4/10/17 - Florence Part 2 - La Banshee Storica di Canto

DAY 5 - 4/07/17 - Friday

Cloisters & Buskers

I can't believe how quickly the first week of classes went by! By this time I was feeling semi-confident in my ability to speak and understand basic Italian. That is, until I participated in Linguaviva's Friday activity, which was a tour of the Santa Maria Novella church, led by the same art history professor who led our tour to the Piazzale Michelangelo.

I am assuming that everyone else had become too exhausted trying to understand rapidly spoken Italian by this point, as it was down to just me and Thiago participating in the Santa Maria Novella tour. It was super interesting though, and I always welcome an opportunity to try and soak up more Italian.

The church was designed by Dominican friars, and as usual was finished over 400 years before America even got any of their shit together, around the year 1360. It consists of a cloister and several chapels with beautiful frescoes.

What is a cloister even? Only Google can say.

Gold leaf artwork from distant times.

Frescoes and Jesus in the Spanish chapel.

Floor art / new tattoo inspiration.

Giotto's Crucifix.

Alter & stained glass.

After the tour, both Thiago and I were completely exhausted. I went home and can't remember what I did the rest of the afternoon, but it probably involved napping and watching Friends. Also, at some point I made myself a beautiful caprese salad.

Productive.

Later that evening after we had all rested, I met up with Verena, Sydney, and Maria to go for a walk around town and drink wine in the streets like a bunch of hooligans.

Our first stop was to the Ponte Vecchio, which is much different at night than during the day because all of the little shops are closed down. However, there were still dozens of tourists and of course a busker, complete with guitar amp. He played all of the crowd favorites, and when "Hallelujah" came on there was a collective sigh from the audience. I couldn't believe he was playing one of my favorite songs! And what an amazing place to be listening to it! It wasn't until several days later, when I heard at least three other buskers playing Hallelujah, that I realized this is a standard crowd-pleasing song. Each time the audience was just as thrilled as I was the first time I heard it.

This particular busker was also a bit sassy, but with good reason: partway through one of his songs he stopped and walked over to a large group of loud Italian teenagers, yelling at them to be quiet. It was pretty funny actually.

"Oh...my...GOD it's Hallelujah!!!!" - everyone in the crowd every single time.

There's me on the bridge! Before realizing the sham that is "Hallelujah" played by buskers.

After listening to the busker for awhile and giving him some coins, the four of us went to try and find a place to drink the wine and beers we had bought. Surprisingly, while Milan had had a public square seemingly designed for people to get irresponsibly drunk, in Florence the police actually cared about that sort of thing so we felt a little shady. After crossing the Ponte Vecchio, we found some steps that looked out onto the street and beyond to the river, and posted up there.

Ready for the full Florence experience!

Unfortunately, although our wine bottle had a screw cap, we did not have a bottle opener for the beers. Maria tried valiantly to open them using a nearby concrete window ledge.

Working...

Don't give up! Our fates rest in your hands!

Finally!!

The hard work of opening the bottles made them all the more satisfying. After a few sips of wine I definitely wasn't drunk, yet still managed to forget the cap wasn't on my bottle of wine and poured it all over myself. So that was fun.

After finishing our drinks we walked back into town, stopping at "il Porcellino", a bronze fountain of a boar. For good luck, you are supposed to rub its snout and put a coin in its mouth so that it falls out the stream of water into the grate below. Which of course we did.

He loves it!

Lucky af.

We capped off the night by stopping at a bar facing the Duomo, and ordering drinks and snacks. I got a delicious piece of carrot cake because I literally cannot keep my hands off desserts. Everyone else ordered drinks like normal people.

Sydney & pina colada.

Verena & apple juice.

Maria & mojito.

And that's that! Gearing up for a fun weekend...

DAY 6 - 4/08/17 - Saturday

Losing Dignity One Note at a Time

My first activity of Saturday, after sleeping in obviously, was going to see the Palazzo Vecchio with Sydney. Building on the Palazzo began in the early 1300s, and since then it has seen many uses and many names. The Medici family lived and worked there for several years, until moving to the even larger Palazzo Pitti across the river in the 1500s, thus giving the old building the name "Palazzo Vecchio" ("old palace").

Mediocre, small courtyard.

When we got there, a wedding reception that had been held in the great hall of the Palazzo had just ended. We saw the wedding party as they came out (life goals). I can only imagine how much that cost to book.

Remnants of the reception. Tables made of solid gold, probably.

We had a good time exploring the many rooms of the palace, including the Room of Esther and the "map room" which contained a gigantic globe. All throughout were amazing pieces of art, frescoes, lavishly decorated ceilings, and huge fireplaces.

The real MVP.

Real talk where can I get that fleur-de-lis wallpaper though?

This was at least 6 feet tall (or 2 meters in European).

