Weekend Adventure and thoughts on Italians

So I’m sitting here being productive this Sunday night and I figured I would take a break to update my blog before the beginning of this crazy week. It’s been so hard to get work done since I’ve been here because I always tend to get distracted by something else going on in our apartment. It’s not like MSU where I can just pack up my stuff and head to the library for some quiet time. I have been restricted to either the LdM library (during the hours of 9-5) or to the kitchen of my apartment (where I am now.) These are my main study spots due to that fact that they are the only places where I have wifi readily available for free, or already paid for.

I’m going to use this blog update to not only share a little bit about what I did this weekend, but also to kind of share a little bit about what I have learned about Italian culture so far; it’s something that I haven’t really talked about a lot in my past posts.

So first I have this past weekend:

This past weekend was a first look at what most of the remaining weekends here in Florence are going to be. A lot of the students in my program have booked trips for every free weekend, and many of their trips include places that are relatively far away like Barcelona, London, Amsterdam, Greece, Turkey, Prague, and Morocco. I am not one of those students. I decided to come to Italy so that I could actually see ITALY, so this past Friday one my roommates and I rented bikes at the nearby train station and explored parts of Florence that would have taken us hours to reach on foot. It was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve had since I’ve been here.

We quickly discovered that riding a bike in Florence is nothing like riding a bike back in the US. Here in Italy you have to ride in the street with all the cars (and these streets are already narrow enough) and pray that all the crazy Italian drivers see and avoid you. At some points it was exhilarating being able to fly down hills and through busy streets, but it was definitely a bit of a hassle to maneuver around pedestrians and obstacles in some parts of town. We also may, or may not, have snuck into the Fiorentina stadium by following a car through the automatic gate and then got escorted out by one of the coaches. I put up a few videos so you can see all the crazy Italians drivers and what it’s like to ride a bike through the streets of Florence. I think next week we may upgrade to mopeds. That should be interesting.

On Saturday, Johnny and I took a day trip to the city of San Gimignano which is about an hour south of Florence. Day trips around Tuscany are definitely the best ways to see the Italian country side and sites without spending a lot of money on transportation and hostels. We took a train from Florence to Poggibonsi and then a city bus up the mountain to San Gimignano. The city was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It’s known for its extensive collection of well preserved towers from the 1^st and 2^nd centuries, but the whole city definitely had a medieval feel to it because most of the buildings were still inside the city walls, which were torn down in most places in Italy during the Renaissance, and most of the streets were only about 10 feet wide. We were amazed to actually see cars trying to maneuver around the stone walls and under the medieval bridges and buildings. We decided to splurge a bit and buy tickets to go up the tallest tower in town, but the view that we got was definitely worth it.

We spent the rest of the day hiking around the surrounding wine region and olive region and taking in the view. I love the Tuscan countryside and I definitely love the fact that it’s not the tourist season yet so most of the weekend trips we’ve done so far have been pretty relaxing and enjoyable. All of our teachers have told us to see all that we can now, because in April there will be so many tourists in Italy that we will hate living here. I’m not sure if I’ll HATE it,  but I’m definitely going to see all that I can now while it’s still “cold” here; which brings me to the next part of my blog…

Italians, sometimes I just don’t understand:

Living in Italy has been great, but it’s also allowed me to experience a completely different culture from what I’m used to. They act a little differently, dress differently, talk differently, and have different preferences, but it’s not a bad thing it’s just…different. So for your enjoyment I have compile a list of some characteristics of typical Italian life:

1. Italians always think it’s cold. Since I’ve been here we haven’t had any kind of summer beach weather, but it also hasn’t been below 40 degrees. Every single day, I get stares from Italians because I will be wearing a light pullover fleece or a hoodie while all the Italians are bundled up in hats, scarves, puffer jackets, wool socks, earmuffs, and mittens. It’s not that cold.

2. Italians don’t wear bright colors. Living in Mississippi I’m pretty used to bright, vibrant colors and prints and most of the clothes people wear are very flashy or colorful. Here in Italy, it’s not uncommon to wear tones of black, navy, tan, gray, and brown EVERY SINGLE DAY. The funny thing is, it’s not like they all look sad and depressed all the time. Most of them have a way of mixing colors so that their outfits are still very fashionable, it’s just that they don’t wear bright colors like most people in the US do.

3. Italians love shiny puffer jackets. I don’t understand it, most people don’t, but all the Italians love to cover up all their trendy designer clothing with big, shapeless, shiny black and blue puffer jackets.

