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!