The Grand Tour (a blog in 4 parts)

Ciao a tutti, I haven't written in so long! My life has been a bit hectic pretty much the entire month of October. Andy arrived, I had to give my students a mid-term, I was booked up every day for tutoring, and trying to think of better ways to explain English to 40 year old bankers.
After a very busy few weeks did I have a relaxing fall break? No! Instead Andy and I went on a ten day bus tour around Europe, hitting Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. Why did I sign us up for this trip? Well, I figured I have only one real break during the semester and instead of flying somewhere new every weekend I would try to hit as many cities that were on my list of places to go as I could in one swoop. So imagine a 10 day trip with 90 other people, mainly American students aged 19-22, and over 50 hours on a bus. Though I had a ton of fun and met some great new friends, I don't think I will ever travel by bus again!
So our first stop on our European extravaganza was Prague. Everyone, I mean everyone, should go to Prague! It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Such a contrast to the ugly war-ridden history of the Czech Republic. Also, the country is way cheaper than the rest of Europe because they haven't switched over to the euro yet. 1 euro is worth 25 czech crowns right now, so our money went a long way!
We arrived in Prague on a Friday morning after a 12 hour bus ride and pulled up to the best hostel I have ever stayed in called The Mosaic House. Each room had it's own bathroom with heated floors and a legit shower, the beds were super comfortable, they had the best breakfast spread, and they had a bar with a big screen TV that constantly played ESPN America (for my football loving boyfriend). Our first activity was a three hour walking tour of the city with our lovely Welsh guide Sarah. We saw all the great sites of Prague, the Astronomical clock, the old town, the new town, where Tom Cruise is staying while filming Mission Impossible 4, etc. After learning everything there is to know about Prague's history (most of which had to do with kicking other people out of the city), Andy and I met up with my friend Salva. I hadn't seen Salva in a year since he had left UNC and I was so excited to be reunited with one of my favorite Spaniards. Salva did a great job of showing us places in Prague that we didn't see on our tour and we got to enjoy a few delicious Pilsners and pretzels. I think reuniting with Salva was my favorite part of Prague. After parting ways, Andy and I joined our group for a Pub Crawl through Prague. Normally I do not enjoy pub crawls because I feel they are just another way to look like an ignorant American tourist, but we wanted to hang out with the group and not be creepy loners, so we joined in. This was by far the sketchiest night of the trip. Our first locale was a basement in an abandoned church where we had an open bar of beer in plastic bottles and some moonshine sangria, mixed in with free shots of absinthe. The basement was decorated like a hippie den with tapestries and hookahs scattered about, as well as a giant statue of Stalin's head. We then moved to the actual church, which is now a disco, where I met a frenchman who spoke Italian and chatted with him for like an hour, then tried to dance salsa with Andy, but he wanted to create his own steps instead of actually salsa dancing. At this point Andy and two of our roommates, Andrew and Kevin, went on a search for munchie food and found a sausage stand that sold the biggest hotdogs you have ever seen for the equivalent of 2 euro. We then headed hom instead of continuing to the next two discos.
The next day we woke up bright and early and climbed a giant hill that had the best views of Prague. We then trekked over to Prague castle, which is the biggest castle in Europe, and explored the area, including the giant cathedral inside the castle. Afterwards we went for an authentic czech meal, where Andy and I tried goulash, then Andy and I broke away from the group and went on a mini-date at a café in a cubist building where we ate some awesome deserts and drank our favorite coffee beverage: caffè macchiato. After buying Andy a pair of tennis shoes since his one pair of shoes he brough now have holes in the soles, we spent an evening at the hostel bar watching the Auburn Tigers crush LSU!!!
Prague was an amazing city, and in my next post I'll let y'all know all about the city with the coolest vibe: Berlin!

Finally feeling settled in...

I have now been in Florence for a month and a half and life is starting to take on a real routine. I have been busy as a bee with school, between teaching and private tutoring. I've also been giving English lessons and having a language exchange of my own, so I pretty much spend the majority of my days teaching. Good thing I enjoy what I do! What has really made me feel like a resident of Florence is forming friendships in the city. This weekend I had two nights of guests at my apartment, drinks on Saturday night and a wonderful dinner party on Sunday. You would not believe the feast that my friend Charlie cooked last night! Chicken and pasta with all these fancy home-made sauces, wine a plenty, bread, cheese, roasted chestnuts, fresh Italian olives, etc. Buon appettito per noi! The dinner party at my place last night totally reminded me of all the ROML potlucks my friends at Chapel Hill and I have had over the past two years. I can't wait to have more nights filled with friends, good food, and good wine.
Also, my wonderful boyfriend Andy arrived in Florence this week! It is such a relief to have him here safe and sound with me. I am so excited to no longer have to skype with him in the middle of the night and to have someone to hang out with when I come home from work. I definitely feel more settled with my boo now, doing normal everyday things like going to the Billa to pick up bread or searching for guitars and shoes for Andy. I'm definitely content with my life at the moment and can't wait for all the upcoming adventures with friends and loved ones coming up this month!

