Italia Adventures!

January 25-28

It is 8:00am and I am still not use to the time change yet aka I am up an no one else is, so lets just take some time to tell you about my last couple or shall I say first couple of days in Italy. To start off everything is beautiful, as one would imagine, but it is such a different feeling to take in the beauty every single day. I hope that as I live here I never take for granted the view that I see every morning. This view happens to be the Duomo, which is literally our next-door neighbor. It is probably one of the prettiest sites in Florence and anything I have ever seen for that matter. I would die to meet the architect of the church, who is probably buried right inside it anyways. Maybe I might go chat him up one day soon. The architecture, the cobblestone, the fact that not one building is the same, and the very idea that they have all be alive for hundreds or thousands of years and are still standing amazes me. These buildings, or statues, or landmarks to me are living beings. You can see their history in the cracks in the walls, you can see their detail in the different arches and patterns, and I feel like I make them come alive when I am in a building or touching a statue because I make my own memories with them that will never fade away. I can take thousands or pictures and even videos, but it will not feel the same unless you experience it yourself. Honestly America and Italy and the rest of Europe are two different worlds on the same planet. The US is a mush of not much beauty and a lot of ugly. Sure we have countryside and landmarks like any other country, but it doesn’t seem to be as rich in history and the people don’t seem to care as much. In Italy you can see the peoples pride in their store or restaurant and you can see their pride by the upkeep of the country. Florence is just one example and I hope to experience many more places with the same richness, culture, and pride.

I have already had amazing food, bought cool things, and learned my way around Florence’s city centre. One thing I don’t have down is the language of course and the fact that I along with Kelsey, Becky, Sophia, and Lindsay are American. This happens to come out when someone says “Bo journo” to us and we sort of nod, smile, and walk away. Why you ask do we not say it back? Oh, I don’t know probably because we sound extremely ridiculous. They also see it in our dress. We would be the only ones to wear short dresses and mini skirts with either nothing or sheer tights underneath. One of which I ripped last night because there are so many fucking mopeds and bikes lined in the streets, which makes it impossible for anyone to ever walk by! So we basically get looked at be every single Italian and probably other Americans who either think we are insane or just want to have sex with us. Apparently if an Italian man smiles at us we are not suppose to be polite and smile back because this only furthers the invitation that I want him in my pants. But it’s hard to not look and smile at someone that yells “hey!” or “Bella” or whistles. I want to look them up and down and assess whether they are hot or not and worth my time. More often than not they are little babies trying be cool or older guys that are disgusting.

Becky and I met some really cute nice Italian guys last night. But that was just the end of our night, let me start with the beginning. First we start off with going right next door to Dante’s for dinner as we did the night before. It’s our family dinner spot. Of course we are besties with the people that work there and even the owner who sat down next to me at the table last night. I tried to keep up with the conversation of him teaching us Italian, but I was so tired after drink probably over half a bottle of wine. I have gotten the lasagna two nights in a row. It’s delish. It is so hard to fuck up lasagna in the US aka at Olive Garden because it’s disgusting. Here it comes out with the cheese literally still boiling, there is tons of meat, the sauce is divine, and the consistency is amazing. Pair that with grilled vegetables, fresh mozzarella, and toasted bread with olive oil and you’ve got yourself a traditional Italian meal. So the five of us eat, laugh, and drink wine. We are all so happy here, everyone is because the way of life is so much better and in actuality we all have nothing to worry about here. No drama from America and no stupid frat boys (actually they are everywhere and still just as annoying, but we try to avoid). Everyone is SO nice to us. They love that we are outgoing, funny, and eager to learn, but just slightly not so much when I am really awkward and cant ask a guy for sugar for my cappuccino, which I had my first of yesterday. And I had to say I really liked it after a while just plain. Now back to dinner. We start forever, until another big party came in and since the restaurant is small we decided to get up and leave. But of course not before we finish the wine and the limonchello shots of course. I shouldn’t actually call them shots because people here actually drink how I like to drink, which I think might be a sign I belong here. There is no downing of the shot in one gross tasting mouthful. You sip it slowly and gracefully, so you enjoy it all that much more. Alcohol is not used to get shwasted, but to be enjoyed. And of course you have plenty of it over the whole evening and that’s when the drunky part comes in.