4. Everywhere is a crosswalk. In Italy, if you want to cross the street you simply look both ways, step out into the street, and pray that oncoming bus stops for you. A few times that I’ve been here I’ve been embarrassed by Italian girls because I’ll be standing on the curb waiting for the signal or a break in traffic and they just walk out in the street and across. Just don’t hesitate.

5. In regards to crossing the street, the only vehicles you don’t walk out in front of are vespas and scooters. They WILL NOT stop for pedestrians. I don’t know if it’s a lazy thing, but they also don’t stop at traffic lights either, they just zip around traffic and through intersections, because if they stop then they have to put their feet down to hold the scooter up.

6. In Italy, the bumper of your car is literally used to “bump” your way out of a parking space. Parking is very limited in bigger cities, like Florence, so many times the available parking spaces are very small (another reason why all the cars in Italy are so small.) On more than one occasion, I have watched a car pass out a few love taps the two cars it’s parked between so that it can shimmy out of a parallel spot. I don’t know if I could deal with this because I almost lost it the first time I got a scratch in my car.

7. Public transit is awesome, but make sure to take the train and not the bus. Trains in Italy are relatively easy to figure out and usually on time (except for during rail strikes; see my blog post on Bologna), but the bus system here is awful. They are almost never on time, very crowded, don’t stop unless you flag them down, and then trying to figure out which bus you actually need to get on is a whole new game. The bus maps and schedules look like they are written in Japanese.

8. Italian portions are small…very small compared to what I’m used to in the US. I had a traditional Italian lunch for my cooking class the other day and after paying 30 euro for a meal I figured it was going to be a feast. It wasn’t. It was a very savory and delicious meal, but I was still so hungry afterwards that I ended up stopping at a Panini place on the way home and I bought a huge sandwich for 4 euro.

9. When in Italy, just drink wine because it’s much cheaper than bottled water. I was never wine drinker back in the US, but now that it’s so readily available and inexpensive I have had at least one glass every day that I’ve been here. I should live to be 100 now right?

10. Italian guys love American girls, but Italian girls do not care for American guys. Whenever we go out on the weekends there are always swarms of Italian guys trying to talk to all the American girls and they always hang out at all the American bars and clubs, but after 10pm all the Italian girls are out of sight. Most American guys can’t speak Italian and many of the Italian girls either can’t speak English or don’t want to waste their time trying.

I know this blog post is getting long so I’ll stop the list here. I’ll make sure to update after this crazy week coming up. Schedule for the week:

Monday –Thursday: Class; with museum visits, summer internship applications, and homework in my free time  

Thursday – Friday: Train ride to Trieste to see my dad while he’s here in Italy for business. Google it and you’ll see why I’m going to be exhausted from traveling.

Saturday – Sunday: API trip to Venice by bus for tours and Carnival. It should be a fun but exhausting weekend.

Make sure to leave a comment so I know people actually read this thing!

Ciao!

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures on this post. One of the roomies is sucking up all the bandwidth so I can't get pics to upload. If you do want to see some though, just check out my latest album in Facebook. Here's the link!

When in Rome...

Ciao a tutti! I just got back from API’s weekend trip to Rome. I had a great time and saw as much as I possibly could in three days in a city that has a history that dates back almost 3000 years. I kind of felt like everything in Rome was of historical significance. During the day, my roommates and I spent our time snapping pictures of anything that was old, large, or seemed important and then trying to figure out exactly what we were looking at. One thing is for sure though, I’m so glad I live in Florence and not Rome. I thought it was a hike when it took me 40 minutes to go from one end of Florence to another, but in Rome you can walk in one direction for an hour and not have gone anywhere.

Rome is HUGE. I’ve never lived in a huge city so I was kind of surprised when everyone kept telling me that Florence was so small, but now that I’ve been to Rome I realize why everyone thinks that. There are so many people in Rome that during some weekends the central part of the city just shuts down for automobile traffic, because you literally can’t get down the streets. I’m not talking about typical 10 foot wide Italian streets either, I’m talking about the modern streets that are 60 feet wide. On Saturday night we accidentally walked down one of these streets and it took us about 20 minutes just to walk one block and take a side street to get out of the crowd.

Another interesting thing to note about Rome is how dirty it was. I know it’s a combination of so many people in close quarters, Italian love for graffiti, and lack of foliage due to winter time, but the whole city was still pretty dirty. Maybe I have just been spoiled by how efficient the street cleaners are in Florence, but there were some parts of Rome that were pretty heavily littered with trash, cardboard, and graffiti. However, I did manage to find some art among the graffiti.

