Arrivederci, Y’all

I don’t have any one big Event to write about, but I’ve still had a really great week made up of small moments and little things that made me smile. Except for one which made me roll my eyes but I’ll get to that in a bit. 

First thing: I went on my first first date ever this past week! I met a guy and we went to an outdoor restaurant/bar place with all of these nice lights and plants. We met up in the middle of the Ponte Vecchio at night which was very romantic. I had a nice time talking to him and I got a free drink out of it but I won’t be going on another date with him. I’m just glad to have that First under my belt. 

Second thing: Last night my roommates and I went to a bar! It only took three years and a plane ride to another country for me to get The College Experience of going to a hot sweaty smelly bar and blowing money on exorbitantly sized drinks. I’m being sarcastic but I actually had SO much fun. I’m usually not the type of person who likes to dance- I can never get out of my own head enough to just relax and have a good time. I’m always watching myself from the outside and wondering if I look stupid and whether every twenty year old in the world went to a big How To Dance In A Bar lesson while I was sleeping or something. But last night I danced for nearly two hours and had a really fun time with these girls that my friends and I met while we were out.

Third thing, but really an extension of the second thing: We stayed out until like 2:30 in the morning, which meant that our walk home was completely deserted. We had the entire Ponte Vecchio to ourselves! The Uffizi courtyard was empty! Obviously we took the opportunity to spin around in circles like idiots and run down the middle of the street without the threats of being hit by a Vespa or elbowed by a tourist. The Arno at 2:30am is beautiful, in case you were wondering. 

Fourth thing: There are many, many dogs in Italy. This is wonderful. Italian people do not like it when you try to pet their dogs. This is not wonderful. But yesterday while I was outside journaling a man had the cutest, tiniest, fluffiest puppy and I just had to ask him if I could pet it and miraculously he said yes! The dog’s name was Oliver and he was so soft and he made me so happy. 

Fifth Thing: This is the thing that made me roll my eyes. I went into Zara on my way back from journaling and a man in the store said hello to me, so I smiled at him. Unbeknownst to me, by smiling I had communicated a secret message that said “Hey there handsome. I sure would love to be followed around the first floor of Zara” because this man proceeded to follow me around the first floor of Zara. I escaped him to go to the second floor but he was waiting for me when I came back down. Luckily the store was busy and I managed to evade him by sneaking out with a group. 

Sixth thing: Renaissance artists sure loved painting butts, huh? I saw so many painted butts this week. In a cycle of frescos about St. John the Baptist, no less.

So those were the little things that made my week exciting. Upcoming exciting things: Tomorrow my roommate and I are taking advantage of the free museum day to finally see the David, on Tuesday this week I’m going to a stand up comedy bar, and on Thursday there’s a flower market!

This weekend I traveled to the Maremma and Siena with SAI and it was amazing fabulous fantastic incredible BUT before I get to that I have two very important unrelated updates.

First of all, I made the best purchase of my life last week from the best vintage shop I’ve found so far. It’s a tan, leather, fringed cowboy jacket and I love it so much that I beamed the whole time I was buying it and the whole walk home. I texted each of my parents, my college friend group chat, and my ex boyfriend about this jacket. It will not keep me warm in the winter. I do not give a damn. 

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Second of all, I found the best coffee shop in Florence so far. (You might have noticed that every week I have a new Best Fill-in-the-Blank So Far. Florence just keeps besting itself, I don’t know what to tell you.) It’s called Chiaroscuro. I got a caramel cappuccino and a pistachio croissant. I’ve really missed flavored coffee and this totally scratched that itch without sacrificing any of the qualities that make Italian coffee special. Unfortunately, the coffee and croissant came out to €4 instead of the usual €2.50, and unfortunately this place is only seven minutes away. R.I.P. my wallet. 

On to the trip! 

The Maremma

Twenty SAI kids and I left late Friday afternoon for the Maremma, a coastal area of Tuscany. The bus ride was a little over two hours but I didn’t mind because the scenery and the conversation with my roommate Elizabeth were both wonderful. We arrived, unpacked, and explored the town of Castiglione della Pescaia. The night ended with a feast at a local restaurant. Dinner was over two hours long and consisted of fried fresh fish, pizza, and tiramisu. The fried shrimp still had their legs, shells, and eyeballs and it was a little freaky to stare into the eyes of my food, but not freaky enough that I didn’t clear my plate. Little shrimpy was delicious. 

We spent the next day at the beach! The sea seemed to come out of nowhere because it is preceded by a small forest teeming with wildlife (which we were strictly warned against feeding). The water was clear blue and had absolutely no waves. Little fish nipped at our feet. The mountains were in the distance and the sky was completely clear. I was literally jumping for joy.

