Day 3
After getting an extra two weeks off from school, I finally had to go back. But today was actually pretty exciting because I've never been to a school like CAPA before. First of all, it's only one floor of the building. But more importantly, there are frescoes on the walls and statues everywhere!
Today was also good because I only have one class and I think it will be my favorite: Italian. I love languages and always was upset I don't have more room in my schedule to spend college learning them all. But luckily, it is required here! Also the professor is great and I came back to Italy again after a doing summer exchange in high school to finish learning this language. That may be easier said than done though because all my classes are through CAPA which is for American students and I also live with CAPA students so that's who I make friends with. Unfortunately I haven't figured out yet how to make friends with Italians and even if I did manage that, I'm pretty sure they'd rather speak English with me than listen to me me butcher their language because I feel like an idiot rolling my R's.
I had to wake up way to early to make it to my 9am Italian but after that I was free to explore Florence. Here's some interesting graffiti at the end of the block where I go to school.
My two friends and I went to the inside part of the leather market to grocery shop. I got two apples for 87 cents and was pretty excited. I was planning on going home to finish my pizza I'd heated up but never eaten, but there was really cheap food and it looked really good and I caved. I have no idea what it was but it was puffy bread with cheese and tomatoes and a bunch of spices that made it delicious. If you had told me a week ago that I would eat this stuff and love it I wouldn't have believed you. I really only like sugar. But this... made me like italian food a little more. When we were done lunch, we wandered towards where we remembered the 3 for 5€ wine store being but ended back in the market after we failed miserably at our quest. We unfortunately were dumb enough to split up because half of us wanted to get more fruit and half of us wanted more food. We didn't know how bad the cell reception was so of course we chased each other around the whole market and never found each other before just deciding to go home.
Later, my friend said his Italian friend was going to yoga and said we could come if we wanted. I definitely wanted. He lives pretty far from me so after I threw on something, even though I had no idea what to wear (apparently Italians are too fashionable for sweatpants?), I headed back out over the river. On my way, someone was feeding the birds which I know most people would find annoying, but it made an awesome picture so I was happy :)
I didn't really know where I was going because I'd only been to his apartment once but it looked pretty easy on the map... You know where this is going. Anyway, it would have been really straightforward except it was rush hour and there was a ton of traffic. I was impatient and didn't know how to cross straight across the street since Italians don't believe in stop lights or something (more on that later) so I decided to turn right and walk down to the next block and just turn back when I got the chance. Well. There was a row of buildings with no roads between them so I had to walk really really far out of my way to finally cut through. I probably should've turned around but I was early anyway and didn't mind seeing more of town so I kept going. When I got onto the street that I needed to be on to walk back to the left, I was off the edge of my paper map. That wasn't a problem because I had my phone set up with plenty of data. I got out my trusty Google maps and asked for directions. Everything was good. I wasn't lost. I was generally in the right area. I started walking back and I was feeling pretty good about my navigation skills until I started seeing streets that were shown on my paper map as way past the street I should've turned on. So Google wasn't working. I turned back to the right and walked confidently like I knew what I was doing even though I didn't have the slightest clue. Did I mention that a lot of the streets are either unlabeled on my map or have one name where they start and a new one every few blocks? This one was like that. I have no idea how I found it when it had the wrong name, but I eventually did. I walked to the apartment and- I didn't know which doorbell to ring in his building. I texted him. No response. (I later realized I was texting his American number- do I have to pay extra for that?) Again, I was relying on my data plan to hook me up and I Facebook messaged him. Apparently I had no reception. I tried Facetiming. I tried Whatsapp. I tried calling. Nothing. After a few minutes, his Italian friend showed up and told him we were both there. He had a problem he had to deal with and would be late, so it didn't matter that I was too. When we got ourselves together and made it to yoga, we were really late and got yelled at. I did not fully comprehend what I had signed up for until we did some core exercises (think P90X) and then the instructor said we were doing planks. Let me just say that when I did sports and did planks every day, I could maaaaybe hold it for a minute to a minute and a half at my peak. Once I got into plank position today, she announced we'd be holding it for two minutes. I haven't done anything except eat chips on my couch since early high school. All I can say is I will not be going to yoga again there. And I hurt everywhere.
The bright side is that I got to walk home alone and I walked through Piazza Della Signoria which was a) beautiful at night and b) empty so I could take my time and enjoy being here in Florence surrounded by all this.
If I was here as a tourist, I would've experienced this once for 5 minutes as I ran past on my way to the next thing to see, accompanied by a lecture of way too many facts, and sandwiched between thousands of other people trying to have the experience for themselves. It would be cheap. But this way, living here, I can sit in peace and appreciate these things on my terms without the noise of camera shutters on selfie sticks disturbing my thoughts. (Selfie sticks are a big deal here. During the day, people stand in all the main piazzas and shove them in your face when you walk past. It sucks.)
When I got home from my walk, I was really proud that I'd found my way back. I'm bad at directions and I haven't even been here a week yet but I've started to recognize places and piece together different areas that are near each other. By leaving my comfort zone, I can feel that parts of me (like my sense of direction) that go undernourished in my normal life can grow. With the change of environment, I can't hide my flaws behind habits or routines like only ever staying near campus or just taking the same route to class every day. As I focus on those areas that are too easy to neglect at home, I prove to myself that it's not too hard to improve myself. And this realization combined with the excitement of seeing new things makes me feel alive. I'm probably still in the honeymoon phase of my relationship with studying abroad but so far I'd say the experience is unparalleled.
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