Harrison's blog

My time in Florence never caused me to have a profound epiphany, except for one that I can’t quite remember due to a night of too much wine in Piazza della Signoria (I know it had something to do with the beautiful statues, but that’s about all I can say). All I can say as that I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have gotten to study art history in possibly the best city in the world to study it. And I have the perfect story to back up my claim.

One of my last days in Florence began with a trip to the Bargello Museum with two of my classmates. For our final project for Art collecting and Museology, we were required to curate an exhibition at a museum in Florence, and we chose the Bargello, my personal favorite museum in Florence (it’s got Donatello’s David). Once we were through planning our exhibition, I left my classmates and decided to go grocery shopping. The grocery store I most often frequent is one that is across the Ponte Vecchio, which, at this time of year, is impossible to get across without taking out a few tourists.

Since I got to Florence, I had been hoping to see Pontormo’s Deposition, but for some reason had not taken the time to actually find it. I knew it was in the church of Santa Felicita, close to the Ponte Vecchio, but had always been in too much of a hurry across the Ponte Vecchio to remember to go to this church. Since it was one of my last days, I decided I would take the time to find it, despite looming final papers and projects.

Literally one block past my grocery store was the Piazza Santa Felicita. Everything in Florence has strange hours, so part of me was afraid it wasn’t going to be open. Thankfully, the doors were open, and I entered. This small church took me by surprise. I gaped at its beauty and began to search for the Deposition, a quest that took about 10 seconds, as the legendary painting is located directly to the visitor’s right hand side upon entering.

I stared at it in the dim church lighting and wondered why it wasn’t lit better. This is a Mannerist painting, after all. Let me see the colors! A group of American tourists entered after me, loudly asking one another for a euro. (They obviously knew this system better than me) An old lady in the church quickly shushed them, and I showed them I had a euro, which I then proceeded to stick in a machine that immediately lit up the small chapel.

I stood there with my head pressed against the gate of the chapel, eyes agape at the tangible motion and luminescent colors until the lights went out.
Then I went grocery shopping.


(for reference)

I would without a doubt recommend the Florence program to someone considering studying here. The campus is extraordinarily beautiful, to the point where I still can’t believe it looks like it does when I go there.

When it comes to living situations, I have loved my off-campus apartment, but I got tremendously lucky with the group of girls I was put with. Part of me wishes I had done a homestay for the purposes of actually practicing Italian all the time, as opposed to living with a bunch of English speakers. I came with the goal of becoming fluent in Italian and have not achieved it.

A few tips for Florence include:
1.     Visit all of the touristy sights before tourist season rolls around. I know that may seem logical, but I didn’t climb the Duomo when there was no line and now the line is around the side of the church. I also did not appreciate when I had the Uffizi to myself, and now you can barely move inside.
2.     Take full advantage of your museum card. NYU gives you a card that allows you free entrance and to skip the lines at most major museums. Do it and do it all the time.
3.     Shop at San Lorenzo Market for your vegetable, cheese, and meat needs. Everything is fresh and delicious and cheap. If you’re living in the center, shop at the Conad across the Ponte Vecchio. If you’re living farther outside, I’ve heard Esselunga is extremely cheap.
4.     Travel within Italy. Everyone always wants to go to the major European cities on the weekends, which is something you should do, but remember that Italy is full of some of the most gorgeous places on earth, so give it credit. Take weekends for Tuscany, Venice, Rome, and Naples/Amalfi Coast. Why live in Italy if you don’t explore it?
5.     Try and avoid bars and clubs that Americans frequent. Try out places across the Arno. Don’t go to Space. There is a 100% chance you will be groped, male or female. 
6.     Don’t buy anything close to the Duomo. Even if you go a few blocks in the other direction, it will be probably half as expensive, even more so if you go across the river.
7.     Try and speak Italian as much as you can. Even if they respond in English, keep speaking in Italian. Don’t give in! Everyone in Florence speaks English, but why live somewhere abroad and only speak English?

