Hey all!
So as you may or may not have noticed in my last post, I went to Florence this past weekend to visit Julia Lindsey (and her roommate Marisa Maglaty, aka cousin of Elise Mostello, for those of you who know her…! For those of you who don’t, Elise lives down the street from me and we were best friends all through middle school. Crazily enough, Marisa and I actually met years ago, in 6th grade or something, when she came to visit Elise. I recognized Marisa in one of Julia’s photos before visiting Italy and now I can say I actually feel like I sort of know her and she’s quite cool! Small world…! I will forever swear that I know everyone, I just don’t know how, yet!)!!!!! Please check out my Facebook photos as well as the photos of some of the amazing art I saw that I stole from Google Images (if any of the images are yours and you want credit, please tell me!!!) (I stole the images, not the art, hello)!!
To be honest, and to start from the beginning, it took me a little while to warm up to Florence. HOWEVER, in the end, I really really really enjoyed my time there, especially time with Julia (best tour guide ever! Haha), gelato, the amazing art, and meeting Julia’s friends like Ansley and Marisa (and her host brother, Giacomo, obviously). It wasn’t so much Florence that I didn’t warm up to in the first few hours of my visit, it was more just that traveling is exhausting, especially when you’re alone and you’re two weeks away from going home for the first time in four months. Also, I was somewhat surprised to find myself away from the comfort of daily hangout time with Julio, my hostel was sort of lonely that first night, and I had some heavy emotional stuff on my mind.
NEVERTHELESS, I persevered and was able to do a serious whirlwind tour of Florence, including gelato, pizza, pasta, waiters who spoke Spanish, the Uffizi (NO LINES!), Accademia (NO LINES!), San Marco, Santa Maria Novella, 6 billion variations on the theme of el señor jesús cristo, cool bridges, amazing views, near-death-by-motorini aka vespa, the mercato, Giacomo, Heroes, and no raves. I repeat. We did not have any raves. Julia’s host mom Concetta went to Rome for the weekend to run a mini-marathon or something (no, I’m serious) and as she left she said “Don’t make a rave!” So of course we obeyed.
Anyway, without getting too boringly detailed, here is what I did in Florence!!!
I got to Pisa mid-afternoon on Thursday, took an hour-long train to Florence (listening to an American student from Granada and a Granadan [?!?!] chat in Spanish, enjoying the last vestiges of my darling second language before my brief exile into Italian territory where plazas are piazzas and jamón is prosciutto), and Julia found me at the train station. We wandered around and checked out some of the big sights at night (Ponte Vecchio! etc) and met up with her friend Ansley from Tufts (who knows my other friend Julia there…) for some of the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. Apparently Florence isn’t super famous for pizza at all, but it was FREAKING INCREDIBLE. I ate the whole thing. Yuuuummmm.
It was pretty chilly out, so obviously we headed out to get some gelato at Julia’s favorite place (1 euro! Cheapest ever! Amazing!). Realizing that we were pretty close to Julia’s old home in the dorm (well, Casa Fiorentina, or whatever, aka hell incarnate for Julia…we don’t like to talk about it, we just like to say that she lives in an amazing homestay now and it’s all for the better!) and Ansley’s sweet apartment, we headed there to benefit from the wonders that are the internet (http://history.memphis.edu/images/catherine_siena.gif), free bathrooms, and tap water. And seats. And indoor heating. Although I gather the Italians in general aren’t so big on that.
Anyway, we eventually made it to my hostel and Julia checked me in (the guy at the desk spoke Spanish!). It was a bit more complicated than we’d thought because I was going to have to stay with 2 boys in a room that smelled like boy (in a bad way), sans bathroom and anywhere for me to change or store my stuff safely. So I upgraded to a double all to myself! Score. The hostel was actually awesome-it’s an old monastery/current church so I think I literally stayed in a monk’s cell! Well, after some renovations. It was sweet, if a bit chilly (not under the covers! Yay for an extra blanket in the closet! Muahaha).