Creepin', Spanish Style

This past weekend I made my first trip outside of Italy to Sevilla, Spain to visit my UNC friends. I was so excited to be with my people, especially for the reunion of "Kate, Allie, Barcelona". So you make think that it would be very easy to just fly from Florence to Sevilla. Wrong. Okay, so of course I flew Ryan Air (better known as the Ryan Scare). Ryan Air is the most famous of the European budget airlines, and it re-defines the word ghetto. Ryan Air only flies out of certain airports, so I had to get to Bologna, which is normally only 45 minutes away. Since my flight left at 6:30 AM though, I was forced to take a weird German train from Florence at 9:45 Thursday night to Bologna, then take an airport shuttle at 11:30, then spend the night "sleeping" in metal chairs. I maybe slept one hour and then of course was approached by a creeper who decided it was time for a chat at 3:30 in the morning. This creeper happened to be Albanian and was named Endri. He was a pharmacy student at the University of Parma and was also flying to Sevilla to visit some of his friends on erasmus there. He was a very nice creeper, buying me a coffee and trying to buy me breakfast too (I said 4 AM was too early), but still had a bit of that Eastern European skeeze about him. So Endri actually helped me out a lot in the airport and saved me a seat on the flight since of course Ryan Air doesn't assign seats and Italians don't know how to form an orderly line, so they run in mobs onto the plane. I attempted to sleep, but Ryan Air made that impossible because they made announcements every five minutes about what their attendants were going to be selling in the aisles, each announcement being said in English, Spanish, and Italian. Did you ever need an International SIM card? Lottery tickets? Discount cigarettes? A body temperature regulating watch from Israel? Ryan Air can sell you all that and more! Needless to say, the on flight marketplace kept me awake for the entire flight.
Tank goodness for my amiga Elena! She was kind enough to pick me up from the airport in her car and to let me sleep in her apartment until the rest of our friends got off of work. I truly appreciate all the hospitality she showed me. After a 2 hour power nap I was reunited with my ROML friends Allie and Megan, who are both working in Spain like I am in Italy. We had a delicious lunch of tapas and went to The Factory, a Spanish Outlet Mall (my idea of heaven). That night we had a giant Spanish dinner and ventured off to an outdoor disco. What an experience! Imagine not leaving the apartment until 2:30 in the morning, arriving at a super poppin' disco, dancing the night away to a bit of great music and a lot of really bad techno, and watching Spaniards creep on each other. I knew no one would believe that I went to a place like this (accept if you remember my secret disco stories from Perugia) so I decided to document the night. I took on the role of paparazza and photographed pretty much every creeper within my line of sight. This seemed like a good idea at first, except when some straight creepin' gay men saw me trying to document their grinding on each other and insisted that I take a real picture of them and post it on tuenti. After that my career of event photographer ended. We ended up staying out until after 6 in the morning (don't know how I was still awake).
Saturday we went to this cool international festival where of course we ate Mexican food (the only food I ever really crave in Italy, besides Chik-fil-a). We also just walked around Sevilla, ate more tapas, and saw a Flamenco show at La Carboneria. Sadly though, I had to leave early the next day.
Thanks to all my Sevilla friends, Allie, José, Megan, Elena, and Anamari! I had a fabulous time and hope you all come visit me soon in Florence!

Dante+Dancing with the Stars=Funniest Thing Ever!

So this weekend my goal was to immerse myself in all Florence has to offer culturally. As I explained in my last post I joined a library, I got a haircut, and I went to a festival. Well last night was the culmination of all things awesome about this weekend. My landlord Michele had stopped by my apartment last week to have me sign some papers for him so that the government here knows I'm not a terrorist. While he was over he gave me a pamphlet for an event put on by the Arthur Murray School of Dance in Florence. If you are not familiar with them, Arthur Murray schools are dance academies where you can take ballroom dancing classes. They offer everything from swing to salsa. The school was putting on a performance of Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio (because we all know no one cares about Paradiso except Cervigni). The event was free and I love dancing, so I decided I was definitely going to go. My landlord had told me it was going to be a modern dance performance, so I was thinking modern dance like people not wearing shoes and doing interpretive dance, or maybe at least having ballet shoes on. I was totally wrong. I mean, I knew Arthur Murray specialized in ballroom dance, but honestly, how are you going to turn that into an interpretation of Dante? Picture this: people of the entire age spectrum, from infant (there was a baby dressed as an angel who got carried around the stage) to past expiration date. The majority of the performers were students of the "retired" age group who are taking ballroom dancing classes for fun. Imagine if all the worst participants from Dancing with the Stars (like Cloris Leachman, Kate Gosslin, and Steve Wozniak) all got together to put on a show. There you have two hours of my Sunday evening. Watching people portray characters from La divina commedia while ballroom dancing. Here's an example: my landlord, who failed to mention that he was going to be in the performance, was Cicero, one of the residents of limbo (my memory is currently failing me, but possibly in the noble castle?). He waltzed around the stage with one of the female residents of this same circle of Hell. Another example: Paolo and Francesca (played by two of the professional dancers) performing a very sensual waltz/foxtrot/tango combo. Honestly, I don't think I'm doing this spectacle justice, but if I find any Youtube clips I will attach them to a comment here.
The show's ending was by far the most ridiculous part of the evening. All the characters arrived on stage to do a final twirl about, when a great light shines and in comes Beatrice. For those of you not familiar with Dante, Beatrice is the woman that Dante idolized and loved. She shows up in all of his works and he pretty much dedicated his life to her. So Beatrice shows up and she is supposed to be this beautiful woman who shines with a heavenly glow, like the Virgin Mary. This Beatrice, to my surprise, was about 100 years old, with stiff joints and no dancing ability. Let me add that the man playing Dante was probably 30, with long flowing locks and a goatee. This woman had to be at least 50 years older than him and was his love interest! Why???? She couldn't even dance she was so old. They tried to do a little shuffle ball change, but I thought she was going to break. At the end of their painful performance, there was the curtain call, and everyone took their bows about three times and got flowers, etc. But then, of course, because this makes total sense, the whole cast breaks out into Thriller, including old Beatrice (who couldn't do any of the steps, so she just kept turning in circles). I know that this was a serious performance, but I totally lost it. I could not take Dante for Ballroom seriously. Honestly, I don't know how the directors of the studio came up with this. For real, this is a performance I will never ever forget, not because it was beautiful and moving, but because it was absolutely, without a doubt, one of the most ridiculous spectacles I have ever seen in my life.