Generally, Florence is amazing for food and art. The major recommendation is basically not to act too much like a tourist or an American. Try and live like a Florentine in order to get the full experience.

In Florence, I feel that it is very difficult to get to know locals, especially living so close to the center of town where the Florentines are practically the foreigners due to amount of tourists and students. However, there have been a few instances where I felt a part of the Florentine lifestyle through the comfort of strangers.
First of all, across the street from me is one of the best panini I have ever had from the smallest, unnamed shop run by Leo and Luca. We discovered their tasty panini the first week we were here, and have never strayed. There are many other panino shops in Florence, but I always stay true to Leo and Luca. It seems that everyone has their own favorite closer to where they live, and there is always a debate of “No, Pino’s is better! Nah, Gusta Panino all the way.” I always stick up for my across the street buddies. Whenever any of my roommates or I pass by, there is always a jubilant “Ciaoooooo!” from inside the shop. (Sidenote: I never realized how long one could draw out the word ciao until I met Leo and Luca. That o definitely carries for a couple of seconds.)

There have certainly been days where I have felt like the Italians are out to get me. Whether it’s at the market, and they rip me off because they think I am a tourist or I try to speak with someone in Italian and they repeatedly respond in English despite my efforts, I don’t feel like a local even though I am living here. Leo and Luca have the capability to make me feel like a local. I go in for a porchetta, rucola, pomodori secchi, formaggio di capra (pork, arugula, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese) panino on foccaccia bread, and they talk with me in Italian and make me feel like I actually belong here. The first couple of weeks, I could never decide what I wanted on my panino, and Luca would always ask me “truffle-a-cream?” I would, of course, always concede.

Sometimes I see them in the street, too, around the piazza near my apartment, and there’s always that “Ciaoooo!” that makes me feel like a local. It’s those people that you see around all the time that make me feel like you actually live here, that I’m not just a tourist who happens to take the public buses and speed walk past all of the tourists by the Duomo. I live here, and my panino place defines that.

Michelangelo first sculpted the David as a symbol of Florence's power, as proof that a small city could account for much more than expected of it. It was designed to sit atop the Duomo, serving as Florence's protector, a patron saint for the slightly more modern ages. These days, it sits majestically in a niche in the Galleria Accademia, idolized, the perfect man set in the perfect light. Copies of him are scattered throughout Florence. One sits in Piazza della Signoria, surrounded by tourists asking, "So is this the real David?" The other sits in the aptly named Piazzale Michelangelo, staring out over his city. 

 

I visited Piazzale Michelangelo this weekend with a group of friends. Although it was the second time I had been there (the first time, I climbed up even farther above the Piazza to San Miniato, but I wasn't about to make other people climb more), going this time was truly lovely. Piazzale Michelangelo is located up hundreds of steps, and offers the best view of Florence. Beforehand, myself and about 12 of my friends went to the grocery store and got food for a picnic. After making the strenuous climb, we got to enjoy the sunset over Florence with some brie, frizzantino (my favorite fizzy girly wine), strawberries, and a bunch of other snack foods.

 

At certain points, we would all stop talking and simply get lost in the streaks of pink and purple that were filling the sky on the most beautiful day so far in Florence. Although the sunset happens every day, it never ceases to amaze me, especially if you have the perfect view of one.

 

So, while I feel that the David embodied the definition of genius loci as a protector, Piazzale Michelangelo, with it's bronze copy of the David embodies this new definition as the spirit of Florence. You can stand there and admire the beauty that is Florence with a little piece of protective history accompanying you. 

Beppe Severgnini's book La Bella Figura is full of well-crafted, astute, and most of all entertaining comparisons and commentaries on the Italian mindset. (In fact, in Italian, the title is La Testa degli italiani, directly translated, the head of the Italians/the mind of the Italians) Recently, I heard Severgnini speak at a dialogue NYU had to discuss his feelings on Mario Monti and Silvio Berlusconi, the recently elected and former prime ministers of Italy. His clever diction came out even in person when English is not his first language, which made me respect him even more than I already did from reading his book. He called Mario Monti “Mary-o Poppins Monti,” referring to him as the babysitter Italy has always needed, even if they are not content with him currently.