Friday there was a bus sciopero aka strike (more on those later) so we had to be kind of creative with our travels (Julia lives near my hostel, but the center aka all the sights are kind of on the other side of the city). We went to Julia’s house to get Marisa’s Uffizi card in the hopes that it would get us some discounts (you have to show a second form of ID at most places, so sadly, nothing for me except at San Marco, I think) and hung out a bit there. I LOVE HER HOMESTAY. OH MY GOD. The few photos I took don’t do it justice, but it’s on the 6th floor of an apartment building in a nice neighborhood (okay, so at least I have an elevator, but whatever) aka they have a rooftop garden thing/terrace that overlooks most of Florence (you can see the Duomo!). It’s utterly perfect. Julia and Marisa’s room is sort of the 6.5th floor because you get there via a spiral staircase from the living room (you get to the balcony/terrace/roof via those stairs, too). The room is small and so is the bathroom but it’s pretty much ideal, at least it would be for me. It is technically host-sister Claudia’s room (she studied abroad in Salamanca!!!! But I never met her, she doesn’t live at home anymore, obviously, she’s a bit older), so Marisa and Julia are sort of crammed in there, but it has this cute window and amazing light and I would give anything to live there. I think the fact that my room here gets literally NO natural light is really getting to me.
Anyway, after some hangout time, we headed out to check out the Florence museum situation. It rocks. We went to the Accademia (no lines! Visit Florence after all the tourists have gone home because it’s too cold!!!) and I got to say hi to Michaelangelo’s David (for Julio, too. It’s his favorite sculpture. I was teasing Julio when I got home that David said hi and that he was jealous of Julio for having such an awesome gal in his life such as me. I’m a loser). I’m going to edit my previous post and write about the art pieces themselves, so I won’t waste too much time here going on about it, but the statue itself (apart from being an obvious masterpiece) is displayed really really well, in an amazing space. And it’s huge!!!! And he’s pretty hot, not gonna lie. Sorry. If you get the chance, go see it. Worth every euro!!!
We then went to the Uffizi (again, no lines! Visit Florence after all the tourists have gone home because it’s too cold!!!), I think, and saw tons of Botticelli (and lotsa Jesus. And Mary. And saints and apostles and stuff. I’m going to hell.), who I’ve decided I really like. Along with a ton of other art. The best part of these museum visits is that Julia is an art history student and just generally very knowledgeable about everything we went to see, so I feel like I got to actually appreciate what I was seeing about 60000000234892348 times more than I would have had I gone with someone from IES Salamanca or just by myself. Museums and art are way way cooler if you get a walking, talking Wikipedia guide, too!!! Thank you, Julia!!!! You really did a great job and now I want to learn more about the artists and the works themselves!! You’ve inspired me to research all of the Salamanca monuments so that I can be fair to my visitors in the spring and properly educate them like you educated me!! (sorry, Sammie, Kat, Julia, and Staci…)
We had the messiest croissant lunch ever (I actually ate like 10 chocolate croissants this weekend. Best. Ever.) and enjoyed some great views of the….uh…I dunno, it’s a huge tower and an imposing building for like…the florentian parliament or government or something??? I don’t remember what it’s called, which is embarrassing, but I know Julia will tell me. Anyway, beautiful views of the Duomo, too. Ansley met us, and we met up with Sarah (another friend of theirs) and checked out the Mercato a bit. It’s like the Rastro, except Italy-style. Lots of Ciao Bella-in-the-coca-cola-logo-style T-shirts, 8 billion pashmina scarves, beautiful murano glass necklaces and jewelry, lots of leather bags etc, anything you could ever want with David’s man-parts on it (no, seriously. Boxers, postcards, pins, aprons, ANYTHING). The stall owners say hilarious/sexist things to you like “nice ass!” and “do you come from the Barbie factory?” that you know have nothing to do with your particular, individual charm. Oh well.
