"The Floating City"

As you can tell, the first half of my stay here, in Italy, has been full of many adventures. I have never had such amazing experiences before and I each day I try to remind myself about how lucky I am.

On my first weekend back, CEA (my school here in Italia) took us all on a trip to Venezia, the floating city known for its beautiful blown glass. Venezia was mystical, enchanting, and quite fascinating. Last time I visited this area was seven years ago and I was with my family during the hot, sticky, and swampy summertime. This visit was foggy, cool, and jammed pack full of tours. You know how the atmosphere is when you wake up early in the morning during winter time? The air is full of mist, there is a slight chill in the wind, and its hard to make out distinctive shapes that are father than several feet in front of you. Well, this was my experience of Venice. Quite different than the first time I came. In fact, it was the opposite of humid but haunting and eerie. I actually prefer this new mood of Venice instead. The weather added a taste of fantasy to the city and suited its masquerade historical background.

Although it is usually expensive to ride on a gondola, my friends and I, being the clever and thrifty students we are, swindled our way into going on a ride throughout the city with a good price. I know my mom would be proud of those bargaining skills. The ride was picturesque and beautiful. We managed to get on the small rickety gondola right as the sun was setting. The many colored lights that adorned Venice reflected back into the water as if they were fireworks in the sky. Slowly gliding through the small back alleys and underneath the many bridges, was an amazing experience. As the fog rolled in, our guided tour through the city’s passage ways reminded me of a scene from the musical Phantom of the Opera.

While I was in Venezia, I traveled all around the city with my school. We raced back and forth, through many cathedrals, San Marcos Square, and into a couple of art galleries. I was introduced to the Venican artist named Tinteritto and I thoroughly enjoyed his work. Also, I happened to find a café that shares the same name of my dad “Florian”. He warned me about this while we were traveling in Spain together and I had to see it for myself.

Venice was beautiful. I just wished I had more time to explore it. My second visit of this floating city gave me a much more intriguing view of it than my first.

The following weekend my friends and I stayed in Firenze. Although we ambled and scouted out our city more we also visited a small Tuscan town named Montepucliano. To get there was an adventure itself. It was a two hour train ride and another hour bus ride to the city.

When we all arrived to the train station in the early morning, everyone was in a rush, as usual. All of us decided the night before to meet up at the SMN station (Santa Maria Novella) at least fifteen minutes before the train left to get tickets etc. But we only had five minutes to spare when we got there. When we all hoped on the train to get to the small hill town, not only had three of us (including me) forgot to validate our ticket but we had forgotten Jodie behind!  She was running late and missed the train by five minutes. We all were in too much of a rush to remember that she was joining us at the station early that morning instead of being with us already. As the train pulled away, we realized what had happened and felt horrible. We ended up calling her and figuring out she could take the next train and meet us in Montepulciano two hours after we got in.

Unfortunately, Giancarlo, Jon-Michael, and I still needed to validate our tickets. Us three came up with a plan to fix our little problem. Since none of us wanted to get a fifty euro ticket or get thrown off the train, we all decided to jump off at the next station find the small yellow validation box and punch our ticket then hop back on as quickly as we can.  Well into our ride, over five stops later, and after waiting by the exiting door, we finally managed to find a validation box. Seizing their moment, the two boys flew off the train and validated their tickets. They were in such a rush that Giancarlo’s scarf blew right off him and Jon-Michael managed to pick up for him in time. They hopped back on the train with their goal accomplished. On the other hand, I was too nervous and flustered to take a risk of not getting back on the train so I stayed safely behind. At the next stop, I mustered enough courage and plunged off the train, with the help of Giancarlo, and got my ticket punched. When we finally arrived at our destination, not one of the three of us got our tickets checked! Looking back on it now, I think the situation we were in was very comical and funny, in a strange way.

Montepulciano was amazing! It was very small and humble. This small town is known for its wine and for being in a popular teenage movie called “New Moon”. Surprisingly, the streets there were full of vendors promoting their products and handing out free samples. I didn’t even need to eat lunch the free food was perfect for me. I tasted a handful of fresh pressed olive oil, cookies, and cheese. It was an amazing display and buffet of Italian food. We were all truly lucky to have that opportunity to walk around an old Tuscan city and taste an assortment of food.

Fun, Fascinating, and Amusing Facts about Italy/Florence

After living in Florence for a several months I have gathered many fun, fascinating, and amusing facts that I wanted to share with you. Some of these may make you smile, surprised, or just amused.

1) Apparently, 60% of the world's most important works of art are located in Italy and approximately half of these are in Florence.

2) Italians live life by their own set of rules, even on some occasions the exact opposite of the law:

- While driving, Italians consider red lights more of a suggestion than a enforcement.

- Italians choose to close and open their shops/restaurants/buildings at their own leisure, even if it happens to contradict their supposed hours. (especially on Sundays, nothing is open)

-Italians love to stand really close to people; they don’t seem to understand the idea of personal space.

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3) 90 % of Italians say they are Catholic but roughly only 20% attend mass each Sunday.

4) It is impolite and looked down upon if someone orders any drink that has milk in it after 11 o’clock in the morning. This long list includes cappuccinos, lattes, and mochas.

5) It is impossible to buy chocolate chips here. This makes it especially difficult for a certain young foreign exchange student from American to make proper chocolate chip cookies. 

6) Italians prefer having baby boys than baby girls. When a baby boy is born, a typical Italian would congratulate the family by saying it’s a “un maschio”. In other words, congratulations on having a boy. When a baby girl is born in Italy, one would sooth the family by stating it’s a “bella bambina”, meaning you have a beautiful baby girl. On average, an Italian would add on beautiful to baby girl to ease the tension of having a girl instead of a boy.

7) Italians love to go on strike; especially the public transportation sector and even more specifically when you need to use them. It tends to be the most scheduled strikes as well. For example, everyone would plan to strike from 6 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon, and then continue on with their day.

8) On average, Italians only drink while eating food.

9) Florence is known for its leather, raw steak, hand-made paper, and, of course, art.

10) The Arno River is infested with large catfish-looking serpents. Apparently, this is a growing problem for the other creatures living in the river because they are currently being killed off by the serpents.

11) The Uffizi houses over a thousand pieces of art and has about 1.5 million visitors a year.

12) The twenty-five year old Michelangelo took on the challenge “David” and chiseled this sculpture for two and a half years. When finished, “David” was supposed to be placed on Florence’s Duomo but after seeing Michelangelo’s masterpiece the community moved it to Palazzo Vecchio. If a modern day artist tried to recreate Michelangelo’s “David” today, without the help of any power tools, it would take about seven years.

13) Since we are already on the topic of the “David”… Apparently, Verrocchio’s bronze sculpture of the “David” was modeled after his young student, Leonardo Da Vinci.

14) Italians really don’t like it when you rest your feet, or legs, on top of chair, tables, or foot stools. They find it very impolite and rude.

15) The city of Florence is still restoring art that was damaged from the flood from 1966. The water from the Arno River was so great that it reached up to, or more than, 3 meters high.

16) Italians start celebrating Christmas well before Americans. (This might have to do with the fact we have Thanksgiving, while Italians do not.) But Florence has been decorating its’ streets with lights, little Christmas trees, and festive wreaths since the beginning of November.