The book is full of crafty comparisons like this. One of my favorites is when he explains the difference between rosso and rosso pieno when it comes to traffic lights. Rosso pieno is a “full red,” a “bureaucratic formula,” while plain rosso is a “personal comment,” an “almost red, a relative red” (22). He says that when an Italian is at a traffic light, “their brain perceives no prohibition...instead, they see a stimulus” (22). If there is no one coming, if it's early in the morning, if they can see who's coming, they “think about it for a bit, then...go” (22). He advises the reader that these decisions are not automatic, they require a “logical process,” which is oh so very Italian of him to say. Italians aren't unruly, they think about breaking the rules before they break them, and then make an informed decision.

He goes on to say that this rule transfers to just about any rule in Italian society, “the law, taxes, or personal behavior” (22), which I have noticed on my own. When there is a stop sign, it is more of an invitation to stop. If you are crossing the street, a car is coming, and there is a stop sign, you better start walking and stand in the middle of the street and stare them down before you just assume they are going to stop. Same goes for lines. Don't assume that because you were in the cafe first, that means you are going to be served first. La fila non existe... the line does not exist. This isn't Starbucks in Washington Square with a curving line and an employee coming to take your order to make it move more quickly. This is an all-out coffee war and you should probably make use of those elbows. 

When thinking about Florence, so many great good places come to mind. I can't seem to get enough of La Carraia's creamy delicious various flavors of gelato, even boasting a Nutella yogurt flavor. Nor of Gusta Pizza's plain margherita pizza. You know it's good when you only need a plain pizza. Nor of the Leo and Luca's panino place across the street from my apartment, a shop even smaller than Pommes Frites in New York that makes the freshest panino I have ever tasted. No name on the door, no real menu, no hours posted, they just stay open until they run out of bread. All of these places make my mouth water ("aqualino in bocca," as I have learned in Conversations in Italian), but apart from their deliciousness and the embarrassing frequency with which I visit these places, I don't have much more to say about them. I mean, I probably could, but adjectives will be far overused.
 
Somewhere that I have continuously frequented since my second night in Florence is a library/cafe/bar/live music venue across the Arno called Le Cite. I'm not sure how we discovered to go there on our second night in Florence, but someone suggested it, and we ended up there. Like any place you go to, once the door is opened and you enter, you automatically are flooded with the vibes floating around inside. Le Cite varies drastically each time you go there. That first night, we were the only American students there, it was a weekend night, and all of us were ecstatic to be in Florence and to be in a place that was truly local. Some people were still trying to get work done in the upstairs area with rowdy Italians and Americans alike conversing while downstairs a band was playing music to which people were line dancing. The ambiance is set by rows and rows of bookshelves lining the walls, giving it the right kind of chill vibe when you want it, that you could pick up a book and discover something while splitting a few bottles of wine with some friends.
 
Other nights, you walk in on a weekday, a quiet band is playing, and there is not really anyone there. These nights are still enjoyable if you have a good crowd of friends and a few glasses of very reasonably priced vino della casa. Recently, I saw a few friends of mine perform jazz music at Le Cite, which reinforced the bond between myself and Le Cite, as I proudly danced and bobbed along to the beautiful notes coming out of their instruments.
 
Generally Le Cite is my neighborhood bar (even though it's not exactly in my neighborhood), a place I go for some comforting vibes, friends, wine, and music, and has been a constant for me since I arrived in Florence. It is certainly a breath of fresh air from most of the other bars that tend to play primarily American Top 40 hits! (Oh, Rihanna, how I tire of you...)

