week one in Florence

 The Market

The pub lit sparklers and sang Happy Birthday in Italian.

One of many homemade meals

The bartenders let me try some good ole birthday bar tending

It’s been over a week of living in Florence now! I think I’m finally getting used to everything.

Weekly schedule:

Monday

1:30 pm: Italiano! I love this class so far. We’ve met twice now and have learned the alphabet, numbers, how to say every-day phrases, and are practicing verb conjugation. It’s such a pretty language and our professor Dario is so funny—good teachers really make all the difference. I bought my two books for this class at the bookstore by The Duomo for a student discount. Europe offers so many student discounts at restaurant, pubs, book stores…you name it. They don’t do anything like it at home.

6:00 pm: Travel Writing. This is the class I’m least excited about (maybe surprisingly). Our teacher is very poetic, and I am definitely not…I enjoy writing, and I love fashion and entertainment news, but I am not a poet. Our assignments throughout the semester include choosing a location in Florence and going back three days in a row to write about differences and similarities across those days, the “presence of green in Florence”, a page on your favorite sculpture, etc. I’ll give it my best, but I’m scared about this one!

Tuesday

2:30 pm: Global Perspectives of Journalism. This class looks like fun and I think it might transfer to a very useful credit back at GSU once they read over the syllabus. My professor seems really into all different kinds of platforms of journalism: newspapers, magazines (she’s the managing editor of The Florentine), social media, etc. She’s open-minded to different things, laid back and has an interest in getting to know us as individuals. The class size is about 10-15 people as are most of my other classes. We’ve each been assigned to a country (mine is India) that we have to become “experts” on and do a project on later in the semester, and we’re all expected to become said experts of Italy. It should be interesting.

Wednesday

9:00 am: Contemporary Italian Cooking. Heaven. Our professor is a professional chef and is so passionate about pairing cheeses and meats, tasting the flavor in everything, creating delicious dishes from the most simple of foods, etc. He taught us some history of food in Italy (women used to not be allowed to eat chocolate?!), then passed out plates, forks and knives along with about seven different kinds of meats. They were all from a pig, but completely different types and flavors. He showed us the fat contents of a single piece of meat along with the spices added to it, and how that made it different from the next. We paired different honeys and cheeses with pear slices and made mini sandwiches (delicious). He also showed us an easy recipe of ricotta cheese, lemon and orange zest, and vanilla beans. I can’t wait to try more things and learn to cook a few things!

1:30 pm: Italiano…again.

Thursday

9:00 am-2:30 pm: Fashion Photography. Another keeper. My professor is an extremely talented fashion photographer and I am so excited about it. We have multiple projects throughout the semester such as Street Style in Florence, an Ad Campaign, Look Book and a personal photo shoot with models from an agency. We have to ask people on the streets, “Ti posso fare una foto?”, which basically means “can I take your picture?” It was nerve-wracking at first to take photos of strangers, but I’m glad this is a class assignment so I can talk to more people and capture different styles. This is the inspiration for the project/what we’re supposed to be aiming for:

http://www.thesartorialist.com/

This week we’ve gotten a gas leak fixed, had to get a light replacement for the bathroom and  have done some laundry. By the way, our laundry machine is a joke. Everything I put in there that was noticeably dirty came out with all of the same dirt on it, and the things that seemed to be clean are now probably dirty, too. We have to hang dry everything which is a pain but it saves energy so I guess it’s good. I’ll probably take my things to the dry cleaner next time because it’s relatively cheap and I don’t mind spending a couple Euro if it means my clothes actually get clean.

My roommate Marissa and I take turns buying dinner and making it for each other. We’ve made Tilapia, salmon, pasta salad, tuna salad, broccoli, beans, fruit…I’m not that bad of a cook after all! We go out to dinner, too, but try to make it more of a special occasion event because it’s pricey. For my birthday on Tuesday we went out to dinner and I got Bruschetta, then we went out and got gelato and bar-hopped, or as they call it here, pub-crawled. I had a wonderful birthday—the bartender lit sparklers and everyone sang me happy birthday in Italian, my roommate surprised me with a card, balloons, and a pastry, and I didn’t get lost on the way to class. I’d call it a successful day.

Me and three new friends I’ve made here booked our spring break trip this week! In the matter of a week, we’re going from Florence to Pisa, Pisa to Barcelona, Barcelona to Madrid, Madrid to Lisbon, Lisbon to Milan, and Milan to Florence. I am so excited for that in March. I’ve got some traveling coming up next weekend, too. I love how accessible everything is here.

It’s been raining all day today…my roommate and I (can you tell we do everything together?) woke up late and then HAD to go out and get groceries because we were completely out. Our umbrellas blew inside out and Marissa had to stuff hers in the trash because it was broken. Tomorrow I’m going to need to buy a new jacket and hopefully some rain boots because Florence winter weather is rainy and cold. I will never consider Atlanta cold again after living here.

After, we went to a friend’s house for Eggplant Parmesan, salad and Bruschetta, and then out to the pubs.

When I packed to come to Italy, I brought an adapter for my electronics. Their wall-plugs aren’t the same, so at Target, you can buy an adapter for about 7-10 dollars.

Since coming here, I’ve noticed the grocery stores are different. You have to bag your own groceries, and pay for the bags. You have to walk everywhere. You can’t hail taxis. You have to pay before you get your coffee in cafes, but pay after you get your drinks in pubs. When ordering water at a restaurant, it’s more expensive than any other drink because it always comes bottled. You can’t talk to men or make eye contact on the street without them getting the wrong idea, and you can’t answer to strangers or even smile at them. Having the heat on too much, taking long showers and/or leaving lights on will always be a worry because of how expensive electricity is. I’m always cooking or cleaning the apartment because this is the first time in my life I’ll have ever been away from my house for more than two weeks. I’m forced to take care of myself here.

If it were possible to buy an adaptor for LIFE from America to Italy, I think I would have done a mad search at Target last week (except that there is no Target here). It’s taken a couple weeks for me to get used to the culture, the way of life, not seeing or talking to my family and friends every day, etc. It would have been much easier to immediately adapt to the culture in Italy, but what would I have learned that way? The language is coming slowly but surely, but the life here? If I had taken the easy way out, I'd never have learned anything. More realistically, if I had taken the easy way out, I would have never come at all.

xoxo