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!