Concentrating on art history and Italian, going to museums in Florence was one of the aspects of this city I was most looking forward to. I had visited the Uffizi, Bargello (with Donatello's David), and the Accademia (with Michelangelo's David) on a previous trip here, but I had not visited any smaller museums. In Florence, most if not all the smaller museums are in old Florentine palaces, antique shops, and houses of art collectors. Since I am in the class "Art Collecting and Museology," I was given the opportunity to be a tour guide for the "Stanze dei Tesori" exhibition at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. This exhibition is very much tied into the history of Florentine art collecting and the smaller house museums scattered around Florence and its outskirts. It focuses on key art collectors, both during the 19th century and early 20th century, when the biggest art collectors were flourishing. Working at this exhibition on Monday mornings has not only given me a chance to look at all of the items and photographs many times, but also I have learned a great deal about Florentine history through its art collectors. It amazes me that there was a time in history when Renaissance works were being taken out of the churches and put in stores and sold to private owners. Also, from visiting house museums like Stefano Bardini's antique shop turned house museum, this dream that they had of the medieval home existing during the 1900's, makes this idea of Florence being stuck in a medieval-Renaissance time period much more clear.
 
While the "Stanze dei Tesori" exhibition gave me a sense of Florence's sense of time warp, the "Americans in Florence" exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi, the former Strozzi family's palace, applies much more to me directly. This exhibition displays scenes from the time when Americans, with a new wealth, started to come to Florence for a step into the past, for a step into a place that hasn't changed all that much since the Renaissance, quite similar to what I am doing here, except they weren't doing it with thousands of other college students. On the banner for the exhibition and on all of the advertisements, there is one painting, the name of which has escaped my memory but is by John Singer Sargent (and is attached) that shows a few women in long white dresses laying, sitting, and standing in a beautiful Tuscan garden. One of my favorite things to do here in Florence is to visit the gardens, particularly the gardens on campus. On nice days, I will go alone or with a few friends, find a nice spot and lay and relax. Some days I bring my sketchbook and draw statues that are sprinkled about and make you feel like you are in some sort of vacuum of time, art, relaxation, and sunshine. I make it sound like heaven because on a warm spring day, it is complete bliss, and this is what this painting brings to my mind, the "tempo libero" spent amongst cured nature.

Living in Florence, especially in the historic center where my apartment is situated, is like living in this “staged authenticity” MacCannell discusses in his essay. Florence is a small modern city that is closely and painstakingly preserved in its main centers and piazzas. Sometimes you feel like you are in a place that has not changed since the Renaissance. Obviously it has changed, but they want you to feel like it hasn't, so they preserve this Renaissance state all the time. For example, when we arrived in Florence, the San Zanobi column in front of the Duomo was being restored. A few weeks ago, it was unveiled, and was followed by restoration of the Column of Abundance in the piazza closest to my apartment, Piazza della Repubblica. Additionally, they started construction of the sidewalks of the main street I take to get to the bus station every day, Via Camillo Cavour. The sidewalks looked completely fine beforehand, but it is a main street for tourists, who crave this idealized, preserved image of Florence.

Walking down the streets of Florence is getting more and more difficult by the day. As soon as the weather turned for the better, walking to class is accompanied by a constant avoidance of being a part of someone's photo of something quintessentially Florentine. The Old Stove, the American bar outside my window has gotten rowdier and rowdier making even sleeping more difficult. Visiting Rome made me realize that Florence is so concentrated with tourists due to its small center. Rome is much more spread out, giving tourists room to disperse and explore, while Florence is too small for such dispersal.

From my time here, I learned quickly that buying anything near to the Duomo is not a good idea. They all have this fake authenticity, that if you are in Florence you'd obviously like to have a 5 euro gelato accompanied by a 3 euro cappuccino. Within the first weekend, we found a bar that sometimes has live music across the Arno River which we have since frequented on many occasions. It is filled with books and has the appearance of being a library during the day, though I have never seen it for myself, and is one of the most real Florentine spots I have frequented. I have not run across many other American students there, and it makes me feel more like I am in a local environment. I have a theory that if you listen hard enough anywhere in Florence, you can hear Rihanna playing. Here, I can't hear Rihanna playing and for me, that is what authenticity means to me here.