Little success was had at the mercato that day, but we went back on Saturday. I can’t remember what we did on Friday afternoon, now…uh….oh, we had some gelato/crepe snacks, I think, at a café called “Very Good!” Sarah left, because she was feeling sick. I think we went to Ansley’s and hung out, abusing our internet privileges again (and Ansley and Julia tried to figure out what the deal was with the Air Traffic Controller strike on Dec. 14th, the day that all 250 NYU Florence students are supposed to leave…yeah, gross beyond meaning…!! Good luck, girls!!!!). We then had dinner at an adorable little place (hidden gem, I think Julia’s guidebook called it) and I had amazing ravioli. And lots of bread with olive oil….yum. I know they have plenty of olive oil in Spain, but my host family uses sunflower oil instead, which is cheaper and more fatty. Awesome…
After dinner we were exhausted, and I can’t remember what we did. Somehow made it back to my hostel, despite lack of busses (I hate strikes, I hate strikes). I managed to take a shower the next morning (European showers are made for dwarves, it’s so true) thanks to soap borrowed from Julia. We checked out San Marco and ogled at some serious monk cells and amazing Fra Angelico works (the Annunciation rocks! And it’s perfect in its original location!!). We also went to Santa Maria Novella, Julia’s favorite church, and saw Massaccio’s Trinity, aka the first work to use perspective (really well, I might add!). Correct me if I’m wrong, Julia!! We also saw some amazing behind-the-altar (nave!?!) murals by Ghirlandaio (spelled right?!?!!), another one of Julia’s favorites. We went back to Julia’s to avoid the fog and cold and at 5, her host brother Giacomo (he’s 20, pretty short, cute, athletic [plays soccer], hilarious, and seems like a really nice guy, although he introduced his girlfriend to Marisa and Julia as “the girl who cleans my room” [jokingly…we think]) drove us gals outside Florence to a cool little sandwich place (Kat, we drove right by the piazza Michaelangelo and got a sweet night view of Florence!!) where we tried some sweet prosciutto-and-other-thing-like-artichokes-and-dried-tomato sandwiches on the best bread I’ve ever had (squashed bread, called something way prettier in Italian).
Giacomo conceded that my name was cool enough, though not remotely Italian, and I was actually able to get the gist of most of their conversations (Julia and Marisa, you guys speak SO WELL!!! Very impressive). Context is amazingly helpful…like when Marisa was telling Giacomo she didn’t believe him, and he pulled the car over to the side of the road and gestured wildly and told her to get out of the car. I got that one. =) No but seriously, facial expression, conversational context, etc etc etc really help. Plus there are SO many similarities in Italian and Spanish!! Neat.
We had some of the best gelato of my entire life after that (not only can you get gelato in cups of about 10 different sizes [do you really need a cup that is 2.50 euro, 3 euro, 3.50 euro, 4 euro…etc????], but no matter the size, you can order like up to 4 different flavors per cup!!!!). I got fudge and some amazing kind that was creamy and vanilla-y that apparently they invented at this particular gelateria (did I spell that right? I think it’s the same as in Spanish). Freaking incredible. We headed back to Julia’s to rest up for my upcoming long day of travel and watched 5 episodes of Heroes, causing both Julia and myself to get quite addicted!!! Fantastico.
The next morning, I headed back to the train station with Julia, we bid each other adieu until Bowdoin in January, and I took the train to the Pisa airport. I killed some time by doing homework, writing in my journal, and eating (duh) and made it to Madrid without any hitches. I then had 3.5 hours to kill there, so obviously I went to McDonald’s and called my parents! Good times. At the train station in Madrid I ran into Simone, Peter, Ryan, Jenny, Sarah, Alison, Anna, and more people from IES, most of whom were returning from a weekend in Morocco (!). Then it was another 2.5-hour train ride back to Salamanca, and here I am!!
I have plenty more to write about in terms of my daily Salmantina life, getting papers back (or not, in other cases), studying for exams, silent library study rooms, foggy nights, Indian summer days, the end of classes, moving to the residencia, etc etc etc. But it’s late and I’m exhausted.
I have a November playlist/zip file of songs for all y’all who are interested coming up, too. =D
Love you all tons,
Besos!!!
-c-
p.s. if I haven’t edited the post with the art from Florence when you’re reading this, have patience. Heh. Thanks.
p.p.s. to those of you amazing high school or college students finishing college apps, essays, problem sets, tests, and all of that other stupid crap they make you do when you’re of a certain age (you know who you are, guapos!), I wish you the best of luck and I am here for solidarity, encouragement, and spanish tortilla. TWO WEEKS LEFT!!! Or less. You can do this!!! Millones de besos for you guys. =D
