1rst week in Florence

Last Tuesday, Sept. 2 I arrived in Florence at 6:20 pm. My first impression of Italy was when I woke up 5 minutes before landing and looked out my airplane window and saw the rich, green Tuscan terrain below me. I am so happy to be here, and this first week has been an eventful one. SO much has happened that it is hard to know where to start really in describing some of my initial experiences. Here is a brief synopsis of some of the week's events:

Christina, Caitlin, and I share a lovely apartment on Via de Serragli in the Oltrano neighborhood of Florence. This means we are south of the Arno river. Our area is one where tourists venture little to so we feel we are getting a more accurate depiction of the Florentine lifestyle. We also do not live in a student apartment building. Our neighbor next door is a Korean woman, and the family who occupies the two floors above us are an Italian one. The father is apparently the Kung-Fu master of Florence- which we find pretty amusing. Our landlords are Patricia and Roberto. I have not yet had the chance to be acquainted with them, but Christi and Cait have. Apparently they are really nice, and upon hearing we were from Texas, Roberto formed his fingers into imaginary guns and started shouting "pow, pow, pow!". It seems that Italians are incredibly interested in all things that relate to the Old West. 

We often like to sit on the Ponte Alla Carraia, the bridge that connects our street in Oltrano to the other side of Florence (North & South Centro), and that is indeed what we did our very first night here. It is such a pleasant view, with the Ponte Vechio to the East and Tuscany to the West, and at night the Arno river is so still that the reflection of the Ponte Vechio and the buildings on the left & right side of the Arno are luminous and incredible. 

This past week has consisted of a lot of wandering around the city, trying to familiarize ourselves with our home for the next few months, as well as a lot of orientation activities with the university. It has been really interesting getting by here with out the aid of knowing the language. Yes, in areas around central Florence  you can expect more Italians to know English, but it is still trying at times, and we do not take for granted that people will speak English. The first morning we were here, we went to a small grocery store around the corner from our flat to by some cereal, milk, and bread. The grocers were 2 Italain women who spoke only Italian and we somehow managed to tackle the language barrier with our very rudimentary grasp of Italian and many hand gestures. Also another time we went to a chain grocery store, Esselunga. We wanted to purchase some turkey, but there is no such thing as pre-packaged deli meats. One must get it fresh from the butcher at the deli counter. So for 5 minutes Christi, Cait, and I are racking our brains trying to figure out how to say turkey and converting pounds to kilos in order to know what would be a sufficient amount to order. We finally settled on 200 grams (which turned out to be perfect), and the butcher was a friendly man who knew some English so that event turned out to be a success. I have to say over all I found the Italian people to be quite willing to help and very friendly. 

Last Wednesday night we were coming back from a dinner hosted by Study Abroad Italy at the Hotel Medditerraneo. We were passing by the Galleria degli Uffizi and decided to stop and sit on the steps. Two street performers were playing live music down the gallery next to the Palazzo Vechio. One of the performers played a few original instrumental songs on his flute, and then him and his partner played a few Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, and U2 songs. It was really enjoyable. At night the weather is so nice. It's cool and there is a constant cool breeze blowing down from the mountains. During the day the weather is fairly hot, but again there is a constant breeze. It is definitely better than Texas, and especially better than Houston because it isn't humid. 

Alright dinner time- I will update later with more intimate details about this past weekend.