Ancient map from the map room.

Sydney gazing out onto the streets of Florence.

The view! That majestic looking building out there is the Duomo.

View from a different side.

This ceiling is prettier than anything I own.

Giant, cozy fireplace, ala Downton Abbey.

After our taxing journey up and down the Palazzo tower steps, we rewarded ourselves with coffee and gelato.

Sydney in the front, Palazzo in the back.

Gelato is life.

Later that night, after a rest at home and honestly probably some more Friends, the four of us girls met up again to go out on the town. This time we had Thiago with us too! 

On the way to a karaoke bar called "Red Garter", we passed by a carousal. Naturally, Maria and I went for a ride; for research.

Woo!

Findings: carousals are fun.

Once at Red Garter, we ordered some drinks, and I ordered us a giant pitcher of Long Island Ice Tea, which came complete with ridiculously long straws. 

After that, Sydney and I made the questionable decision of doing karaoke. The sign-up itself was absolute madness; there was no list, it was simply a semi-organized "line" of drunk people on the dancefloor leading up to the stage. The actual karaoke portion consisted of a laptop on which you would search for a karaoke version of the song you wanted on YouTube which would then play through the speakers. Additionally, there was a very jaded looking guy playing electric guitar accompaniment.

At one point the guitarist started playing the riff from "Sweet Child O Mine", and the crowd went nuts, so naturally I decided to do that song. However, once we got on stage and I suggested it to him he claimed not to know the song. Wtf?? I told him that he DID know it as he had literally been playing it 5 minutes beforehand, but he continued to deny it and eventually forced us to sing "Don't Stop Believin" instead. I thought my days of singing Don't Stop Believin for karaoke were over, but the universe finds a way apparently. Ah well.

Decisions only get better from here.

Believe it or not, this was the classiest photo of the night and the only one I am willing to put out into the internet. There are videos. No one will be seeing them.

Eventually everyone left but Sydney and I, and as the night got later the bar vibe changed drastically and weirdly. Whereas before it had been about 50 drunk Australian students away on study abroad, they left and were quickly replaced by almost 100% dudes. Sydney and I danced with two of the guys, who became immediately possessive to the point of waiting for us outside the bathroom (note to guys: don't do this to girls you have just met!! It is creepy as fuck). Eventually we convened at the bar and decided to make a break for it, and escaped out the side door of the bar and ran down the street home so that the guys wouldn't follow us.

This is the type of shit girls have to put up with.

All in all, it was a fantastic night, and an even better exit.

DAY 7 - 4/09/17 - Sunday

Old Friends in New Places

The day of rest! I woke up late, and did nothing all day but go to the Parco delle Cascine, in the east part of town. It was a beautiful day.

As you can see from the blue sky and green leaves.

My shoes, and a sandwich.

After laying around and reading for awhile, I left to go home, and on the way back discovered an awesome little street market on the edge of the park. Like most street markets they seemed to have everything - clothes, food, kitchen accessories - and this one even had a pet store! I was flabbergasted, And tempted to buy an adorable tiny pet turtle.

Mini turtles = tartarughine!

Dwarf hamsters or some creature that looks just like them!

Bunnies!

The market street.

I got back home before sundown and captured this lovely sunset from my the balcony off of my room.

Yes, you heard that - I have a balcony off of my room.

That night was an extra special treat - I got to see my good friends Travis and Vivian!! They were on a two week trip through Europe, and happened to overlap in Florence with me for two nights before moving on to Rome and then Greece. It was so fun and so surreal to see my friends in Florence, especially after being away from home for a month.

We got gelato, because of course.

Vomit. jk I <3 them.

DAY 8 - 4/10/17 - Monday

???

I am honestly not sure what happened this day but it is likely not material that is appropriate for this blog. I have literally one photo from the day, and here it is:

So I know that I was reading A Room with a View. Classic. On to the next!

4/06/17 - Florence Part 1 - Ballin Like a Medici

***BONUS***

Before I dive into Florence, here are 3 more photos I dug up from Friday and Saturday night! The first two are from dinner with Silvio, third is a dog selfie taken a few hours before we conquered the Duomo.

Pallin' around with my new friend Silvio.

The whole gang! Silvio <3's limoncello

Dog selfie!

DAY 1 - 4/03/17 - Monday

The Italian Flows

Now onto Florence. After a few weeks in hostels, it was pure luxury to have a whole bedroom all to myself. I was set to stay in Florence for two weeks, taking an Italian language course at a school called Linguaviva, and staying in a shared apartment with some other students.

The apartment was just north of the main part of the city, and was fairly large with five bedrooms and four bathrooms. Everyone else was around my age and super nice, although throughout the two weeks I hardly saw them as everyone was in school and out and about most of the time. This worked out just fine for me though because I enjoyed having some alone time. I was also out a lot with my classmates, who I bonded with over our shared excitement and frustration in learning Italian.