So we walk to our first destination, the Red Garter Bar, which is FILLED with Americans. There is karaoke, which in my opinion doesn’t say much about the place. Is just tacky and rude to be forced to listen to idiot drunk people sing that have horrible voices. We wait by the bar for a good 15 minutes to get beers, while people are pushing and shoving to get drinks or to walk by. Seriously, wait your own fucking turn. Then we find a table with benches. They are all of course squished right next to each other so my butt had a good old time rubbing up against some dude behind me. Ew. Then I have to chug my beer (no me gusta) and we are off to the next place. We walk towards Slowly, which is the place Elsie (our friend at the restaurant) recommended to us. It is SO much more my style. There are real Italians there! Not the gross ones at the other place that are only there to pick up Americans. It is so much classier, there is not as much stupid American music, people are dresses nicely, and everyone behaves in an appropriate fashion. We sit down in between to groups of guys. One group is young and pretty darn cute and the others are old men, but fun nonetheless. We get a round of shots, rum and coke for me that I sipped and enjoyed with so much pleasure. I dread the day when I get back to the US and watch people throw back shots. Of course we have another round on the man who use to own the restaurant. Then drinks and of course have to top of off with champagne, which I actually enjoyed too! Then we danced and chatted up these Italian men, who of course love us. So by this time I’ve had a decent amount of wine, beer, rum, and champagne and since you spread your drinking out, I was feeling great. Becky and I go out for a cigarette with one of the guys and end up finding two other guys instead, Matteo and Luca. I die for both of them. They spoke pretty good English and we chatted for a long time about school, traveling, being in Italy, coming from America, and all that’s in-between. Its so funny to find out that everyone in Italy loves the fact that we come from America, but they have no idea how much it sucks compared to here. Anyways Becky and I go back in to tell everyone we want to leave, but the rest of the group seems to still be having a pretty good time inside. So we go catch up with Matteo and Luca and walk with them back to Red Garder. Now there are less Americans, but this gave Becky the idea that they thought we were slutty Americans. So they get us drinks while we go to the bathroom. Of course they thought we were ditching them and they decide they want nothing more to do with us. But they pretty much lingered around the corner from us for ten minutes just kind of staring like little puppies. Becky and I decide (well more Becky because I was down to spend the whole night with them and rage). I mean it was only 2am! The night was still young. So we leave and walk back to our place, which is of course less than ten minutes away as it seems that everything is in the city. Everyone is already reliving the night by uploading pictures so I did the same. I’d say in total it was a really fun first night out! I’m sure all of the guys that we met last night wanted to get in to our pants, but instead of that happening (because apparently overnight guests are illegal in Italy) we exchange numbers instead, which is the non whorey thing to do. I mean if I had it my way… perhaps something different would go down? Haha.

Since I am already out of order, I am going to be really annoying and now write about my experiences from the beginning. Of course packing was a complete bitch. We all took two suitcases and each managed to somehow get them all under 5o pounds. Great success! The plane ride was death. I couldn’t sleep and was so uncomfortable. Of course we couldn’t just fly straight to Florence, after 11.5 hours we had to stop in Zurich for a short one-hour flight to Italy. Ridiculous. Once we get to Florence of course two of our bags were lost. How does one lose luggage? My theory is they don’t have enough room for it and “lost” it, so oopsies it has to come on the next flight. Which is duh, a huge inconvenience. We get to our check in spot and literally right in front of us is one of Sophia’s suitcases that another girl has taken. Hers has bright green ribbon on it and the one she grabbed did not so… how does that even work out? It just doesn’t. We take cabs to our place and for about a solid hour and a half we try to figure out how to get in to our place. None of the keys fit and so we are sitting in the corridor with a good 16 suitcases and bags. Of course there are automatic lights that turn of every fifteen seconds. We are roaming around trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and finally someone comes over to help us and we figure out that after we walk up a flight of stairs then we must go outside on to a walkway and there is our place. With of course, another flight of stairs. Our place is so cute! It’s big with a lot of amenities. The only thing that seems to be missing is a stove. Weird? Kelsey and I have our own little apartment down stairs with a baby kitchen, table, bathroom, and room. We’ve made it cozy aside from the fact that the first two nights and days were freezing because the heat wouldn’t work in our room and you can have no heat without any hot water! We were FREEZING the first night so the second night we all snugged in Becky and Sophs room aka Kelsey and I slept on a less than twin mattress on the floor in their room. Was it more comfortable that suffering in the cold? One will never know. 3

So first night we go out and grab a bite to eat because we are starving and of course free shots afterwards. Then we go back to unpack and get to bed by 2am. I wake up wide-awake at 6am. We have orientation at 8:45am so we get there early and have a pastry before. I had a delicious one filled with cream! I don’t know how they make such beautiful things that consume in my mouth. All day. Every day. So of course it starts super late and we hear the same things over and over again. “Watch out for your stuff and stealing”, “Don’t get wasted and look like a dumb American”, “Don’t say hi to creepy men”, and “Don’t give your key to strangers”. Like really? I’m pretty sure all these same things apply anywhere you go and I am also pretty sure that I’m not retarded. Then we have a couple hours because we have to be somewhere else for another orientation. We have lunch at this cute little café by the train station. Of course tomato and mozzarella sandwiches are my go to, which I’ve probably had about three times and will probably have about 100 more times. We venture around looking in grocery stores and attempt to get Becky’s “lost” bag, then a few more hours of boring lectures. We are all exhausted so we go back to the apartment. I passed out in Sophia’s bed, which is next to the heat then she kicked me out and I went downstairs and passed out in my bed. This was from about 4-10 aka I screwed myself to try and get on normal sleeping patterns. Seeing as I went to bed at 2am last night and woke up at 7:30am, I would say I’m still not use to it. Anyways then we decide to get dinner next door for the first time and fall in love! Hence why we went back last night. Then we came back and hung out in Becky and Sophia’s room just talking, writing, and playing cards. Then we had a sleepover, which I think it quite adorable. Becky and I woke up early and watched The Holiday, which we now realize is a waste of time because we need to be taking advantage of every moment we have here. We finally went out at noon and walked around. We got cappuccinos (my first one) and pastries, shopped at H&M and Zara. Die for both. I will be frequenting quite often. We went by big arch (will know its name by the time I leave here) where I went with my family when we came three years ago. It’s so cool to see and go in to places that I remember so distinctly from before. It makes me really happy. Then we got groceries, got Becky’s suitcase, and came back home to working heat!!! Then I met up with Katherine (it is so unbelievably amazing that we are both here) and we walked around and got our Italian books. Then Katherine went home and we went back to our place, relaxed, and got ready for dinner at our fave spot… you know the rest. :)

Ciao!