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Locals in Maremma make these little tent things out of blankets and driftwood instead of using umbrellas, and we were advised to give it a try. Elizabeth and I tried our best but it took all our effort just to make a little lean-to that stayed up for five minutes. We should have tried harder because neither of us had sunscreen and we couldn’t build ourselves some shade. I have never been so sunburnt in my life. My dignity prevents me from posting a picture, but here’s an artist’s rendition:

We spent the second half of the day on a farm with two butteri, Italian cowboys who make it their duty to preserve the traditions of the Maremma. We saw an ancient breed of cows, ponies, horses, a wild boar, an owl, chickens, bunnies, and a turtle!

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Then it was on to dinner at another local restaurant. We all gorged ourselves on pizza, cheese, and bread and sat back feeling full. At which point the waiters brought out the main course. Because the pizza was an appetizer. Would have loved to know that before. 

Between the food, the long day, and the sunburn, I ended Saturday feeling like a stuffed pepper.

Siena

Siena is a small city in Tuscany whose Gothic and Medieval buildings have made it a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s full of steep hills so every street you walk down has a different beautiful view over the side of it. I think I took the most photos I’ve ever taken in one day while in Siena. 

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The highlight was Siena’s duomo. The outside is magnificent and overwhelming and sort of looks like the Duomo in Florence. The inside was mind boggling. Every church I’ve been inside in Italy has left me feeling completely overstimulated in the best way possible, and this one was no exception. The first thing that struck me was the huge stripey pillars. The black and white stripes were like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Then there was the floor. The floor was covered in fifteen different marble scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Words can’t do them justice and neither can pictures but here are some so you can get an idea.

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We had several free hours in Siena, which Elizabeth, a girl named Jennifer, and I spent getting lunch and exploring the quieter parts of the city. I got the traditional dish in Siena, Pici Calcio e Pepe, which is a pasta dish with cheese and black pepper. It was delicious. We also went to Nannini, a famous bakery in Siena, and had traditional Sienese cookies called Ricciarelli. I also found a really cool sticker advertising a Christian radio station. All in all it was a fantastic day. 

I am so grateful that I got to go on this trip, and especially grateful that it was completely free! I truly enjoyed every second, even when I was painfully sunburnt and even when the mean Italian concierge made fun of me for being painfully sunburnt. I feel really inspired to keep exploring Italy, not just Florence. Even the small cities are so rich with history and culture, and even the time spent in transit feels fun because the view out the window is so different from home. 

This week I’ve been learning how to be a Independent Adult. Living on your own for the first time is a learning curve no matter where you do it, but I think learning to live on your own in busy, crowded, expensive Florence comes with its own challenges.

For example, every time I go grocery shopping I have to cross the Ponte Vecchio. I would not dare complain about this because I know how lucky I am to live next to a beautiful, historic landmark but hoLY COW CAN EVERYONE JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY AND LET ME BUY MY GROCERIES.

Tourists swarm the Ponte Vecchio at all hours of the day like flies to honey. Except the honey is that sweet, sweet Instagram pic of themselves gazing wistfully over the Arno, and the flies are traveling in groups of two to twenty so that tiny gnats (such as myself) cannot simply fly around them, but are forced to hover behind and occasionally dodge flies that have stopped in the exact middle of the street to eat some honey. Yesterday I went went to the store to get toilet paper and forgot my reusable bag. I’m very interested to know how many people’s pictures I’m in the background of, angrily clutching a four pack of toilet paper.

Homework is another thing that I’m trying to figure out. First of all, I’m in an exciting new city, so the last thing I want to do is sit down and read a textbook. I tried studying at the Biblioteca delle Oblate, a beautiful convent-turned-library with a view of the Duomo, but I got intimidated by all of the glamorous Italian students and the confusing maze of staircases, terraces, and Italian signage. Today I tried the Florence University Library, which is just one room in the academic building. It’s not an atmosphere I want to study in but it has all of my textbooks. We’re not allowed to check out the textbooks and bring them home, but the library is equipped with a handy dandy scanner which took seven million years to scan the bazillion pages of reading I have this week.

I have had some Independent Adult successes though. I made myself baked pesto chicken for dinner without contracting salmonella or setting anything on fire. I planned a trip to London and a trip to Barcelona and bought plane tickets for each. I know the locations of three different coffee shops so that I can get coffee on my way to any of my classes. Life is good! I just wish the simple stuff (like feeding myself and studying) took a little less effort.