Still, in Florence it is difficult to completely get out of an American-centered environment. I found it incredibly refreshing when two friends and I decided we did not want to follow the pilgrimage to Barcelona for spring break and instead opted for our first stop to be Budapest. When we talked to some locals there on the second night, they asked us, surprised and shocked, “Why did you come here?!” The truth was, we wanted a more authentic experience other than clubs on the beach and more American tourism. We got a real sense of a different culture than ours, we sat in an incredibly smoky bar scattered with Hungarians drinking the cheapest beer I have ever purchased, didn't hear anyone speak English on the street, and actually ran across people who didn't speak it, a rare feat, I feel, these days. While we still saw the “front” tourist sites in Budapest, we did travel into the “back” areas, relying on our hazy knowledge of street names with far too many consonants in them to pronounce and met locals, a truly diverse experience from mine here in Florence.

 

A Room with a View truly encapsulates the true beauty of Florence. Forster's novel focuses on a British traveling group within a certainly less civilized Italian culture, and end up traveling with people like the Emersons, who are far more liberal than they are. I found it quite hilarious when the Brits are so horridly offended by what they think are the uncivilized Italians, who, for example, show a bit of public affection in the front seat of their car to Fiesole. The protagonist, Lucy, however, wants to stay in the room overlooking the Arno (a room with a view) enjoys playing Beethoven and Mozart (the key to her emotions), and she figures that the Italians in the front seat are the only ones actually having a good time on the trip, while the Brits sit in the back, scoffing at the incredulity of the situation. She has a love for beauty and people as well as a longing for love, while her companions want to stick to their British customs and not adapt to the Italian way of life. In some ways I have certainly remained in my American ways, such as the occasional trip to a Subway or taking my coffee to go (just because I'm in a rush, okay?!), but in many ways I have adapted to the Italian way of life. There are definitely times where I notice myself strolling along the streets slowly, admiring the beauty of the Italian spring rather than getting my New York walk on. At one point in the novel, Miss Lavish and Lucy are wandering around Florence, and Miss Lavish says, “Lost! Lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we have taken a wrong turning. How these horrid Conservatives would jeer at us! What are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown town. Now, this is what I call an adventure!” (21). This passage actually made me laugh out loud imagining myself and my friends saying that in the many times we have gotten turned around in Florence.

Lucy is also enamored with the beauty of Florence, wanting her room to have a view of the Arno, which I can definitely understand. My apartment, as I have said before, is up six flights of stairs, but the view from my room never ceases to amaze me. The view I have attached is the one from my living room. When I am doing my homework or eating dinner at the table, the Duomo comforts me and also reminds me of the intensely beautiful city I live in. Lucy longs for beauty in her life, and she finds it in the form of her room with a view and the romance that blossoms with George Emerson, which comes about through disowning her previous suppressive British lifestyle, and becoming more appreciative of the beauty in life.  

My school week, unlike most people’s, starts on a Tuesday, as I have no Monday classes. Thus, Monday is the day that I try and either get my life together, relax and do barely anything, or run errands I’ve been meaning to run, or sometimes a combination of all three. Usually, I give a tour of an exhibition not too far from my apartment from 11-12, and then head to San Lorenzo market to buy my groceries. I have found that it both has the best prices and the freshest produce of any grocery store in Florence. I try to buy my cheese, meat, and vegetables there, but sometimes I do not make it there before it closes, in which case I have tried several different grocery stores, such as Conad, Meta, Il Centro, and Despar. From experience, I have learned that both Il Centro and Despar are rip-offs, and that Conad and Meta are the least expensive for different products.

Once my beloved Monday is over and my week has to actually begin, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I wake up around 10-10:30 in order to catch the 11:25 bus from San Marco to school. If I want to try my luck and sleep for an extra 20 minutes, I catch the 11:45 which gets me there just in time for Italian class. Once on campus, the trek across campus through what people have nicknamed “Death Valley” is quite arduous, but I feel that it combined with the 6 flights of stairs to my apartment is helping to even out all the pasta and bread. Lately, I have been trying to buy a lot of vegetables as to avoid all of the carbs that are so readily available here. It just so happens that the carbs are the least expensive, but the vegetables are worth it to add some variety and vitamins into my life.