Besides all the walking, people, and graffiti, I actually really enjoyed Rome. There are so many things to see around every corner. We had a tour with a guide each day we were there. On the first day we saw the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, and several other important buildings of the Italian government. It’s so strange to hear about these places all through school and then to get the opportunity to just walk up and see them in person like “Oh hey, that’s the Pantheon. Cool dome.”

I think I took over 500 pictures while I was in Rome, but it got to a point where I had to stop myself because I know that really the only way anyone can share Rome with someone is to actually take them there and show them around. I had no idea what I was taking a picture of half the time, but it just seemed like everything was just so beautiful and quintessentially Italian. I know, I know, of course everything was Italian because I was IN ITALY, but you just have to go and see it for yourself to understand.

One of the best experiences I had while in Rome was visiting Vatican City. It was such a surreal experience. I’ve been raised Catholic my whole life and growing up I always heard about the Pope, the Vatican, St. Peter’s and all those other important religious sites. The First day we were in Rome, my roommates and I wandered over to the holy city on our own and spent the afternoon soaking up the sun in St. Peter’s square. I literally got goose bumps just looking around at the Loggia and St. Peter’s Basilica. This is the same place I saw on TV when Pope John Paul died and it just didn’t seem possible that I could be standing in the exact spot where the PopeMobile drives around. Insane. We ended up taking a tour of St. Peter’s Basilica the next day with our tour group and it was amazing. It’s the largest church in the world and it’s so full of art and history that I could have spent all day in there and still not have been able to see everything. It was another place where I had to just stop taking pictures because the only way to comprehend the size and atmosphere of the church is to actually visit it. It was definitely one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life as far as my religious background goes.

While in Rome I also had some of the best food since I’ve been here. For dinner one night we went to a little place called Ristorante del Pallaro. I’m guessing Pallaro was the family name because a little Italian woman warmly greeted us at the door and showed us the set menu for the night. As is traditional in Italy, we started our meal with antipasti that consisted of various meats, cheeses, breads, olives, and vegetables. Next was the first course, it was a traditional Roman dish called penne alla carbonara and it was hands down the best pasta dish I’ve ever eaten. The sauces, olive oil, fresh pasta, and meat were delicious. Then came the second course, some kind of pork with chips, bread, fried cheeses, and some more vegetables. We ended our meal with a traditional Italian lemon tart and a shot of limoncello, a digestive beverage they drink after every meal. Even though the meal ended up being a little pricier than we had planned, it was still worth every euro.

To finish off our day of food we went to a place called Giolitti. Apparently, it’s the best gelato place in all of Rome. It’s so good that the pope even special orders all his gelato from them. It took us forever to push our way through the crowd to get inside and get our gelato, but after I tasted it I definitely knew that the pope thing was true. It was the best gelato I’ve had since I’ve been in Italy and the best part was that it was really cheap too. I paid 3 euro for a huge cone dipped in chocolate, then topped with three flavors of gelato, and then topped with hand-made whipped cream. DELICIOUS. I definitely think it would be worth their time to invest in opening a branch somewhere in the US, it could probably even shut down local culture (is that possible?)

Anyways, my weekend in Rome was wonderful. I saw as much as I possibly could in one weekend and I discovered a new appreciation for the “small” city of Florence that I now call home. I also put some of my videos down here in the bottom from some of the sites in Rome. Hope you enjoy! I’ll also make sure to update at least once more before I head to Venice in two weeks for Carnival. Caio!

Videos

Here are some videos from my adventures around Florence so far. I'm sorry about the quality on some of them, It's kind of hard to walk, shoot video, and not look like a complete tourist.

This is one of the riots that has been going on in Florence this week. It's been kind of crazy. Sorry for the short video.

This is the view from Piazza Michelangelo. It's been kind of hazy the last few days so the video isn't as clear as it could be.

This is the first video of 2 of one of my walks back from the grocery store. The quality isn't that great and it's kind of shaky, but at least you can see what it's like to walk back from an Italian grocery store.

And here's the last one. This one should take you to my apartment. I think it takes me about 25 minutes to walk one-way to the market, so the videos don's cover the whole walk, but at least you can see.

It's almost midnight here. I'll wrap it up for now, but I'll make sure to update on Rome when I get back.

Ciao!

Italy just has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A

So this past weekend a group of us decided to go to Bologna. The problems started from the moment we tried to buy train tickets. Unlike the rest of Europe and even some of the places in the US that have public transit, Italy’s trains and buses are NEVER on time and you NEVER know when you’re going to arrive somewhere. Little did we know, that would mean 3 ½ hours on 3 different regional trains just to get from Florence to Bologna, a trip that should have only taken an hour. This was my first experience with the Italian train system and I have clearly figured out that, like everything else here, there is definitely a learning curve. We definitely figured out that we had bought the wrong tickets when we asked some Italians on the train for help and even they didn’t understand why we had so many connecting stations listed on our passes.

