The good thing was, Bethany and I managed to find our way to Cerchi without our guide AND arrived on time for orientation. When we got there, we met Gloria who will be teaching my Elementary Italian 1 class this semester. She went over some more ground rules and drew us a map of Florence complete with some background on various founding families in Florence including the Medicis who built the Ponte Vecchio ("old bridge") over the Arno in the 1500's in order to have a quick escape to the countryside on the opposite side of the river. Gloria said the family needed this bridge because so many people hated them and wanted to kill them... Lovely.
After this, we went on a field trip to learn how to shop for ourselves. We visited a regular mercado, outdoor mercado and a supermercado to learn how to buy food in the three most common types of Florentine markets.
The supermercado was very similar to an American supermarket. It was large and had aisles just like in America. One difference that I really liked was that they have two-in-one shopping cart and basket combos. You pick up a basket by the door that can be used like a regular basket, or you can pull out a handle on the front to drag the basket around on two wheels. I saw one woman earlier in the week while walking past a mercado, dragging a shopping basket and just thought she was being lazy, but apparently not.
Once we finished touring the supermarket, Gloria announced she was leaving and that we could find our way home. Then she literally turned around and booked it out of the store. Bethany, Katy and I, and most of the rest of our group, took off after her, and chased her through Florence until we got to a road we recognized.
It turned out fine after all. Bethany and I met a woman from England who directed us to her favorite restaurant, but it wasn't open yet (this was just before 11 a.m.). Instead we went into a tiny convenience store along the way home and ordered sandwiches from a woman who didn't speak any English.
This was my first encounter with someone in Italy who does not speak any English. Luckily, I whipped out my high school Spanish and ordered una baguette con tacchino, formaggio del gorgonzola e pesto, and got a delicious turkey sandwich. I heard Spanish was a suitable replacement for Italian, and so far that theory has been working quite well. I've found the Spanish is close enough in a lot of cases that I just need to tweak my pronunciation a little bit in order to be understood.
I guess some parts of my North Hills education did pay off.
We brought our sandwiches home to eat just in time to meet Claire, who showed up unexpectedly to see if our apartment had been cleaned yet. It hadn't, of course. When we moved in, Claire told us the cleaning lady had needed to rush out for something and would return to finish the job later in the day. Our beds were clean, but the place obviously had not been dusted or swept in at least weeks. We waited all day for the cleaning lady to come, but she never did. And as of now, she still has not returned.
Claire promised to get on the apartment's case and have someone come to clean tomorrow. She also fixed our TV which hasn't been working, and we passed time between lunch and our next meeting watching Spaghetti Westerns (Aha Moment: Spaghetti Westerns are so titled because they're made in Italy...duh; I had a brain meltdown there for a little bit) on the Italian equivalent of TV Land.
At 3:00, we had our last cohort meeting with Deb and Stan to say goodbye to them as their plane back to Kent leaves tomorrow. We're all very sad to see them go because they really have been our Italian Mom and Dad this week. But Marcello, Petra and the rest of the KSU Florence staff are just as wonderful, so I know we're in excellent hands.
After this meeting, we walked around some more, then came home and made spaghetti, which we ate while watching Italian cartoons and updating Facebook (oh, 21st Century). We also marveled some more over the fact that we hear ambulances driving up and down the main streets all day long - I told you the drivers here are dangerous.
Erika got sick from eating too much chocolate (amateur) and went to bed around 9. Bethany and I headed out to Finnegan Irish Pub a few blocks away from our street, where we met the rest of our "family" (the main point of Deb and Stan's parting speech was to impress upon us the importance of looking out for one another since we are one big family now).
Thursday night at Finnegan is trivia night. Only minutes after arriving at the pub, I won a lovely green (of course) Finnegan's t-shirt. The contest was to solve an anagram written on poster board and held by the bartender who stood on a chair by the door. I managed to unscramble "Luciano Pavarotti" to claim my prize.
Some of the other contests included a geography quiz, a movie poster identification quiz, a word origin quiz, and a challenge where the bartender played a thirty second song clip and we had to write down the song name and artist. My team, "Raging Bulls," came in fourth place overall in the trivia, which was pretty pathetic considering most of our competitors were drunk, but we had fun anyhow.
We ended the night by getting a late night snack at an Indian market and heading home. There is another orientation field trip tomorrow, so I need to get to bed asap. My feet are killing me. I'll have to try my new tennies tomorrow. I've never walked so much in my life! I have no idea how people gain wait here because all we do is walk. Hopefully that will keep up so I don't pack on any pasta pounds. :)
Ciao ciao!
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