Friday, Friday

Friday. Day two of orientation with Gloria.

Today we woke up way late - too much of a good time last night - and ended up making it to Gloria's class in the middle of a lecture on the train system in Italy. At least we arrived before the class left on our second field trip, and even before a few of our classmates.

Once everyone was there, Gloria took us on another long walk; this time to the Firenze Stazione Santa Maria Novella (SMN Train Station) to learn how to ride a train. Along the way, we stopped at another open air market so that Gloria could do some grocery shopping...

At the SMN, we learned how to read the train schedule, find our departure platform and buy tickets. I've been on one or two trains in my life, but only because of Michael's childhood obsession with trains - we never used a train to travel, only for fun. So I didn't really know much about how to catch a train. It seems though that it's just like in the United States except you must stamp your own ticket with your departure time to validate it, rather than have a conductor stamp it. I expected this because my aunt Barb has been to Italy before and taken trains and warned be about this, but it was helpful seeing it all firsthand with Gloria.

After the train station, we walked to a three-story bookstore nearby that Gloria recommended as a great place to study. It is a lot like a giant Borders with a cafe area and book nooks everywhere. The third floor (second in Italy) even has an extensive English section for fiction and nonfiction books. It was definitely a cozy and inviting place, and one I will have to return to soon.

This time, instead of leaving us in a random part of Florence after our tour, Gloria directed us back to Cerchi and we were able to find our way home from there. Bethany and I thought we would be able to eat lunch, nap and have a relaxing afternoon with nothing to do but go to Petra's "girl talk" session in the late afternoon. Turns out we were wrong.

While chilling at la casa and checking Facebook, I got a message from Petra to come to Cerchi for a meeting that started in half an hour. The meeting was with a post office official to fill out more paperwork associated with our stay permits. Bethany and I ended up running out to Cerchi instead of napping, grabbing ham and egg sandwiches at a corner cafe and eating them on the way like typical Americans.

Third Lesson Learned: Italians NEVER walk and eat. They also can't understand the American trend of carrying a water bottle. When we try to buy normal sized water bottles at the grocery store, they get confused and try to sell us large bottles too big to carry.

The post office meeting was kind of a joke. We sat around while they checked everyone's passport one at a time for an hour. Then several of us had to stick around for a special orientation for Honors students by Marcello and Marijka that lasted another hour, before we finally had the girls' meeting with Petra.

This meeting was not too bad. It was mainly a lecture on basic safety, like not leaving your drink unattended or walking alone, and a chance to ask Petra anything that was on our mind.

We finally left that meeting around 5 p.m. and used the rest of the evening before dinner to go to the 99 Cent store with the rest of the girls in our group and do a little bit of shopping and walking around. We went to the grocery store and, for the first time this trip, bought enough food to stock our refrigerator and pantry.

I've been craving an omelet for the past few days, so I was excited to buy eggs, until I realized that the eggs in Italy are ultra-pasteurized. Instead of being refrigerated, they were sitting on a shelf next to the milk (which, disturbingly enough, also does not need to be refrigerated in Italy) and bread. Weird. But I really wanted them, so I bought a carton of four to try this weekend.

I was also really happy to see peanut butter here, until I saw that it was 8 Euros for a jar half the size of the Jiff I'm used to. I passed on the peanut butter and bought a cheap can of peanuts instead. :(

Bethany, Erika and I took our purchases back to the apartment where we cooked a frozen pizza by cutting it in half and baking each half separately in the toaster oven. Toast in this oven takes about ten minutes for two slices, so we put the first half pizza in for twenty. It burned. Round two was much better.

We ended the evening at the six-girl apartment for girls night with the whole group (minus Glenn and Kevin, obviously). It was wonderful drinking Italian wine and eating fresh bread dipped in olive oil and parmesan cheese. We talked, laughed, played Pit, and painted our nails before going home late. It would have been the perfect end to a perfect week - if it was the end. We still have one more orientation tomorrow morning with Gloria.

But then it's the weekend in Firenze. :)