Well my weekend here in Florence has been quite interesting. I have become a card-carrying member of an Italian library, the biblioteca delle oblate, so I can continue being nerdy and read the books from my comps list that I never actually got to reading (My first attempt is La coscienza di Zeno, by Svevo). I discovered the cutest bookstore ever, The Paperback Exchange, where I traded in some of the weird books in my apt. here for credit to buy new better books, my gift to whoever lives in this apt. next. I definitely think my first purchase will be one of Christobel Kent's books because I have been dying to read them ever since I saw her speak. I have also converted myself into an Italian by getting a super trendy haircut. Lesson to be learned though: ask the Italians what they are doing to you during the process. What I thought was going to be a 19 euro student haircut turned into a 47 euro day at the salon (15 euro to blow dry my hair, no thank you, next time I will walk home wet).
By far the most exciting thing I did in Florence all weekend was go to the Italian artisanal beer festival called "Che birre". My new friends Katie and Charlie and I hit up Santa Croce to see what the festival was going to be like. We figured it would be a bunch of Americans drinking beer samples out of tiny little cups around the square. We ended up being quite pleasantly surprised. To participate in Che birre, we had to go to the cassa and decide how many beer chips we wanted to buy, each chip being 2.50 euro. Once you had your chips (we all bought 4 each), you went to all the booths set up in the square and traded in your chips for beer. Each chip got you the equivalent of 12 oz. of beer, or you could trade in 2 chips and get giant beer stein size cups. We all sampled different beers, me enjoying light birre chiare, Charlie trying the beers with the highest percent alcohol, and Katie drinking all the stouts. The best booth was this manufacturer from outside Parma. My beer tasted a bit like Cruz Campo and green Alhambra beer (delicious Spanish brands) and Katie's tasted like some smoked turkey was in hers. I asked the man at the booth where he distributes here in Florence and he told me his beer is only carried in a German pub, which I am now on a mission to find. While all the beers were delicious, I think what I enjoyed most were the people I was surrounded by. The majority of the people at the festival were young Italians, not tourists. Also, my new friends are so nice, and we had the pleasure of meeting a great group of students from a study-abroad institute here. They were my ideal students, and reminded myself a lot of me when I was studying abroad. They were all trying really hard to immerse themselves in Italian culture. They were going out and having fun, but they were trying to branch out to places where it wouldn't just be Americans, but Italians too. They had only traveled in Italy so far, and they have done a great job of seeing cities that are off the radar. We liked these kids so much we invited them to this cool pub, The William, with us, and we had a great time discussing travel, their classes, music, halloween, etc. This was probably the most fun activity I have done in Florence yet and I can't wait for "Firenze Wine Town" coming this week!
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