One of my classmates, Sarah, happened to be from Portland! Truly a small world since there were only 8 people in the class. She would be staying in Italy for three months total, and brought along her adorable dog Isabella for the trip.

I wonder if she could understand the Italian dogs.

Our classes were held Monday through Friday, from 9am - 12:30pm with a half hour break. They were really fun and I would have gladly stayed for a month or longer if I could. The very first class started out with a quick orientation, and then our teacher showed up and started speaking to us in Italian right off the bat. Her name was Caterina and she was an excellent teacher. She spoke in Italian the entire time, which was pretty overwhelming at first but actually ended up being very helpful. Language immersion and all that. The students in my class were from all over the world and a wide mix of ages, and despite these big differences we all got along super well.

After our first day of class, we went on an hour long orientation tour of the city. We stopped by many sights including the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo of Florence. This is pretty much the central attraction of the city - "duomo" is an Italian word that typically means the largest or most important church in the city.

It sure looks important!

The front. No Italian karaoke here yet but there are still 2 weeks to go.

Besides the Duomo, we also saw the Mercado Centrale, the Palazzo Vecchio, and several other things that I can't remember because we went through them so quickly. It wasn't until several days later that I was able to pick apart pieces of the tour and remember some of the places we had been.

One of the most interesting parts of Florence that we passed by on the tour was the Vasari Corridor. This corridor was built in 1565 and runs several feet above the city from the Palazzo Vecchio across the Ponte Vecchio and over to the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the river. It was built as a secure way for the rich and powerful Medici family to get from their working offices in the Palazzo Vecchio to their living quarters in Palazzo Pitti without having to interact with the common people. Could you imagine being so rich and important that an entire secret passageway was built for your family to commute to and from work? Also, the Ponte Vecchio used to contain a meat market, but the entire market was moved to stop the smell reaching the Medici's corridor. Yeah.

A part of the corridor running off Palazzo Vecchio on the left. Windows so they can look out at the plebs.

After the tour, a group of us went to a gelato shop recommended by our teacher as the best gelato in Florence. It was called Gelateria La Carraia and it lived up to the hype.

Maria (Brasil), Lanshin (Taiwan), Verena (Germany), Sydney (Canada).

We were thinking about trying to meet up for dinner that night, but we were all pretty exhausted from the day. Learning a new language is incredibly tiring! Instead, I went back to my apartment and cooked some dinner, and put away my clothes in an actual wardrobe for the first time in weeks.

Kitchen with awesome balcony doors.

My clothes hung up on real life hangers!!

I even have my own desk.

I will admit that I spent a good chunk of time that night watching Friends on my computer. Although I didn't completely let myself off the hook - I found out that Netflix in Italy has shows and movies available with Italian subtitles or even dubbed in Italian! So I watched Friends dubbed in Italian, which was highly entertaining. And educational, probably.

DAY 2 - 4/04/17 - Tuesday

Capito?

Being back in school is the bees knees. It has been so long since I've taken a class, and I missed it! In addition to classes, Linguaviva organizes activities in most of the afternoons. On Tuesday the activity planned was a trip to the Piazzale Michelangelo, a picturesque spot located on a hill to the south of the city, right next to the Palazzo Pitti. Unfortunately, the day we went it was stormy, cold, and extremely windy. Fortunately, this meant that there were far fewer tourists than normal. On weekends during sunset the crowd is so thick you can barely walk through it without bumping into someone or stepping on an empty wine bottle.

Our guide for the afternoon was a teacher from the school who used to be an art history professor, so he knew a ton about the history of Florence, and was eager to share it. There were only four of us students who signed up - myself, Sydney, Maria, and Thiago - all from level 1. The lecture was given in Italian with some English mixed in, making it an extreme challenge in concentration for four people who had just started learning Italian the day before. Still, the parts I could understand were very interesting. To sum it up, the de Medici family were complete ballers for about 600 years until their family line died out in the 1700s. 

Looks like its time for someone else to take over this city!

The stormy view.

After gazing out at the view for awhile and almost drowning in Italian history, we walked down towards town through the beautiful garden right below the square. The roses hadn't bloomed yet, but it was gorgeous nonetheless, and there was interesting art placed throughout.

Also, the sun came out finally!

Italian fishes.

Suitcase frame metal artwork in the park.

I'm really not sure what this is supposed to be. 

Statue depicting how I feel after a day of Italian lessons.

Although we had taken the bus up the hill to Piazzale Michelangelo, we ended up walking the entire way back to school and then splitting up to go to our respective accommodations. I made myself a delicious and cheap Italian dinner at home - gnocchi with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and vegetables.

I'm a real adult who cooks actual food meals!!

