Oh, what to say, what to say. So much has happened in just the first five days of being here. But let's see, where did I leave off? Well, orientation started pretty much right off. And I'm glad, because as afraid as I was that orientation would be time consuming and pointless and boring, it really wasn't. They had informational meetings about traveling in Italy, shopping in Florence, community service, academics, and personal safety. The moral of the personal safety meeting ended up being essentially that letting a drop of alcohol touch our lips will inevitably result in being arrested for accidentally committing a crime and rotting in prison, or in death by drowning in the Arno. Oh, and American girls should stay away from Italian men. At all times. Because, you know, if you make eye contact you're obligated to sleep with him.
Despite these dire warnings, my friends and I decided to go out on Friday night. We got bar recommendations from a few people who had been here for a while, wrote down the most detailed directions possible, and proceeded to get completely lost. After ending up by the Arno and having to backtrack a few dozen blocks, we finally found the bar, Naima. The moment we got inside it was obvious that not a single person in there was Italian, except for one table of 35 year old men speaking in Italian. We got a drink, spent a bit, then got incredibly bored and left. We ended up at an Irish Pub for drunk munchies, where the menu was surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) devoid of Irish fare but had incredible pizzas.
The next day was a little more successful. We went on a walking tour given by a beautiful but probably gay graduate student who acted like he wanted to be doing anything other than giving a walking tour. But he gave us some recommendations about where to eat, and we all got free gelato at the end. But the tour wasn't a complete waste of time, since we met some guys in the music program to hang out with. We all wandered around the city for the rest of the day, going across the river and up to Boboli gardens (although we didn't go in because two of us didn't have our free museum cards yet and I lost mine on the bus on the way to the Uffizi), over the Ponte Vecchio, across back across the river over Santa Croce, Then we managed to get to Mercato Centrale a few minutes before it closed to get some food for dinner (we had the boys over). We made pasta with sauce with chicken and panzanella and drank red wine and prosecco (as good as I hoped it would be), and then went to a Jazz Club called, creatively enough, Jazz Club Firenze. Great music, and a good mix of Italians and foreigners.
Oh and one note on the head of the music department here: fucking awesome. He had a session for the music kids, and my friend Jennie and I didn't know whether or not to go, since we weren't full time music kids, just taking lessons. But we did, and he basically abducted all of us and took us to the Uffizi (the bus to which I took out my museum card that gets me into state museums in Florence for free, put it on my lap, then stood up letting it fall to the floor and get lost forever (but I'm pretty sure I can get a new one)), and explained all the art to us. Turns out he only runs the program half time, the rest of the time he works at the Uffizi and runs a jazz festival with his brother. And he KNEW WHO WE WERE. He asked us our names, and right after we said, he knew exactly what instrument we played! Let's absorb this for one moment. I go to NYU. I have NEVER had a professor have any idea who I was. I don't think my advisor knows who I am. To this day. But Antonio Vanni immediately said, "Alexandra, violin," "Jen, musical theater" and explained to me that my lessons are going to be downtown in the conservatory and that he would love if we could start up some sort of ensemble for the classical kids, but that he was worried at the difference in skill level between me and the other violinist, since he knew I had been playing much longer. Add to that the fact that he's cute as can be, and basically you have two girls who worship the ground on which he walks.
Well, classes start tomorrow. I totally forgot that whole paper and folder and textbook thing is going to be necessary. So I'm basically bringing nothing to class tomorrow.
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