“You’re beautiful when you’re clean…”

Well, we just finished day three of rain.  Luckily, it is on and off, so we do have a chance to enjoy the beauty of the city without it being completely overcast.  We decided to leave early to catch the bus and beat all of the other NYU students to campus.  One thing I have to say amazes me, and probably will forever, is that our bus drives right past the Duomo EVERY morning.  I actually do appreciate the fact that I get to see this amazing work of art and architecture every day on my daily travels.  The people of Firenze are so lucky to have something like this in their own neighborhood.  Everything was great until we got to Piazza San Marco to transfer to the 25 bus.  They’re supposed to come every 5-10 minutes…25 minutes later we boarded.  However, while we waited, we became surrounded by a crowd of Italian school children for a short while.  When the 25 finally came around the corner from the Duomo, we were jumping up and down like little five year olds yelling, “Venticinque!  Venticinque!”  It was such a relief from standing there in the unexpected rain.   The ride to campus was uneventful and slightly better than yesterday.   We arrived at Villa Natalia shortly after ten to begin our descent into the “Valley of Death,” which is a giant valley in between Villa Natalia and Villa Ulivi, two of our buildings on campus.  Once we got up to Villa Ulivi, we were able to settle into our shorter day of lectures to acclimate ourselves with the city.  The views were unbelievable.  So much so that I am not sure how I am going to make it through classes without staring out into the hills of Florence and zoning out.  Our property has one of the best viewpoints of the entire city.    During our morning lecture, we were introduced to Nicola, who is one of the administrators on campus.  He is possibly one of the funniest Italians I have ever met.  He told us that he has to go through this stuff even though we are smarter than they are giving us credit for.  We aren’t supposed to smoke in any of the buildings, but he told us if we do decide to smoke that we “should put the cigarette freaking out so we don’t a burn the building down and die…that is too ugly.”  He then went on to tell us about traffic safety and how we shouldn’t drive or ride bikes in the city because we “are beautiful when we’re clean.”  Basically, if you try to navigate through the city on a bike or moped, you’re probably going to get hit and seriously hurt/die.  But, not to worry…I don’t plan on driving while I’m here. After a crash course in survival Italian, which was quite a good refresher, we were off to do our own thing in the city.  We made our way back down to our apartment to take care of some things and get a quick nap in (still jet lagged).  I attempted to find the only Citibank in Florence only to learn that there is a difference between Via Del Leone and Via Leone X…go figure.  So I walked in the completely wrong direction for twenty minutes.  I eventually stopped to ask a shop owner how to get to Citibank and had to show here my card so she’d know what I was talking about…she decided to translate my card to “Chitibanko” for herself…whatever works, I guess.  Giving up on that, I decided to exchange my money at a Cambio (foreign currency exchanges that are all over the city) near the Ponte Vecchio…HUGE mistake.  Aside from the fact that our current exchange rate being $1.59 to 1 Euro, they took a 17% service charge.  I ended up getting ripped off for over half of what I gave them.  I wanted to cry. Patrick, Sophie, and I then decided to go grocery shopping since there were a few items we needed.  We walked well over a mile to this fairly large Supermarket outside the walls of Firenze proper.  The neighborhood was a bit sketch, but that is part of the experience.  I barely bought anything to make a meal and I still spent nearly 30 Euro…things are sooo much more expensive here.  We immediately stuck out as Americani, but people were fairly helpful if we attempted to speak the language.  Little shopkeepers are usually the best for giving directions (even to places that are in direct competition with them)…and the Florentines in general are good about helping others out.  After dinner, we found this amazing little cafe with reasonably priced everything and we were the only Americans in the place, so we knew it’d be a great find.  It’s filled with tons of young, hip Italian people just hanging out with friends.  We stayed indoors because the temperature at night is still a bit colder than we like, but we still had a blast.   Firenze is by far the most amazing city I have ever been in.  Living here is an absolute blast.  At first glance, people may think our neighborhood is a bit sketchy because things are so quiet, but it’s where all of the locals live, so it tends to not be as rowdy as the center of the city.  Even the Yemenese (I have no clue if that is the correct term) government chose our street to place its consulate.  People are always walking up and down Via Maffia, so it’s never really lonely, but it’s still nice to have people with you after dark. I definitely need sleep right now since I have to get up at 8am again for the last day of orientation (non-mandatory, but certainly helpful) on campus.  We have one last weekend to get all of our things together before we actually have to be productive and learn in such a great city.  Ciao!