I ended the night by finishing my homework (compiti), and then settled in to another night of comfy sleep in my own private room. Buona notte!

Homework is fun when it involves writing about your favorite gelato flavors.

DAY 3 - 4/05/17 - Wednesday

Spritz Nightz

Another day of fun lessons - or so I remember. The main activity on Wednesday however was going out with my new friends in search of an Aperol spritz cocktail. 

It was surprisingly difficult to find a restaurant that was a) open b) not too expensive and c) not super touristy. We were also determined to sit outside which was an additional challenge. Many restaurants in the touristy parts of Italy have a sort of "greeter" who stands outside and tries to bring in customers, with varying degrees of aggressiveness. 

After walking around the inner city for awhile trying to find a restaurant tailored to our exact specifications, we were ushered into a place near the Duomo by a particularly boisterous Italian greeter lady. Although their outdoor area was full, she promised us a table in the next few minutes. We were skeptical but agreed, and after a few minutes of waiting she made good on the promise. We immediately ordered five spritz.

Maria, Thiago, Restaurant Greeter Lady, me, Verena, Sydney.

Dinner was very enjoyable and we all had fun discussing our Italian class and watching the hordes of people walking by. 

Cheers / Ching ching / Prost / Sante!

Enjoying a healthy spritz.

And that's pretty much all to report. Florence is great because there is so much to do, and it is so walk-able. The walking helps you burn off all the pasta and ice cream.

DAY 4 - 4/06/17 - Thursday

By Thursday I was feeling like a pretty great about my Italian language skills, as I could now order gelato completely in Italian as well as tell people my name and where I am from.

After class that day, I went with Sydney and Andrea (another girl from the class) to the nearby Mercato Centrale for lunch. The Mercato is a big indoor market place with fresh food stands on the ground level, and restaurants and shops on the upper level. They even have a cooking school!

I got a delicious margherita pizza for lunch, and then the three of us watched the cooking students for a bit. Their classroom is behind a full length glass wall which is a little creepy honestly because you can totally spy on them. Although I heard that the glass is a one way mirror and they can't see out. Not sure if that makes it better or worse.

The homies making my pizza.

Cooking school.

Afterwards, we went to a cafe that had been recommended to us on our initial tour of Florence called La Rinascente. La Rinascente is actually a multi-story shopping mall in the middle of downtown Florence, but on the very top floor they have a little hidden cafe with a terrace that has an amazing view of the city.

We each ordered a drink and took advantage of the photo op before getting rained out by an approaching thunderstorm.

Currently reading: A Room with a View by EM Forster.

My mom made me promise to read A Room with a View while in Florence, as the story is set there and I had never read it before. I picked it up at a local bookstore and it was thoroughly enjoyable reading it while sitting in the same old town that the characters described.

Shortly before the rains kicked in. Sunglasses are still on.

There were lightning bolts over there. I did not manage to capture any on camera.

View of the square below the cafe, carousal to the right.

We had a full day planned - after waiting a bit for the rains to stop and leaving the cafe we met up with Verena and Lanshin to go to the Palazzo Pitti - former palace home of the Medici family. It was built in the 1400s and is exactly as impressive as you would imagine the house of one of the most powerful families in the history of the world to be. Everywhere you looked there were giant chandeliers, frescoes, and beautiful furniture and art. The place was so huge that we barely even finished the tour before becoming too exhausted to continue. The house was seriously enormous and we only saw a small part of it. I don't know how people actually lived there, I lose things constantly in a house about 1/1000th of the size.

A ballroom of some kind. Very practical.

Looks just like my bedroom!

A row of chairs, each probably worth more than my lifetime income.

This was the music room - the chairs and tables were shaped like drums.

Wooden ceiling detail.

Casual outdoor terrace.

You'd think after awhile all the gold would start to hurt their eyes.

Badass lady statue.

Beautiful ceiling fresco.

Throne room!

Someone's bedroom. I could go for some bed curtains like those.

View from one of the windows.

There is something really special about places that are as old and have as much history contained in their walls as the Palazzo Pitti does. I felt a weird mixture of excitement, unease, and nostalgia walking through the halls, admiring the frescoes, and getting close enough to touch the same parts of the house that were touched by the Medici family over 500 years ago.

After a couple of hours in the palace, it was refreshing to head back out into the (now sunny) day. Walking along a bridge back towards our homes, we found that the river Arno was completely still, like a mirror.

Maybe because the river looks dirty af and no one should be swimming in it.

Another great day in Firenze!

So, that's my introduction to Florence! Side bar: the Italian name for the city (Firenze) is supposed to be pronounced with a soft "s" - like "fear - en - say". It was a whirlwind of a week with great new friends and some solid Italian learning. I was really happily surprised with how easy it has been to pick up the language - its like it runs in my blood or something :)