Train Ride Recap

Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with this blog like I was last month and when I first got to Italy. But now that I have a rhythm and am getting used to living here, the little things that were fun to write about because they were new have lost some of their novelty.

Only some of it though. Don’t get me wrong - every day is an adventure in Firenze. It’s just that I’m learning to navigate grocery stores, restaurants, shopping, the streets and culture of Firenze in general, and so it makes those things somewhat repetitive to record every day.

You understand.

I would, however, like to highlight right now a few key moments from this week.

Moment Number One: Tuesday was Valentine’s Day. Yes, they have Valentine’s Day in Italia and no, it’s not different than Valentine’s Day in the States. There were pink, red and white heart decorations in many storefronts and restaurants. There were sales on chocolates, candies, flowers, cards, teddy bears, and all other forms of San Valentino gifts.

The only big difference was a local one: the San Lorenzo Chocolate Fair. We went back again. It was still awesome.

The first day we went was Sunday. Bethany, Kevin, Glenn and I headed down there in the afternoon and got some of the greatest chocolate-covered strawberries I have ever eaten and Italian-style hot chocolate (basically just melted chocolate in a cup – so good!)

Then I went with Lydia on Monday and got chocolate-covered bananas, strawberries and grapes on a stick and chocolate cake covered in hot chocolate.

Fun Fact: It’s super popular in Italy to serve chocolate cake with fruit filling. I’ve had it twice like this and the only times I’ve seen it without filling, it has been a lot more expensive.

Sidenote: Lydia and I are at the train station in Perugia right now. One of us will not make it out alive. The polizia are actually checking the train right now, which they haven’t done in any other station. How much do you want to bet they are looking for Amanda.

Then I went again Wednesday just to look and Thursday again just to look. It’s a dream come true.

Also on Tuesday (getting back on topic now…) Erika, Bethany and I went to John Lennon’s place to treat ourselves to Valentine’s Day dessert since the girls were missing their boyfriends and I was missing not having a boyfriend…? Mainly, we just wanted wine and chocolate and figured this was a good excuse to have some.

John didn’t have any regular chocolate cake, but I got some kind of graham cracker crusted, cookies and cream pudding-filled, chocolate covered deliciousness in a pie. It was fantastic.

 Another sidenote: There are police with guns walking up and down the train looking for something/someone. They boarded in Perugia. I knew we shouldn’t have gone through there.

Wednesday: Nothing really happened. I got coffee and a sandwich with Katy again at a cute little café she recommended. Fabrizio (one of our professors) took us to another museum and he’s for sure in love with me. No big deal. It’s probably because we bonded over “Crime and Punishment” last week. There’s no quicker way to an Italian man’s heart than through 19^th Century Russian psycho-thrillers.

We’re even Facebook friends now and he’s in a band that plays odd Italian folk music of some sort. And he has been on several National Geographic and History Channel documentaries about Firenze because he’s an expert on all of the museums and historical sites around Firenze. That’s what his class is all about: The Genius of Florence. Literally all we do is take field trips, then write about it. It’s the greatest class I’ve ever taken.

Yesterday (Thursday): This was not my best day in Italia. We had to go to the immigration office to get fingerprinted for our stay permits. Why we waited a month and a half to get stay permits, I have no idea. But the school set up our appointments and this is when the immigration office told us to be there. Only about forty of the nearly 200 students in the Florence program went to the station today, but Erika, Bethany and I were part of that group.

We had to meet at the immigration office (luckily only about five minutes from our apartment) at 8 a.m. to check in. Trevor, an architecture major, had volunteered to be our group representative, but he barely had any more idea of what to do than any of the rest of us.

When we arrived, they were waiting on the twelfth person in line. The first person in our group to be called was 112.

Marijke told us in an email that the entire process would take less than three hours. Instead, they went through almost thirty numbers an hour and I wasn’t called to be printed until 12:30.

We sat there that whole time waiting with all of the other immigrants. I ended up going home at one point to make an omelet since I hadn’t had time to eat breakfast. I was gone about 45 minutes and in that time, two people went ahead of me. The staff has chosen that time to go on a lunch break as well.

Anyhow, I finally got up there and the whole registration and fingerprinting took about seven minutes. Seven minutes. After waiting four and a half hours.

And the best part was, not all of us went at the same time. There was a gap of about 80 numbers between the first half of our class and the second. So Erika and Bethany – both in the second half, didn’t get printed until almost 4 p.m.

So that was no fun. I ended up missing all of my class Thursday. By the time I got out of the immigration office, there were only twenty minutes remaining until my last class of the day and Lydia and I were both starving.

We went to John Lennon’s for lunch where I got the day’s special: Paella del mare. I do really like paella, but I’ve never had it like this. There was a giant crayfish – pincers, head, eyes, legs, and all – sitting right on top of the pile of rice. There were oysters, of course, which I had anticipated. The only time I’ve ever had paella it had oysters and shrimp. In addition to the crayfish, this had a FULL SQUID and scugili octopus legs on top.

Thanks to my uncle Jerry’s seven fish dinner each Christmas Eve, I know I like octopus, so I was able to eat that with no problem. I even ate the squid leg, but the body was more than I could stomach and I pushed that aside. I ended up eating everything but the squid and crayfish heads and the peppers.

It was an intimidating lunch.

Now, finally, that brings us to today. I mentioned earlier that Lydia and I were in Perugia. We were. Now we’re approximately twenty minutes from the train station in Assisi, assuming we’re on time, which I’m pretty sure we are.

It’s just Lydia and me right now. We’re spending this afternoon and tomorrow morning in Assisi and Saturday evening and day in Orvieto. This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment weekend trip (planned and booked Wednesday), but we’re looking forward to travelling with just the two of us and not a whole crowd.

Our first stop in Assisi will be to try to find Basillica di San Francesco and then our hostel. I can’t wait to get off this train (it’s been two hours) and start seeing things outside Florence.

I don’t know how busy we’ll be (we have a lot planned) or if we have internet access in both cities, but I’ll blog again asap so you know what Umbria (the region of Italia in which Assisi and Orvieto are both located) is all about.

Until then, ciao!