"Che birre": Oktoberfest for Italians

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!

In my next life I'm going to be Christobel Kent

Today my inner nerd came out to play. This is my first time not technically being a student and though I enjoy not having to study and write papers, I really do miss going to class. To continue my efforts to meet new friends in Florence and explore the city, I attended a lecture at the British Institute by author Christobel Kent on Florence as a setting for fiction. As soon as I arrived I got super excited because the lecture is one of the beautiful rooms of the library, which looks more like a library in someone's home (like the beast had in Beauty and the Beast). Also, the room was filled with old British people, as well as trendy looking students, two of my favorite types of people. Since I am a total geek and really enjoy being an attentive student, I sat right up front for the lecture, next to this adorable old British couple. Ms. Kent gave an absolutely wonderful lecture on her writing process, why she chooses to set all of her novels in Florence instead of in England, how she chooses her setting before she dreams up characters, etc. She was wonderfully honest and open, not uppity or stuffy like a lot of lecturers are. She is also as cute as a button, a mother of five kids, and married to a professor at Cambridge. I pretty much decided right on the spot that if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as Christobel Kent.
After the lecture, and since we are in Italy, the British Institute has free wine and refreshments to partake in while people chat about their thoughts on the lecture. I went up to a group of people with American accents and introduced myself. I ended up meeting a really cool girl named Yoko who is a PhD student in Art History at UVA, as well as her friend Monica, who just finished her PhD and is a writer now in Florence. I even got the chance to talk to Ms. Kent, who sympathized with me over the lack of interest study abroad students have in the culture of Italy, as well as all the "Wow, I can't believe this is where I live" moments an expat in Florence experiences (i.e. every time I walk by the duomo and just go "whoa"). Ms. Kent also reignited my wish to maybe write some day (I definitely have lots of stories to tell).
I loved the feeling of being in an academic environment again. I know, I'm a teacher and tutor who spends all day at school, but it's just not the same as attending class yourself and learning about subjects that really interest you. I will definitely be attending more lectures at the British Institute and will hopefully learn even more about Florence, Italy, and the culture that I so dearly love.

What a beautiful day to learn English!

Fall has definitely arrived in Florence. If I were in Charleston or Chapel Hill right now it would still probably be 85 degrees outside and humid. Instead, I am enjoying crisp fall weather, a beautiful breeze, and wearing my new Italian trench coat. What could make this beautiful day any better? The fact that I am now giving English lessons to five Italian bankers!
How did I secure this new job you may ask? I have a new colleague at the school who told me that her friend Fabrizio was looking for English lessons for himself and a few of his colleagues. I told her that I had never really given English lessons before, but I had translated a lot between my sketchy Pugliesi friends and my sorority sisters, as well as attended a lot of tandem language exchange sessions, so I was up for the challenge. Fabrizio and I set up a meeting for us today at the bank. I came prepared with my English grammar book, thinking it would just be him and that we would discuss how to set up the lessons, then ask his friends if they were interested. Instead, I was led into a big meeting room where 4 more very vocal Italians showed up to discuss our meetings (they are hilarious!). What we have decided to do is meet for lunch next week (since everything in Italy revolves around food) and have a preliminary chat, where I will decide what level everyone is at with their English. I will then divide them into groups and we will have differeng lessons based on if they fall into beginner or intermediate English. After we decided all of this I was rushed out of the bank, but not before they asked me if I was British, to which I replied no, which they liked because they would rather have American accents.
Beautiful weather, new teaching opportunities and the prospect of having non-creepy Italians to speak with is getting this day off to the right start!