Today I learned to always bring an umbrella. Because sometimes you forget your umbrella and end up waiting outside your physics class which has glass doors so everyone can see you sitting outside like a dummy as class goes on without you because you are not technically registered and therefore cannot attend but there’s a thunderstorm and you don’t have an umbrella so you also cannot leave.

Today I learned how to use an actual physical map instead of my phone because sometimes there are two number 45’s on one street but one is written in red and one is written in blue and google maps will only ever take you to the wrong one.

I would like to say that today I learned a lot about Italian contemporary literature, because that’s the class I attended before physics. But what I actually learned was not to sign up for a class that only has three students total and is taught 100% in Italian and covers topics you might have a hard time with in English, let alone in Italian.

So I had a rough morning. But if you’re going to have a rough morning, Florence is a pretty good place to have one. Within an hour of awkwardly leaving my physics class I had the best gelato I’ve had so far (the salted caramel flavor at My Sugar) and found a humongous vintage shop playing jazz music and chock-full of beautiful clothing (Melrose Vintage). They had a whole entire rack of fringed leather jackets and a whole shelf of old cowboy boots. I tried on so many ridiculous shirts and I almost bought a red leather coin purse that looked like something a cowboy would carry. It was €15 and a completely ridiculous thing to own but it made me really happy so I might go back for it later.

At the end of a difficult morning I was practically skipping home. Tomorrow I have a class called Sacred Florence Walks that is pretty much a walking tour of Florentine churches and synagogues, and I will be sure to bring an umbrella.

Everyone said going abroad would change me as a person. I figured it would take at least a couple of weeks and that it would be a gradual process of shedding old habits and gaining new ones. But I can say with certainty that I am already a changed woman. Today I did something the old me never would have done. Today… I bought plums. 

Obviously I’m being melodramatic, but if you know me, you know that I pretty much don’t eat fruit. I like grapes, lemons, pomegranates, and apples. Period. My go-to fun fact used to be that I had never eaten any fruits that started with the letter P, and that was true until I was force fed a pineapple the summer before my freshman year of college. (Okay, not exactly force fed. Maybe guilt fed? A guy surprised me with a romantic picnic in the park and the catch was that I had to try a piece of pineapple. What was I gonna do, say no?) Well, this morning I went on a market tour with my roommates and a bunch of other SAI kids, and we were each given a little basket of fruits to sample. I tried cantaloupe, the sweetest grapes I’ve had in my life, a mysterious green pulpy thing, and a delicious bright orange Italian plum called Italiani dolci. The name literally means Italian candy. It was so good that I went back this afternoon and got a whole basket of just plums. That’s breakfast for the week! 

I also got mixed greens, an avocado, a lemon, Tuscan bread, and prosciutto. A whole week of groceries for less than €15! A fraction of the supermarket price with only slightly more social anxiety from not being able to identify European coins on sight! 

Ordering meat from the market is very scary. Butchered chickens and pig legs are strung up like grotesque Christmas lights and there’s seven million different types of Salami. Also, did you know that fresh chicken is yellow? We must be doing something really wrong in America because I’ve never seen yellow chicken before.

Here’s something else that’s different from America: The market is full of wonderful scents. When you walk past the meat stand, it smells like prosciutto. When you walk past the cheese stand, it smells like Pecorino. Even the produce has a strong smell! It’s bitter and earthy and delicious. This morning during the market tour we walked down a small aisle that had fish on one side and cheese on the other, and the scent was almost too much to stand. Turn your head to the left and you’re hit with cheese; to the right and you’re nearly gagging from the fish.

Next week I’m going to conquer my fears and buy cheese. That will be one small step for Italian locals, one giant leap for Rachel Weisenthal. 

Okay, so it’s been a few days since I’ve updated this blog (to be honest I’ve barely even written in my journal this past week, which is rare for me) because I’ve been settling in to life in Florence! At this point I’m all moved in, and I’ve even made a trip to the local grocery store.

Let me tell you about this apartment. My expectations were very low. I mean, student housing in a major city? I was picturing a shoebox with thin walls and dirty floors. But this place is practically a palace. It has three bedrooms (two singles and one triple), a kitchen, a laundry room, two bathrooms, and a living room with high ceilings. My room is a single with sky blue walls, windows overlooking the street, and a little personal sink and mirror! The mistress of Giorgio Vasari, father of art history, used to live here in the 1500s. The Father of Art History got it on in MY living room! The original 16th century furnishings are still here, including hidden windows meant for servants to pass food through to entertain guests, a shrine to the Virgin Mary so that the fancy people who lived here didn’t have to go to church with the peasants to pray, and cabinets built into the radiators to keep food warm. We don’t have air conditioning and the wifi only works in the living room, but I would give up air conditioning for a year to live in this gorgeous space. Did I mention our neighbors? To the left is the Uffizi, and to the right is the Ponte Vecchio. If I sound like I’m bragging it’s because I am. This is probably the nicest place I will ever live and I am soaking it up. 