Once we FINALLY got to Bologna we completely forgot to buy tickets for the train ride back that night. Just winging it is what us college kids do best right? We just knew that there were supposed to be high-speed trains back to Florence that ran until midnight. It was also at this point that we figured out that no one in our group had a map of Bologna, another genius move on our part. I still wasn’t too worried though, I had taken two weeks of Italian classes so I was pretty good at asking for help and understanding directions when given in Italian. So far, not that bad of a start, but little did we know what we would be facing that night.

We spent the rest of the afternoon browsing one of the local flea markets and walking around the downtown district. We also went to see the two towers in Bologna and the chapel that is near then. Unfortunately, because we arrived so late in the afternoon most of the attractions were closed. The city of Bologna is quite different from what I’ve gotten used to in Florence. Where Florence is all about holding on to its history and tradition, the city of Bologna is fairly modern. Most of the buildings and streets in Florence can be dates back to the first few centuries AD, whereas a lot of what we saw in Bologna was probably constructed in the last one or two hundred years. I’m not saying I didn’t like Bologna, but it just didn’t feel as “Italian” as Florence.

One of the things I was looking forward to the most in Bologna was the food. In my Current Trends in Italian Cuisine class we have discussed some of the regional differences between Italian foods. Bologna happens to be pretty close to the center of several major food regions and is therefore considered the “Gastronomic Capital” of Italy. While in Bologna we found an underground restaurant where we had a traditional meat and cheese platter with some olives, salad, and fruit. Next, we moved on to a more modern Italian restaurant where we ordered several types of pasta and meat dishes. The best thing about traveling with a big group is when everyone orders something different and then we get to try several different dishes during one meal.

After our meals it was starting to get late so we figured we should probably head back to the train station to catch one of the late trains back to Florence. This is where the fun starts. When we got back to the train station we were greeted by an angry woman banging her purse on the counter of the ticket office and yelling in Italian at the man behind the glass. Several police officers showed up to escort her off the premise, and after several minutes of heated argument and pushing they finally managed to move her from in front of the window. I’m guessing the guy behind the counter was tired of dealing with people at this point so he promptly decided to close his window and that was it. I’ve kind of discovered in Italy that when people don’t want to work, they don’t. Several Italians in front of us started to get upset as well, because it was only 10:30 at this point and it seemed like no one was going anywhere anytime soon, and they started to head for the automated ticket machines near the platform. We followed suit only to find that there was a news announcement on the board above the machines saying that all trains to Rome, Florence, and Napoli were cancelled for the night. What? Cancelled? Can they do that? We asked the woman in front of us why they were cancelled and she told us it was probably because of a train strike. Now we understood why that one woman was banging her purse around and getting so upset.

This is when the group started to get nervous because from what we could tell the next train that was heading to Florence didn’t leave until 5:15 the next morning. That’s SEVEN hours away! We immediately start pulling out cell phones and calling for help. I called my roommate back in Florence to see about a rental car, a bus, a taxi, anything really. Another girl called her parents back in the US and was asking them about hostels and hotels. After little success, we had to finally resolve to just waiting it out.

We ended up going to a bar and sitting around talking to some locals until 4am and then we wandered around the main piazza for another hour until we could finally walk back to the station. When we got back to the station I made another discovery about Italians: they can literally sleep ANYWHERE. There was a waiting room at the station and most of the people we were in line with before were fast  asleep, propped up in the waiting room’s plastic chairs. It was hilarious. The train finally got to the station and when we got on we found ourselves in another dilemma: it was a night train and all of the cabins were already occupied. We walked up and down the train at least three times, but we never found anything so we had to beg the bartender in the dining car to let us sit there without ordering anything. He was nice enough to let us stay.

 This is how we all felt at 4:30am

We finally got back to Florence at 6:30 in the morning. It was probably one of the longest days of my life, but I bet it will be one of those Italian experience I’ll never forget. The moral of this story: make sure to look up train tickets, times, and local transportation strikes before heading out for the weekend.

I’m heading to Rome this weekend so I will try and update as soon as I get back. I’m also hoping the sinus congestion/ cough of mine goes away before we leave or else this weekend could be miserable.

Ciao! Ciao!

Also, I'll be uploading some videos for you guys to watch soon so you can kind of see what I've been seeing while here in Italy. 

