Settimana Uno in l'Italia

We have been to two class sessions and are feeling overwhelmed. Last Sunday we knew no Italian, now we are in the midst of complex verb conjugations and trying to remember simple vocabulary. The worst part for me is the pronunciation – CH is K and CE, CI, SE, SI are CH. That’s just the beginning. We are having fun trying to speak with passion, but it’s difficult when you aren’t sure of what you are saying.

Saturday we moved apartments. Because we came in the middle of the week, we were given temporary housing (which we didn’t know was temporary) until they found us another room. The first flat was five minutes from the school and shared with six other students. 7 girls, 1 guy, 1 bathroom - but everyone was very courteous so there was never a problem. There were also 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room. The owner didn’t speak much English and we, of course, only know very simple Italian phrases so she had one of the other girls translate. The rules were – no smoking and no guests. Within 10 minutes of the landlady’s departure the apartment was filled with cigarette smoke – 20 minutes later, a group of guests arrived. Our flatmates spoke German and French and were there learning advanced Italian.

Our new place is much further from the school, but much nicer. We are with a single Italian woman who is a professional harpist. She speaks Italian, German, and English. Our room is quite spacious and VERY Italian – we even have a chandelier. We have kitchen privileges and there is a living room to enjoy as well. It is right next to a supermarket, several cheese and bread shops, and there is a street market several days a week in the mornings – usually veggies and misc. flea market stuff. Tonight we cooked our first meal – pasta with spicy pesto, wine, cheese, and grapes. It was wonderful to be able to cook, but very strange to do it in someone else’s kitchen so we didn’t do anything elaborate.

The weather here has been unusually cold. It snowed for the two days we were in Fabriano and has been cold and threatening rain for the past few days here in Florence. I did not pack for the weather so I have been wearing my only two long sleeve shirts for days now. Our new flatmate has graciously loaned me the use of a coat as I couldn’t find an appropriate one when shopping yesterday. We will have to do laundry soon, but as it is raining we will wait. No one here has clothes dryers – they have washing machines in the kitchen or on the balcony and everybody hangs their clothes to dry on lines outside the balconies. On sunny days there are clothes around every terrace and balcony in the city.

Yesterday we spent all day walking through the city and stopping to study. We found beautiful little piazzas in every neighborhood surrounded by ancient buildings that were alive and thriving. Every part of every space in this city is being used. Most of the coffee bars are tiny little shops with a counter where you stand to drink your coffee/liquor and chat with your neighbors. A coffee (espresso) is usually about €.80. We stopped at several of these coffee bars along the way, the price increasing dramatically as we got closer to the tourist areas. In the majority of the places that had a few tables it was the same price to sit or stand, but not all. Unfortunately, in the last place we tried, close to the Ponte Vecchio, we paid €16 for 4 coffees and a small pastry – more than double what we paid for lunch!

Lunch was at a small coffee shop that sold Panini, far away from the tourist area, where the kind shopkeeper showed us exactly where we were on our map and made certain we understood before we could leave. We had been looking for a place to eat for about 30 minutes, worried that we would be forced to go towards the tourist areas as most regular businesses close from about 2:30 – 5:00. Fortunately, it wasn’t as late as we thought and we enjoyed panini with mozzarella, pomodori, and some sort of cured meat that I think was mortadella bologna.

We managed to wind our way around to the Academia where we stopped briefly to look at the statues outside before deciding to come back on a weekday afternoon when it would be much less crowded. We wove our way through streets lined with ancient churches, shops dedicated to the top Italian designers, and tiny places offering antiques mixed with tourist junk. We stopped at an English bookstore to purchase an additional book on Italian and a better map. John found himself on Purgatory street!

The streets were filled with tourists from all over Europe. Italians in furs come to shop at the designer stores, and locals hanging out watching the chaos. At one point we heard drums and trumpets and peeked around the corner to see a procession coming down the street with Renaissance era costumed flag bearers, drummers, trumpeters, and knights. Next the “noble families” appeared dressed in their finest, and finally, the on-lookers who decided to join in the parade. It was touristy, but fun anyway.

At about five o’clock we found a pizzeria we wanted to try, but it wasn’t open until six so we wandered around a bit and found another coffee bar to study in until it was time to eat. I am sure the other patrons thought we were a bit odd with the sentences we were repeating to each other trying to get the verb tenses right – “ Io sono una studentessa d’italiano. Tu sei un vero amico. Eduardo e’ molto simpatico.” I hope some of it sunk in!

The dinner was well worth the wait. We had a bottle of house red wine and a simple soup of barley with a few legumes and split peas, followed by a spicy salame pizza for John, and one with proscutto cotto, olives, and artichoke for me. During the meal, the German couple beside us turned to John and asked, in Italian, if he would take their picture. It was a good moment. The pizza in this part of Italy is paper thin and cooked very fast in wood burning brick ovens. The pizza maker at this particular establishment was an expert. He could grab a piece of dough and with a few quick turns and a toss it was ready for toppings.

This morning I woke up to many, many church bells tolling and looked out the window to see little old ladies shaking rugs and dust cloths out their windows. There is not much open on Sunday, but we walked to the nearest open supermarket and bought supplies. Whenever you go to a foreign country, you need to spend a lot of time at the supermarket. Many of the things we saw were versions of things we knew, but some things were so foreign we had no idea what they were. I can’t wait to find out!