August 30, 2011
After dinner this evening, Franzi sat down to write her blog for today and said she would post it either tomorrow or later in the week. I thought that was a good idea and, since I am not really in the mood to journal (and for some reason blogging sounds more enjoyable at the moment) I decided to do the same. [Also, I am writing *this after finishing my blog post and realized that it’s ridiculously long. So, I’m just warning you. That’s all!]
This morning we had Italian class number two. For the first half of class, we went over our homework and other things we had learned in class the day before. For the second half of class today, we were able to put our newly learned fruit and veggie vocab into use by going to the mercado. The market is in a large building called the Haymarket in the middle of Florence and is filled with fruit, veggie, meat vendors…you name it they’ve got it. I will definitely visit at least once a week for some of that beautiful fresh fruit. After class (in the market), we headed back to the school/hotel and, after we put away our books and notebooks for class, we headed back out for lunch. A few of us headed to the bank and then back to the market to get something to eat. We had delicious paninis and muffins from a little stand where they had freshly made lunches.
After we had finished our lunch—at 2:00—we met with our whole group to get our host family and roommate assignments. You could feel the nervousness in the room but, what do you know, it turned out wonderfully! My roommate is Franzi (short for Francesca), a fellow redhead :) It’s crazy because, in just two days, we have found that we have SO much in common. It’s actually kind of ridiculous. In other words, we were VERY excited to learn we would be roommates for the next three months! After our rooming assignments were handed out, I activated the phone that I got yesterday and then we went to get our luggage from where the hotel had been keeping it, as we needed to move out before class so they could clean our rooms. Four taxis came every fifteen minutes and took the roommate couples to their host families. Franzi and I left around 3:30 in a taxi. We gave him the sheet of paper with the address and he said he knew exactly where it was but, when he had dropped us off and left, we went to the door and found that, indeed, we were 2 km away from our home. We called Jodi (the program director) who called a cab to come pick us up where we were and drive us the rest of the way (thankfully, ACM was paying for our taxis so we weren’t out too much except a few minutes of panic). However, we finally arrived and couldn’t be happier with everything.
Our host family lives about 5 minutes by car away from Linguaviva and, apparently, about a 25-minute walk. They live in a very nice neighborhood, which I will get to in a bit. Daniella and Andrea (our host parents) live in an apartment on the first floor (thank goodness, we don’t have to lug our luggage up and down stairs) with five or six rooms. It is simply lovely. We arrived about 6 hours ago and it’s already starting to feel like home :) The family shares a bathroom although we each have our own shelf on which to store our shampoo and toothbrushes etc. I know this is silly but it’s the cutest bathroom :P Next to that is the kitchen which has a little table for breakfast. The washing machine is also in the kitchen. Next to that is the living room, which doubles as the dining room. It has an entire wall of books (including an entire album of photos of students they have hosted) and the television is there as well. There is also a couch and other living room things :) It’s very homey. Andrea and Daniella have their room next to ours which seems to double as a study for Andrea (who is a psychologist). Our room is the CUTEST. We each have our beds with their blue, yellow and white flowered bedspreads, each have a nightstand, a dresser, a closet, a table (for homework) and a desk. We both took the approach of taking everything out of our suitcases, laying it out on our beds, and putting things away from there. It took us quite awhile but it was so nice to finally be able to unpack. It’s hard living out of a suitcase. Now that we’re unpacked, I think we both feel a lot more at home.
Another part of the house that we have not really seen much of yet is the back patio/garden. Daniella was telling us about how lucky she was to have any garden at all in a city like Florence. We have only seen it from the window so far and it’s so lovely!
OH, I forgot, Daniella and Andrea have a grown son, Mattheo who has two little sons! When we arrived at the house, Andrea was still at work and Daniella was watching her five-year-old grandson, Massimo, who is so adorable. They were watching cartoons and playing with legos and such. Apparently they watch him frequently so there may be kids in the house every so often! Then, when Mattheo and his wife Silvia came to pick up Massimo, they brought their almost six-month-old son, Marco who is soooo cute. I definitely hope they come and visit often! Daniella and Andrea speak only a little bit of English and we, of course speak only a little bit of Italian (VERY little at this point) so it took some time to understand each other but it’s getting a lot easier and, especially after dinner, I feel like we’re going to pick up Italian a lot faster than we think.
After unpacking, around six, Franzi and I headed out to explore our surroundings. As I said earlier, we live in a very nice neighborhood. Right across the street, there is a huge park and, down the road a bit, there is another one. We walked past some VERY nice houses and entered the park gates. There were so many families in the park, which was so nice. There is a playground, paths, and lots of trees, grass, and benches, even a museum! Franzi and I even found a picnic table where we’ll definitely be doing some homework at some point. It was SUCH a nice surprise to have right at our doorstep. A good place to escape crazy city life. We didn’t explore the entire park or even get to the other park but wandered around the neighborhood instead. There are some really beautiful homes. A very quintessential Italian neighborhood! After our walk, we headed back home and shared some photos with each other of our families and friends (not with Andrea and Daniella, although they said they want to see them soon!)
At 8:00, we were called for dinner. We began the meal with antipasti (appetizer) –pasta (spaghetti type noodles) and tomato sauce along with bread. As I was nearing the end of my pasta, I was thinking about how I was getting quite full. Then I remembered that we still had our main dish coming. OOPS! I guess my stomach is going to have to get used to all this food. I’m used to eating that much pasta as my main dish. For the main dish, the rest of the family had lemon chicken while I had a soy burger with lemon (which was actually delicious) and seasoned potatoes. If that weren’t enough, we finished off with INCREDIBLE fruit salad for dessert with watermelon, peaches, prunes, bananas and grapes. Franzi and I were even able to show off our new Italian vocab as we named each of the fruits in the salad. So the food was incredible but the conversation was even better. It was a funny combination of our broken Italian and their broken English but we were able to get our points across. We learned about their family and they learned about ours. The two of them have been hosting students for FIFTEEN YEARS! So they have had their fair share of students. They have lots of stories to tell and pictures to show. As we speak in English and broken Italian, Andrea and Daniella helped us along, correcting our Italian and filling in and teaching when needed. I learned so much from just one dinner! They also said that, often times, their students make an American dinner one night so we are definitely looking forward to that! At the end of dinner, Franzi and I gave them the host gifts we got them and they were very grateful and excited! Daniella kissed each of us on our cheeks. Dinner was simply delightful and I look forward to many more wonderful meals together.
So now that this has been the longest blog post EVER, I’d best wrap it up. Bravo to those of you who made it the whole way through. I’m sorry I pretty much put in every last detail of the entire day. However, I figure I will never really have to describe the house again (at least at this level) so I wanted to now. Also, I did not have any homework this evening since we spent most of our class time at the market so I actually have the time to sit down and write all of this. Then all I have to do is copy and paste the next time I bring my computer to school. Perfect! Don’t expect any other blog posts this long though…I don’t know if I will ever have this kind of time again :P Anyway, I will probably head to bed soon. It’s just about 10:30 but, even though I slept last night (YAY!), I am definitely not back on track at all yet. I think this jetlag is going to stick with me for a little while. I hope all is well with all of you and I send all my love from Firenze!
xoxo
Kari
Our room :)
The park by our home
The bathroom :P
The kitchen
