This week is getting off to a fantastic start weather-wise. After rain Sunday that kept us from going out other than to shop, things cleared up and it's been 60's and sunny the past two days.
Yesterday after classes, Bethany and I took advantage of a lovely afternoon to explore the neighborhoods on the other side of the Arno. We didn't have any particular route or destination in mind, so we wandered across Ponte Vecchio, stopping to look at all of the gold and expensive jewelry (the bridge is known for being a jewelry capital), then up to Palazzo Pitti and checked out the shops around the palace. Without any clear route, we followed roads that looked interesting, trusting that eventually we would be able to make our way home, no matter how lost we got in the process.
To our surprise, we found many antique stores this side of the Arno, and spent about an hour going through those.
Eventually, we found ourselves in a residential area. We spent some time exploring a giant garden that we assumed was public, filled with fountains, palm trees, vines, ferns, and dormant flowers. The garden was just what we needed after living in concrete all day every day, but when we got to the back of it, we found ourselves standing on someone's patio. It turns out the garden was private, but we didn't see anyone around, so we were okay.
After that, we continued until we came to a giant stone wall with a massive iron gate leading into one of the nicest neighborhoods I have ever seen in my life. Bethany and I thought we had walked into Beverly Hills. Every house was a mansion, with sloping lawns, fancy cars, high-tech security systems. People kept looking at us as we walked by, clearly aware that we were not meant to be there.
It took awhile to get our fill of seeing these incredibly lavish houses, but once the sun began to set, we had to begin finding our way home. We passed a huge park with playgrounds and fields where people threw Frisbees for their dogs, played soccer and just enjoyed the weather. It was a really great park right in front of the Firenze School of Art, and we'll have to go back soon when Erika is with us.
When we finally found our way home (we were completely lost for a few hours, but we saw a lot), we stopped just long enough to relax a bit before going to Lydia and Caitlin's apartment for pasta dinner and to put the finished touches on our spring break plans. So now that's all finally sorted out, which is a huge relief.
Today, comparative media with Francesca was cancelled. Instead Marzio Fatucchi, a reporter from the "Corriere della Sera," Italy's most read newspaper, came to prepare us for our trip Friday to Milan. The "Corriere" is headquartered in Milan and we will be taking a tour of its offices Friday morning. I was glad he came to speak with us because I wish we were learning more about Italian media in our classes. All of our media classes focus on global media like Facebook and Twitter, which I already know about. I want to compare and contrast our media to European media, but it doesn't seem like we'll begin doing that until the end of the semester.
After that meeting, Erika and I went home to eat a late lunch before our evening field trip to the Gucci Museo in Piazza della Signoria. A group of about twenty of us met Petra at school, then walked to the museum only two or three minutes down the road from Cerchi.
The Gucci Museo was interesting. Not being anything resembling a fashionista myself, I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, but I did enjoy our tour. Our guide was very friendly and enthusiastic about what she showed us. You could tell she is extremely proud of her connection to the Gucci name, but it was kind of endearing rather than obnoxious.
Since it's a museum, we moved from room to room looking at various displays while our guide explained them (apologizing for her English every step of the way even though, like most of the Italians who constantly talk about how they can't speak English, she was just fine). We saw Gucci luggage in the "Travel" room, floral themed bags and dresses from the 60's and 70's in the "Flora" room, nine decades worth of Gucci handbags, gowns worn by starlets like Hilary Swank and Naomi Watts, jewelry, logo pendants and buckles, household items (picnic sets, lamps, guitars, ashtrays) in the "Lifestyle" room, and sports equipment (tennis, horseback riding, biking, snorkeling).
After the tour, we went to the gift shop, where our guide directed us to the handbags for sale in the museum. She had us pick out our favorites and guess how much they were. We WAY underestimated on many of the bags. Turns out, they ranged in price from a €950 clutch to a €18,000 purse. That's $1,278 to $24, 214. What could you possibly do with a purse that outrageously expensive? It made us all depressed thinking about our future journalist salaries and how many years worth of work one of those bags would cost. At least you could buy t-shirts at the museum for only €98. For real. They were t-shirts with the Gucci Museum logo screen-printed on them. For €98.
One nice thing that I didn't expect from Gucci is that they have a cafe inside the museum that is actually reasonably priced. They sold American coffee for only €2.50, which is average for Florence. But they also sold sugar cubes formed into the Gucci logo for €18 per fifty cubes... I think I'll stick to buying bags of sugar at the discount store.
We ended the evening with dinner at Il Gato e la Volpe, where I ordered salmon pasta and found - much to my distress - that I can't eat anymore carbs. About halfway through my bowl, I felt sick to my stomach and couldn't finish it. Now I'm craving salad even though I still feel sick. Pasta's so cheap and easy that I eat it every day and I feel gross thinking about it right now. I'm having fruit for breakfast tomorrow and getting a salad for lunch, because I am long overdue for some veggies.
So that's that. Sorry to end this post on a sour note, but I need someone to hold me to this vegetable thing. Right now, all I want to eat the rest of this week is salad. We'll see how that goes.
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