another couple weeks. Every time I look at the date I can’t believe how fast the time has been going, I’m coming up on my one month mark but still feel like I could spend the entire year here traveling as much as I have been and not see it all.
I feel as if I am getting more comfortable with the language, although every time I have a grammar lesson I realize how much I still don’t quite understand, and I also am getting much better at navigating the city and the transportation systems. It has also been difficult keeping in contact with people from home with the lack of available wireless here, which is proving a bit frustrating, but slowly I am figuring things out. Right now I am sitting outside of a café that lets you use their wireless if you buy something, Katherine and I had some cappuccinos, but there are also a lot of students bumming the wireless on the sidewalk next to us. I can’t wait for my family and friends who are coming to visit me this year so I can show them such an amazing place. I hope this blog is proving useful and/or interesting for you guys, and if any of you have questions or want to drop me a line you can email me anytime! maggie.mertens@gmail.com
Ciao!
Monday, October 8, 2007
Photos of San Gimignano and Il Giardino di Boboli
The view from outside of San Gimignano, doesn't it make you want to buy a vineyard and stay there forever?
The girls.
Those medieval buildings in one of the piazzas.
Me with the second best gelato I've had so far in Italy.
One of San Gimignano's infamous towers.
Il giardino di Boboli! One of many many fountains. Buontalenti loved his fountains.
We felt Italian sitting up on those big grassy hills and reading our Italian books.
One of the Medici mansions, some more fountain, and a view of the city I'm sure they paid a lot for.
More garden, do you see that castle way up in the background?
We stayed at the gardens all day and I'm pretty sure only saw 1/10 of it because everywhere you turn there are little hidden paths like this one.
A Slow Transition.
Gradually I am feeling myself grow more accustomed to life here. Sunday morning I woke up late (9 a.m., but to my Signora I am the “dormita” the sleeper of the house) and sat in the kitchen drinking my coffee and eating my toast while my Signora cut up apples for a dessert she was making.
Saturday was a long day, I planned a trip to San Gimignano after being reminded of the town my mom loved so much by my History of Florence professor last week. Four friends and I ended up taking the long, winding bus ride there. San Gimignano is significant because it is a medieval village that still has 17 of its 42 towers intact. Back in the day when Italy was constantly at war with itself people built towers to protect themselves and to throw boiling oil out of at their enemies. Today they make for lovely places to see panoramic vistas of the Tuscan countryside.
San Gimignano is beautiful because of both the countryside and the village itself. The buildings have been maintained beautifully and it still retains the quiet mood of a little village while also being a popular tourist destination. We had a fabulous lunch, and gelato that rivals that of “Vivoli,” the best gelateria in Florence. Then we went to the Museo di Civico where tons of religious art, beautiful frescoes and the “Sala di Dante,” a room where Dante once mediated a village war, are all housed. The museum is also home to the only tower in San Gimignano that you are allowed to go up. Although to reach the top we had to climb hundreds of stairs, the view was worth it. We stayed at the top of the tower for almost an hour just taking in one of the most beautiful panoramas I’ve ever seen. After descending I went on a hunt for a leather bag maker where my mom had bought me a purse a few years before. After giving up hope a few hours later we finally stumbled upon it and I pulled my purse out showing the man at the shop (who makes all the bags with his son) and told him my mom had bought it from him for me two years ago. He smiled at me and asked “Buona?” ‘Is it good?’ And I told him I loved it. After falling in love with several other of his bags I finally settled on one that I could carry my books and computer in to and from school. He gave me a small discount and after asking if I was English or American he took my hands in his and said “Saluta tua madre per me.” ‘Say hi to your mother from me.’ I left the shop beaming after making my first big Italian purchase.
Needless to say I went to bed exhausted that night and Sunday morning took the day at my pace, deciding to spend some time in my own city. I took advantage of my museum pass paid for by my school and went to the Boboli Gardens, sort of the Florentine Central Park, except that it was all once owned by the Medicis and their sense of grandeur is felt in every square centimeter of the place. I read my Italian novel that I am stumbling through, wrote in my journal, and took pictures of only a few of the incredible statues and vistas the garden is home to. We are still experiencing unseasonably warm weather here, and I feel like my summer vacation has been extended indefinitely, and that’s not such a bad feeling.
Saturday was a long day, I planned a trip to San Gimignano after being reminded of the town my mom loved so much by my History of Florence professor last week. Four friends and I ended up taking the long, winding bus ride there. San Gimignano is significant because it is a medieval village that still has 17 of its 42 towers intact. Back in the day when Italy was constantly at war with itself people built towers to protect themselves and to throw boiling oil out of at their enemies. Today they make for lovely places to see panoramic vistas of the Tuscan countryside.
San Gimignano is beautiful because of both the countryside and the village itself. The buildings have been maintained beautifully and it still retains the quiet mood of a little village while also being a popular tourist destination. We had a fabulous lunch, and gelato that rivals that of “Vivoli,” the best gelateria in Florence. Then we went to the Museo di Civico where tons of religious art, beautiful frescoes and the “Sala di Dante,” a room where Dante once mediated a village war, are all housed. The museum is also home to the only tower in San Gimignano that you are allowed to go up. Although to reach the top we had to climb hundreds of stairs, the view was worth it. We stayed at the top of the tower for almost an hour just taking in one of the most beautiful panoramas I’ve ever seen. After descending I went on a hunt for a leather bag maker where my mom had bought me a purse a few years before. After giving up hope a few hours later we finally stumbled upon it and I pulled my purse out showing the man at the shop (who makes all the bags with his son) and told him my mom had bought it from him for me two years ago. He smiled at me and asked “Buona?” ‘Is it good?’ And I told him I loved it. After falling in love with several other of his bags I finally settled on one that I could carry my books and computer in to and from school. He gave me a small discount and after asking if I was English or American he took my hands in his and said “Saluta tua madre per me.” ‘Say hi to your mother from me.’ I left the shop beaming after making my first big Italian purchase.
Needless to say I went to bed exhausted that night and Sunday morning took the day at my pace, deciding to spend some time in my own city. I took advantage of my museum pass paid for by my school and went to the Boboli Gardens, sort of the Florentine Central Park, except that it was all once owned by the Medicis and their sense of grandeur is felt in every square centimeter of the place. I read my Italian novel that I am stumbling through, wrote in my journal, and took pictures of only a few of the incredible statues and vistas the garden is home to. We are still experiencing unseasonably warm weather here, and I feel like my summer vacation has been extended indefinitely, and that’s not such a bad feeling.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Another batch of photos...
Another view of the Arno, one of my favorite places.
The next view are from San Miniato, the church at the top of the hill where I had my Art History and drawing classes.
The view of the Chianti countryside, taken through the bus window, multiply this beauty by about 1,000 and you have the real effect.
And the view from Fiesole on the outskirts of Florence.
The next view are from San Miniato, the church at the top of the hill where I had my Art History and drawing classes.
The view of the Chianti countryside, taken through the bus window, multiply this beauty by about 1,000 and you have the real effect.
And the view from Fiesole on the outskirts of Florence.
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