Grocery shopping…it’s an excursion

Since today was our final day to do whatever we wanted, I started out by sleeping in.  It was a late night yesterday, so I caught up on my sleep but left enough time to catch my guided bus tour of the city.  It took us past a few of the already familiar places in Firenze, and also brought me back to a few places I had been to before.  Our tour started at the train station, so we had to walk right through Piazza Santa Maria Novella, which is this beautiful, quiet square in the middle of the city. Santa Maria Novella is a church that has been standing for several hundred years and just recently underwent a ton of restoration work.  It looks amazing.  However, they are now working on the Piazza itself, so the entire grassy area that used to be there is now mud and cobblestones that will most likely replace the grass.  This is all in front of the Grand Hotel Minerva, where I stayed last time I was in the city.  This is also the hotel that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow resided in for a while and where he wrote some of his works.  I will have pictures of all of this up soon, as long as I can get the link thing to work.   After that little bit of sightseeing, we went to lunch at this little restaurant in Santo Spirito right up the road from us.  Most of us had this amazing gnocci with truffle oil dish which was soo filling (and also fairly reasonable).  I am also officially addicted to Fanta arranciata (for those who don’t know what that is, it is basically the Italian version of our orange soda, but so much better because it’s not as strong).  By the time we finished lunch, we realized that we had better get going to the store or we would not be cooking dinner this evening. Stores in Italy are rarely opened on Sundays, and if they are, they will certainly close early.  The closest one to us is Esselunga, but that was closed today, so we had to go to Il Centro.  This is ACROSS the Arno River!  Upon entering the store, the first thing I come across is deodorant…for 3.50 Euro.  Needless to say I was not at all happy considering I had just spent 9.50 Euro on essentially the same thing at the Farmacia.  What can you do, though?  Something interesting about Italian grocery stores is that product placement, as Patrick pointed out, is not their strong point.  They have deodorant right next to the school supplies, which are right next to the cookies.  Nothing is ordered, but you are expected to know EXACTLY where you are going.  Don’t bother turning around to get something you forgot a few aisles back because the little Italian ladies will club you with their canes or chastise you until you run away in fear.  Shopping is a serious thing to these people.  Oh yeah, and you can buy alcohol in their grocery stores, not unlike many places outside of Pennsylvania in the states really.  But, their stuff is really, really cheap even when accounting for the conversion of prices.   Another thing that we have to get used to is that there are no lines.  If there is an opening, you go.  Well, Anah was kind of in line but the other line had an opening, so she started to go to it.  But, these two large men walked over and put their stuff down.  She decided to tell them that she was in line and moved up, which did not sit well with them.  I couldn’t really tell her that there was no line because they were already heated up and telling her in Italian that she was wrong and to get out of line.  It’s very odd.  People are usually reserved, but once it comes time to check out at a store, all rules go out the window and it’s a free-for-all (and sometimes a tense one at that). After walking what seemed like forever back to Via Maffia, we were finally able to relax.  Sophie bought everything for dinner and was cooking Pasta Aglio Olio for us.  It was amazing…little bit of hot pepper and parsley and it was perfect.  Somehow I actually finished three full bowls of it…maybe there is hope that I’ll gain those fifteen pounds I was supposed to after Freshman year!   I would love nothing more than to sit here and type out some more and procrastinate, but I have to do some reading to brush up on my Italian and look over some stuff before getting a full night’s sleep for class tomorrow.  I am quite jealous of my friends who are celebrating Martin Luther King Day at home…we don’t have that here : ( Miss everyone at home and wherever you may be scattered to by now with classes starting back.  In boca al lupo (Italian good luck saying) with classes!!! Ciao!