Today marks three weeks of my Italian adventure. My time in Sicily was amazing, met some wonderful people in my tour group. I will have more about the tour on the webpage soon.
So far I have enjoyed these last few weeks in Florence, I love having the train station so close by and being able to visit other cities in the spur of the moment. And I can go on and on about art, history and culture in Florence, but I won't.
Living in a studio apartment and having to walk everywhere, has reminded me of my college days when I didn't have a car and I shared a small studio apartment with a high school friend.
This week was particularly intense with school 6-8 hours a day, and as comfortable as I am speaking italian; italian grammar makes my brain hurt. Therefore to ease the pain I found that doing my homework with a glass of wine, really made things easier.
I really could be an eternal student, I just love the whole "campus" life, meeting new people, going to class, yes I know I'm a geek. This week I've had the opportunity to interact and spend time with people from Japan, Ukraine, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Mexico and Colombia.
Walking to and from school every morning and afternoon takes me through il mercato di San Lorenzo. Each morning I see the same people setting up their kiosks, in the afternoon they are usually busy with tourists looking for bargains on leather purses or jackets, scarves, hats, t-shirts, you name it they have it.
I love italian customs, like the passeggiata in the early evening, il caffé, un aperitivo before diner just to open your appetite , and when you are here that's what you do. If you know me well enough, you know that I'm a TV freak, so you will find interesting that here I rarely watch TV. There are two reasons for that 1) Italian TV sucks, 2) the TV at my place is so small that it hurts my eyes to try to watch it! All kidding aside, there are quite a few italian shows that I watch even when I'm in the US, but they are off season now.
So I read, I read a lot, I go to the bar downstairs and read, and chat with the owners, or go to the library or the bookstore (which here are plenty) and read some more.
Let's clarify for those of you that do not know when I say "the bar" is not the american definition of bar, here a bar is a coffee shop. In the morning you go to the bar, get your caffé or un cappuccino and a cornetto (small croissant) and that's Italian breakfast. In reality here you are always at the bar, because life is better with caffé...
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