The actual city itself is amazing. It’s taking me a little while to get comfortable navigating (see my first post about my horrible sense of direction), but I don’t mind getting lost when the scenery is so beautiful. I went out to get deodorant on my first day here and I started crying because the walk there was so pretty. How do people in Florence function? How are you supposed to behave like a normal person when your city looks like this? 

My favorite spots so far have been:

-Gelateria Carabe, for creamy Sicilian gelato. I got the coffee flavor but my roommate got coconut and that was better. 

-Rooster Cafe, for delicious American breakfast and authentic Italian coffee.

-The cafe in the lobby of the Hotel Laurus al Duomo, for the absolute best chocolate croissant I’ve ever had.

There have been surprisingly few missteps, but they’ve all been food related:

-I bought grapes with seeds in them. Why do those exist?? 

-We got grocery store bread instead of bread from the market. It’s dry and tasteless and pretty far on its way to becoming a crouton. 

-A very inauthentic restaurant listed my meal as €9 and then charged me €12. 

-We walked 30 minutes to the local’s grocery store instead of the one that’s 3 minutes away. We may as well have been wearing a sign that said “Stupid Americans,” that’s how silly we looked in the grocery store. Food shopping when you can’t read the labels is very difficult! And Italians have different rules- For example, you have to wear plastic gloves when selecting any produce or people will get angry at you. 

I’m looking forward to finding my routine and usual places. Right now it’s like every meal involves a little expedition and a lot of crossed fingers, and I’m ready to figure out where to get my morning coffee on the way to classes and where to get inexpensive cleaning supplies. Until then, I’m going to keep trying new foods and almost getting hit by Vespas and being glared at by elderly Florentine ladies and having an amazing time! 

If you know me, you’ll know that I have absolutely no sense of direction. Last year I tried to drive my friends to New York City from Allentown, PA and ended up in Philadelphia. I didn’t realize that I had been driving in the complete wrong direction for two hours until we were practically in the heart of the city. So I was a little nervous about traveling from Gaithersburg, MD to Rome, Italy. 

Luckily I met the right people along the way. A very kind German woman helped me through security to my gate, and an absolutely amazing couple on both of the same flights as me helped me through Frankfurt airport. For all that talk of German efficiency, the Frankfurt airport was not very organized. We had one hour to get on our next flight from Frankfurt to Rome, and only two very slow security lanes were open out of eight. We waited in line for forty-five minutes and ran like crazy to our gate. Apparently it was a German national holiday, so they have an excuse, but it was not the most calming experience. 

I arrived in Rome and white knuckled it through the drive to the hotel, during which the driver nearly hit multiple cars and pedestrians and drove with the car so perfectly between two lanes (literally straddling the dotted line) that it seemed intentional. 

This is when the fun began. I met the four other girls from Muhlenberg and we all went on a guided tour of the Roman city center. It blew my tiny sleep deprived mind. First of all, our tour guide was gorgeous, and everyone in Rome seems to be constantly dressed to the nines. We were in a breathtakingly beautiful city full of breathtakingly beautiful people looking at breathtakingly beautiful sites. The Pantheon was probably my favorite thing that we saw- It really seems to come out of nowhere! You’re walking down a normal street, you turn a corner, and all of a sudden there’s this absolutely huge temple with humongous columns. The inside was my first experience with the grandeur and overwhelming beauty of Italian architecture. Everything from the floor to the ceiling was intricate and gilded. It’s sensory overload in the best way.  

Life kind of came full circle when we got to the Trevi Fountain. When I was in preschool, my friends and I were obsessed with the Lizzie McGuire movie, so much so that my mom threw us a Lizzie McGuire themed party where we made Styrofoam microphones and sang along to the movie. Seeing the hallowed ground upon which teen idol Hillary Duff starred in her cinematic masterpiece truly is What Dreams Are Made Of. Also, not to brag, but I’m the only one who successfully threw a coin over my shoulder into the fountain. 

By this point in the day I hadn’t really eaten anything or slept, so my first meal in Italy was a humongous cup of Gelato because the gelateria wouldn’t accept payment with a debit card for anything less than €4 and I didn’t have the energy to venture out for good food. But hey, I have no complaints about ending an amazing first day in Rome with Slightly Too Much Gelato.