96

96 is the number of stairs that I have to walk up to get to the floor where most of my classes are in Palazzo Strozzi. This past week was my first full week of classes in Florence. Up until this point I had spent most of my time wandering around the city, avoiding public transportation, and drinking way too much wine. I like all of my classes, even though my architecture classes are going to require a lot of reading and memorizing long Italian names. I think my favorite, however, is my intensive Italian class. It’s kind of a bummer that it’s four days a week, but I feel like I should be close to the level of fluency of a toddler by the end of my stay. My cooking class should also be interesting. It may be a little more intense than I anticipated, but hopefully I can pick up Italian cooking pretty quickly. 50% of my grade in the class comes from a cooking practical at the end of the semester. I’ll have to prepare a full three-course menu and then I’ll be graded on cooking proficiency, taste, and presentation. It’s little intimidating for someone who cooks everything in the microwave at home.

I spent my time between classes this week trying to figure out where to buy things in Florence. All of the grocery stores near our apartment are tiny and pretty expensive. Finally, after three different search attempts with the roommates, we found a larger grocery store that’s about 20 minutes outside of the city. Yes, that’s right, we have to walk 20 minutes to a grocery store and have to carry all of our food 20 minutes back. If I gain nothing else from this experience, at least I will be going home with the legs of a Roman God. I don’t think I’ve walked or stood so much in my life.

One of the best kept secrets in Florence is its “secret bakeries.” So naturally, I’m going to tell you about them on the internet so everyone can see. Most of the native’s of Florence won’t just come out and tell you about them. They are little hidden shops that are only open from 2-4 in the morning where most of the bakeries in the city get their products from. After a long night of rain and walking all over the city, we finally managed to stumble upon one. We noticed a few Italians emerging one-by-one from a thin wooden door on one of the quieter streets near or apartment. We stopped one of the girls and asked her if it was a bakery. She kind of blushed a bit and looked like she was going to embarrassed because she was about to spill the beans, but she told us yes and what door to go in when we got inside the building. Inside there was like a cave in one of the hallways and behind a little Italian man in an apron were dozens of carts full of the most delicious looking pastries, breads, and chocolate treats. He looked a little surprised to see Americans, but he smile and let us each buy a cornetto freshly filled with chocolate and crème for just 1 euro. It was amazing.

This past weekend was one of the first times that we had nothing scheduled by LdM or API so a group of us decided to take a day trip to Fiesole. Fiesole is a tiny little town perched on top of a mountain about 30 minutes north of Florence. I was a bit of a trick to figure out how to buy and validate tickets on the bus, but we managed and I think we all feel a bit more confident in our traveling skills. Fiesole was beautiful! We walked a loop around the city and then took a nature walk on the side of the mountain to take some panoramic pictures. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that my camera takes horrible pictures so it’s a little difficult to see the view from most of them. I think the nicest thing about Fiesole is how quiet it is. I guess I never realized how many sirens I hear every day in Firenze, but it was definitely a nice change of pace to not get run over by people or cars and actually be able to hear birds and other animals.

We didn’t have a chance to go into the amphitheater while we were on the mountain, but I think I will definitely be making another trip before the end of the semester. The houses and views were beautiful and the people seemed a lot friendlier and laid back compared to most of the people in Firenze. This was a little old lady selling wine in the square when we got there and she gave us all 2 or 3 free samples each and was joking about how much we Americans love free stuff.

One of the biggest events I thought I was going to have to miss while I was in Italy was the Superbowl. I flew out from the US on the day that the Packers played the Bears for the NFC championship and I had to find to find out the score from one of the flight attendants on my plane. Fortunately, last night we found a big sports bar that was having a Superbowl watch party. It was pretty exciting to be able to watch the game, the only problem was that the time change from CST in the US to Firenze is 7 hours so the game started here at 12:30am and I didn’t get home until around 4:30am this morning. Even though I was out all night it was definitely worth it. I made friends with a lot of the Italians in the bar because they found out I live in Green Bay, and I even met a kid who was traveling through Florence for the weekend who goes to St. Norbert College (the college in De Pere where my family lives). It’s kind of funny how small the world can seem sometimes. It was such a long and agonizing game, but the Packers pulled out the win and a group of us celebrated by singing “Roll out the barrel” in the streets the whole way home. I was pretty exhausted for classes today, but staying up for the whole game was definitely worth it.

Sorry that this week’s post was a little choppy. I’ve been trying to remember everything I’ve done over the last week, but there’s just so much that it can get a little overwhelming and I don’t want to make you read a novel. Next week I’ll try and update with pics of my apartment and maybe some video of a typical day in the life of an American student living in Italy. For now, arrivederci!