13 January 2008

Day two of me chronicling my adventures. I won’t update quite so often in the future—but today is Sunday, nothing’s open, and I haven’t started classes yet. For those who are interested—which is probably not many—I got a lot of sleep last night! Without sleeping pills! Very exciting and pretty much a first. At least since elementary school.

My two roommates were out late last night—one of them super late, she got home at 8 a.m.; if she hadn’t shown up by 9 or 10, I planned to call the cops—so they slept in today. While they were in dreamland, I took a self-guided tour of Florence, in search of food and beauty. Which, obviously, are both in abundance here.

The sun was out in full force; the first time since I’ve been here. Florence is so beautiful it’s almost unfair. The whole city has this great organically grown vibe. And by organically grown I do not mean they don’t use pesticides; since the city was built over thousands of years, the streets are all different lengths and sizes and many appear to come out of nowhere, which can be confusing to a New Yorker who is so used to the urban grid.

The haphazardness, while so refreshing in comparison to strip mall America, is not without its downsides—Thursday night when I was wandering around in a vain attempt to find my way home sans map, a minute car coming from a minute side street squealed to a halt so as not to run me over. The cars are so small here! I’d say the distance from the front hood to the trunk is shorter than I am. Parking must be a dream. Or maybe it's just like parking large cars, only on a smaller scale.

I started out my day walking along the Arno River, which is very wide across and actually pretty dirty looking. So that was kind of disappointing. I was hoping for a beautiful, blue, crystalline current, and instead I was privy to a stagnant, brownish-green body of water. But it was the Arno, and E.M. Forster wrote about it in A Room with a View so that’s good enough for me.

I ran into more trouble on the restaurant-ordering front. Locals love to stop and chat, and I don’t know if it’s rude to interrupt the conversation to order food or not. The woman behind the counter of the first café I walked into didn’t speak very good English, and it took me awhile (if ever) to figure out what she was trying to say. First I thought she was telling me I needed two people in my party to sit outside. Then I gathered she meant I could sit outside and someone would come take my order. So there I was, sitting at one of the patio tables, wondering whether a waiter would come take my order. After five uncomfortable minutes I decided to jet.

At the second café I felt brave enough to enter, I’m pretty sure I paid 2,50 Euros for a can of soda. Not because a can of soda is that expensive here, but because it seems the cashier thought I was planning to pull a 0.5 L bottle out of the self-serve fridge instead. That’s still a bit expensive, but not quite so outrageous. I decided not to say anything and sat with my 2,50 Euro Coke at a table by the window.

Later, back at the apartment, I ate some pistachio gelato my two roommates had bought for me. Supposedly it came from the best gelateria in Italy (or perhaps just in Florence), but it wasn’t that delectable. My search for iced bliss continues.

As for amazing mozzarella and bread, these have been ascertained. The three of us went on a search for cleaning supplies and instead bought olive oil, vinegar, buffalo mozzarella, focaccia, and prosciutto for the meat eaters. Which I personally preferred spending my money on. Everything was deliciously fresh, and I’d rather not think about my inevitable return to processed food.

So, dinner! My two roommates, another student I just met today, a SACI staff member, and I went to this somewhat Americanized pizza place called Gusto Leo. Too tired to be original and wanting to experience the pure simplicity that is bread topped with tomato sauce, basil, and mozzarella, I ordered what I usually do—a pizza Margherita. But, of course, this is Italy, so even plain pizza here is much better than plain pizza in the U.S.

At the table next to us, four older, rather rotund men who looked like they came straight out of The Godfather or The Sopranos sat down. Naturally this spurred a conversation about Mob members and where to find them in Italy. As if they were a sight to see—“And on your left, you can see four members of the Italian mob from the Strachiatelli family. Remember, do not feed the mobsters.” Yes, Strachiatelli is the name of an Italian soup. With spinach, egg, and chicken broth.

So tomorrow is my first day of classes. A seven-hour day! But it’s art, which definitely beats sitting through biology, history, calculus, etc. for seven hours at Fieldston. And, on that note, I bid you adieu.