Cooking in my apartment is a bit of an exercise. Living with 11 other girls means dishes pile up very quickly and easily, and, from first week’s experience, we learned that we can’t have more than one appliance on at a time, or the power will go out. When it comes to doing laundry, the same is true. Having the washer going at the same time as the oven = blackout. From this, I have learned to do my laundry on Mondays when everyone is at class. Apparently dryers are not a big thing in Italy either. After I take my clothes out of the washer, they go directly onto drying racks, and I have to leave them for about half a day or more for them to get dry, which is frustrating for someone like me who always leaves her laundry for the night before traveling. This has resulted in some unfortunate trips where I have had no pants to bring because I didn’t realize that Gaia, our cleaning lady had started my wash cycle over again, on the normal Italian cycle, which takes about 3 hours. To be fair, Gaia has to put up with a lot from us, and as my roommate says, she is our disapproving stand-in Italian mother. She cleans our rooms and makes up our beds once or twice a week, changes our sheets once a week, and cleans our kitchen more often than she should, our massive piles of dishes not making her the happiest of Florentines. I have on more than one occasion done all the dishes just because I felt bad for the way we had left it, thinking that perhaps I could make her think a little more highly of us messy American girls.

I have been studying Italian for only two years, and I thought I was fairly competent when it came to speaking the language. My month in Florence has shown me otherwise. While I can remember the passato remoto of the verb essere, for the life of me I cannot even remember how to say “I would like a coffee, please” when speaking to a cafe clerk. On one particularly lethargic trek to the bus station, I stopped in Pasticceria San Marco, where I had gotten my morning coffee (to go, as I usually do not have time or am wary of the bus coming early or just not coming at all) for the past couple of days. I had learned the dynamics of this particular pasticceria--you pay for what you want first, then you go ask for it and show your receipt. I asked for a ‘caffe latte doppio,’ meaning that I wanted two shots of espresso. The cashier asked me, “due caffe latte o due espresso?” meaning did I want two separate coffees or just one with 2 shots. I explained to him I wanted two shots. When I went to order again at the bar, the same confusion ensued. I explained my order to him as well. He then pawned off my lowly to-go order on another man, who proceeded to make two coffees for me. Through a long chain of communication, my order had been mixed up, and the poor guy got yelled at by his boss, poured most of one coffee into the other, gave it to me while averting eye contact, and I went to catch the bus. Other experiences have been more positive. For example, there is a small panino shop near my apartment that has no name, is only open until their bread runs out, and just has a hand-painted sign that reads “panini” that hangs out the door. Whenever I go in there, they actually appreciate my attempts at explaining my panino desires. “Prosciutto cotto...goat cheese? (I can never remember the translation), rucola (arugula), pomodori (tomatoes), and...” One of the panino makers, Leo or Luca, always says “truffleacream?” Depending on what I’m in the mood for, which most of the time is in fact truffle cream, I concede. It is my favorite local ‘negozio’ that I have found so far, a delicious panino for only 3.5 euro, and friendly service.

Generally, I have found that I freeze up when speaking Italian to a native because I am afraid of being wrong or being taunted for my poor accent. So, I have come into a routine of observing the Italians’ ways of doing things before attempting something myself in a local shop or business. I have learned a great deal by observing the Italians. Just from looking out my window on a warm, clear day like today, I see a group of them, presumably tourists from within Italy, gathered around what appears to be a map, gesturing at each other, as if perhaps one of them thinks he knows the way, while the others gesture back as to say no, no you’re wrong, this is the right way. Gesture is inherent in the Italian language, and I have noticed and learned many of the key ones, my favorite of which is a turning of the hand that signifies “this place is no good, let’s get out of here,” when referring to a bar or restaurant. Observing the Italians as they speak is one of my favorite things to do to learn more about the culture.

