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.”
Friday, November 23, 2007
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.
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