Firenze!

I have now been in Italy for about 10 days. Oh what a journey it has been. I have started my classes, I am taking Italian 101 (goodness is it confusing! I get so messed up with my Spanish... but I will get it down), Cross Cultural Communication, Sociology of Italian Culture, Philosophy Ethics, and Sculpture. Yes, I know you saw that in there... I am taking sculpture! I decided to channel my creative side and learn how to sculpt! When in Italy why not study all of the hundreds of sculptures around and build a new skill?! We start sculpting tomorrow so I will keep you posted on how that goes. My other classes seem to be going pretty well so far; they are all quite enjoyable. As I said before, Italian is tough and my teacher is well… been teaching for about 35 years at Gonzaga-In-Florence so she has been around for quite a while. It is fun to try to practice basic phrases in the market and when I order gelato. 

I have basically been exploring the city. The first weekend here I got my Friends of Uffizi pass which allows me to go visit about 22 museums around the city! It was an incredible deal and I have been exploring a few museums but still have yet to see the David. I am hoping to stop by on Tuesday night the museums that it is in is literally just down the street so I don’t know why I haven’t been in there yet. Anyway, I saw a few Leonardo D’ Vinci paintings, the art here is incredible. I found the 1 Euro Gelato shop which sure is dangerous... boy oh boy do I love gelato! Last week it seemed like everyone was sick here. I definitely had a terrible cold but I took care of myself, took some medicine, and drank lots of water and felt better in about 48 hours! I feel like I am the mom passing out medicine and hand sanitizer haha! Thanks mom and grams for convincing me to bring so much medicine!! The other delectable food I have discovered is the pizza. Yum! Dad, you would just love it. It has so many flavors and it seems like each place I go to has some different twist to it. It has been fun exploring around town to find the cheapest restaurants and cute hole in the walls. I am excited to continue exploring and finding my regular spots!

This weekend while most everyone left on a school trip Jordan, Gini, Collin, and I stayed behind to have the ultimate double date weekend! Haha well, it wasn’t really planned to be that but worked out that way and we had a blast! On Friday we went to Viareggio, Italy which is a beach about an hour train ride away along the Tuscan coast. It was a beautiful seaside town. First, we thought we were doing so well finding the train and getting to the train on time before all of the seats were taking until... the train conductor walked around to check our tickets and we forgot to validate them. In Europe this is a HUGE no-no. Luckily, the guy was nice and allowed us to only pay a 5 Euro fine rather than a 40 Euro fine. We were thankful and learned our lesson!! I will never forget to validate any of my tickets again. When we arrived to the town we walked about 2 miles from the train station to the beach. It was a scorching hot day. The beaches looked beautiful all lined with umbrellas and with matching chairs, but little did we know… those were the private beaches. It was lined for miles! We finally had to ask someone where the public beach was. This was another I would like to argue 2 mile walk until we found this tiny patch of public beach. It definitely wasn’t as luxurious but at that point we were tired, hot, and ready to eat our picnic lunch and jump in the cool blue water! We ended up having a great time baking in the sun, eating our snacks, and playing in the water. I have to admit, I was a little scared of swimming in the water because Collin told me he saw little jellyfish and they could sting you! I just kept my eyes up the whole time and moved quickly if I ever felt the slightest thing near me. Needless to say, I am a wimp and mostly spent my time on shore hahaha! At around 5pm it was time to start heading back to Florence. We hopped back on the train taking small power naps and were on the hunt for somewhere to eat! Now, don’t make fun…but we went to a Chinese restaurant. It was filled with seafood which was yummy but it definitely didn’t have as many spices and flavors as the Chinese food in America. But, I was starving so I ate it! That night we were all sunburnt and exhausted from the sun and went back and I crawled into my tiny twin sized bed.

The next day I woke up about 9ish and ate my free breakfast here in my pensione and got ready for the day! We were then on the hunt for the free shuttle bus to Ikea. Gini and I needed a mat for our bathroom and Jordan wanted a pillow. After about 2 hours and almost giving up 3 times we learned this lesson: “When Italians don’t know what you are asking them they will just point you in a direction to get you to leave them alone.” But, since none of us are quitters, we gave it one last try and asked a tourist information desk... yes we claimed ourselves as tourists. And it turned out that the stop was right next to where we started and the reason we couldn’t find it was because it didn’t start running until 1:30pm. We made it though and had a great Italian Ikea experience! Later that night we took the bus to Fiesole which is a nearby town about 20 minutes away. Fiesole overlooks the city of Florence and has incredible views. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy that evening so we couldn’t see the sunset but we all decided this was definitely a place we wanted to come too often. We had dinner there and it was a really fun evening. I think Fiesole is one of my favorite places so far. It was just so calm and peaceful.

Florence is really not as quaint and peaceful as I thought it would be. There are constantly cars, buses, and motorcycles that try to run you over. Pedestrians do NOT have the ride-away. The city streets a cluttered with garbage and the sidewalks barely fit two people walking side-by-side. However, through all of this you find the hidden gems within Florence; you will find the Ponte Vecchio Bridge which looks over the canal and off into the city, the Duomo which is a beautiful church with architecture that just amazes me every time I look at it. Small parks dispersed throughout the city. Arch ways, vibrant colorful buildings, sculptures, and fountains. I have been learning to look beyond what is obvious and look a little deeper into the city. I am glad that I have the opportunity. I truly makes me appreciate how fortunate I am to have clean streets, sidewalks, washing machines, free water, chocolate chip cookies, quietness, peanut butter... just to name a few things I miss! Thanks everyone for supporting me in my endeavors. I wouldn’t be here experiencing this without you. I’m off to go study Italian!

Peace and love,

Kayla