At first, Florence was a puzzle to my New York grid-oriented mind. Narrow streets, not all marked, some of which cut diagonally through other streets, confused me even though compared to other Italian cities such as Venice, Florence is a piece of cake. While some people orient themselves in terms of cardinal directions, I tend to orient myself in terms of major landmarks, places I have visited, and a general “I know I am here, and I can see the Duomo straight in front of me, so, the Uffizi must be to my right.” Getting to the bus station is definitely easier now that I know how long it takes to get there in the morning, I have found other grocery stores rather than the one I was shown on the first week, and generally know how to not get caught in expensive tourist traps, like a ristorante by the Duomo is going to be far more expensive and worse quality than one that it takes some getting lost to find.

Thankfully, I was able to put an Italian SIM card in my American Droid phone, so I have been able to keep my Google Maps on standby if I ever need it, which sometimes I do. I try not to use it as to better orient myself without the help of technology, but sometimes, I must admit, I take the easy way out when I’m not doing daily activities. For this reason, I don’t use a physical map, but I have still formed a mental image of the city in my mind. The big piazzas definitely help with this mental map. To the upper right of my apartment is Piazza della Signorina and to the upper left of my apartment is Piazza della Repubblica. If I keep walking to the right out of my apartment, I will hit the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio, which if I cross it, I will then hit Palazzo Pitti. The first two to three weeks I was here, I was still lost and confused all the time and just knew how to get home and to school. Only repetition, time, and exploring on my own has helped me to form my image of Florence.

Public transportation in Florence is a whole other subject. This morning, I get to the bus stop to take the number 25 bus from San Marco, and the sign says it will be there in one minute. “Good,” I think, “Right on time.” Ten minutes later, it’s still flashing “1 minute” and you can feel the growing frustration at the bus stop, namely by the NYU students who are going to be late to class. After about 15 minutes with only 5 minutes to spare before class starts, 3 other girls and I took a cab up to campus to our class. I’m all for the Italian way of not being on time anywhere, but when it comes to public transport, it does make me miss the efficiency of New York (however the L train is another story).

Before I came to Florence, I thought that coming here would push all of my anxieties and problems out of the way for a while, that it would be a completely blissful escape. Traveling is concentrated on, as Botton discusses, on the anticipation of the trip. Travel books talk about travel, but not about anything close to exactly what one feels while away from home, in a foreign place. Although I think that what Botton says is true, that the anxieties and problems don't leave you when you travel, you just find new ones, it just sounds more petty and ridiculous to have such problems in such a beautiful and historical place as Florence is. I did not, nor did the Florentians for that matter, think that it would be nearly as freezing cold as it has been for the past 10 days or so. Then, walking up 6 flights of stairs to my 'appartamento' after coming inside from the snow and wind is not exactly my idea of a good time. Neither is catching a cold that sends me to bed for 3 days, but it all sounds relatively trivial when I realize once again that I am in FLORENCE, for gods sake! Whenever I feel that way, I am comforted by the view from the six floors I walked up to see from my apartment window, the Florentine city landscape, particularly the Duomo. The fact that I can see the Duomo from my bedroom window (if I peer out a bit) and directly from my kitchen window, does not cease to amaze me. Also, I've realized that its the little things that make or break my day. A chocolate festival selling the most delicious hot chocolate I've ever tasted can make my day so much better, while struggling to change a doctors appointment on the phone can almost ruin my day.

On a different note, I have begun to feel more settled here in Florence, less lost and unaware of my surroundings, both physical and cultural. Classes have begun, which have made for a more regular kind of schedule, even though I am reluctant to get up just to head out into the blustery exterior world. Something about a schedule makes me feel more generally settled. Being a multi-tasking New Yorker, I like to be able to stop here and there on the way to or on the way home from class. It gives a sense of regularity. My Italian class is helping me to become better at conversational and colloquial Italian (which it should, being “Conversations in Italian” class), making me feel more comfortable and more prone to calling Florence my home.