Il Dumo

I was going to write a post all about the center here, and talk about The Duomo and how cool it is, but then I realized that if you Googled pictures of The Duomo you'd find millions of them, and most of them would probably be better than any I'd take. So that's the homework assignment.

I figured instead I'd write about how much Il Duomo looks like the Death Star. I find the resemblance uncanny, but people here just kind of look at me funny whenever I bring it up. But seriously, how is The Duomo not a Death Star floating above the streets of Florence?

Fiorentina Game

So last night I was with a buddy of mine who's a big Fiorentina fan, and he had tickets to the game that night. If you've been keeping up on the blog, you may know that I live literally two blocks from the stadium. This guy (Pietro) lives in the same apartment building as me, so we're pretty close.

Anyway, we were talking about soccer (my favorite thing to do), and he eventually asked if I just wanted to go to the game with him. The game was for the Coppa Italia (Italian domestic tournament), which isn't a big deal, and it was being played on a weeknight, so tickets were cheap - only €6.00. We sat in the Curva di Fiesole, which is the standing area where all the Ultras are. Even though the stadium was mostly empty, our area was packed, and it was definitely still a fun experience. Despite the fact that it's a relatively unimportant game, they literally sing the entire time, wave GIGANTIC flags, throw fireworks on the pitch, etc. I didn't have my camera with me, so I didn't take any pictures, but the scene more or less looked like this, with us sitting somewhere in that big mob of purple (except that it was at night):
Fiorentina ended up winning 3-2, so that was cool. Hopefully I'll be able to make it back for another game soon, one that's going to draw a bigger crowd.

On a mostly unrelated note, I found a bar today that has a shows EPL and Serie A games on Sky Sports. They have a schedule up of what games they're showing, so I'll probably be heading there a lot of weekends to watch soccer. They also had a sign up advertising their showing "The Super Bowl Final."

Cooper Goes to Pizzeria, Fails Basic Cultural Cues

I'm generally on my own for lunch, and today was no exception. After a few minutes wandering around my neighborhood, I ended up outside a pizzeria that my mamma had pointed out to me earlier as being good. The menu they had posted outside was pretty reasonably priced, so I headed in.

When I got inside, I noticed a counter with a guy standing behind it. Figuring this was the place where the ordering part of the whole food transaction process took place, I approached him and ordered a pizza. "Per favore, posso avere una pizza margherita?" Was I pretty proud of my Italian? Yeah. I even had the presence of mind to tell him that I preferred to eat there rather than take my pizza and leave. Rather than give me a pizza on the spot, he called to a waitress standing nearby, who took me over to a table and sat me down. It was at this point that I realized I had actually entered a sitdown restaurant, meaning that my previous conversation had essentially been akin to walking into an American restaurant and immediately placing an order at the hostess' desk. Definitely took my proud I-own-this-country mindset down a peg or two.

Anyways, she sat me down at the table and took away the menu (I guess they already knew what I wanted), and peaced out. So there I was, sitting alone at my table, while groups of people around me chatted and were merry. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had a book to read or something. At least there was one other guy in the restaurant who was eating alone. Granted, he was about 90 and all of his friends were probably already dead, but it was still some consolation.

After about 10 minutes of awkwardly being ignored by everyone at the restaurant who didn't want to talk to me because they knew I wouldn't understand them anyway, my pizza came out. It was huge. I guess it was meant for closer to three people rather than just one.

Imagine that this is me (except for minus female companions, and looking slightly more Italian in my suave new sweater. Eating the same amount of pizza).

Apparently the cart punched the horse in the face and left it lying in a ditch (or however that saying goes), because it turns out that for all its incredible achievements, mankind has not yet invented a plate capable of containing food of this magnitude. Pizza was falling off the edges of my plate, which made it difficult to cut (did I mention my pizza came with it's own steak knife?), and ensured that I spread grease everywhere. But, American hero that I am, I inevitably finished, leaving me to sit yet again in my own silence. At this point the old guy was happily conversing with the people next to him. I finally made it back home in time for my mamma to laugh at me for being so American.

People don't eat snacks in Italy. I guess when you're eating King Kong pizzas for lunch, you don't need to.

My New Sweater

Big news on the home front, team - I bought a new sweater today. It's cold as bal*s here (censored for all my maternal readers out there), and I've got virtually no winter clothing. So, long story short, I got a sweater from a thrift store for €5.00.

This might as well be me, considering how Italian I look now. Granted he's not wearing a sweater, but you get the point.

When I showed my mamma my sweater, she was astonished at how Italian I look now. For a lady who has spent the last week telling me how American I look ("it doesn't matter what you do, they know you are American"), this is really quite the statement. Apparently all I need is a solid Italian haircut and I'll be good to go.

Italian Life

For this post I am going to talk some about the Italian lifestyle (or at least what I have observed so far) and my homestay here. I'm also inevitably going to talk about some other stuff that has happened to me as well.

My family lives within a few blocks of the stadium where Fiorentina play. On game days the streets around here get pretty crazy. The difference between American stadiums and stadiums like the one in which Fiorentina play is that here the stadiums are part of the neighborhood. As such, there is no giant parking complex and hence on game days the streets are inundated with cars. You can see our apartment on Google Maps (Street View is even available so you can poke around the neighborhood. Check it out here.). It's about a 20 minute walk from my house to the SU campus in Piazza Savonarola, but there are two buses a block from where I live that take me straight there. The buses are extremely easy here, and everybody uses them, rich and poor. It's nice to be able to just hop on and in 5 minutes be where I want to be, no problems.

I don't think people in Italy wear shorts. Granted it's winter right now, but I still think that it's true. I don't feel like I should wear shorts inside, and I don't have any sweatpants, so my comfiest clothes are jeans.

Now that that thought is over with, I'll talk a little more about my Italian family. Daniela is 52 and too sweet. She is always going out of her way to make sure that I have everything I need. Sometimes it's difficult, because when she asks if I like something I can't say no (not in fear of being rude, but because everything is good), but if I say yes she will cook/buy/feed me more of it. But she is always looking out for me. She'll never let me help clean up, either, and cleans my bathroom, bedroom, and laundry once a week. Paolo is 16 and he's a good boy too. He speaks some English, but not as much as his mother; she often helps translate between us until my Italian gets better. He's a teenager so he's a little crazy, but he has a good character. He also is always making sure that I am okay. Him and his mother fight a lot, but I can tell he is self-conscious because in the middle of an argument he will stop and apologize to me.

Part of their fighting is due simply to the Italian culture, in which people wear their emotions on their sleeves. They are very loud and engaged when they argue, but it's not a big deal to them. In America if two people argued like that, it would likely be the end of their friendship. But here it is an everyday occurrence.

I will end this post here because we are sitting down to eat dinner soon. As far as I can tell we are having whole fish. Heads, scales, everything. And pasta. And potatoes. They'll probably make me drink wine, too.

Inaugural Post

Greetings everyone from Italy!

This is going to be my blog while I'm abroad; I'm not sure how often it will be updated but check back every now and then if you want to see what I've been up to.

Today is January 17th, which means it's my 5th full day in Florence. I will try to give a brief summary of what I've been up to so far. The first few days all the American students stayed in a hotel near the city center. Not much to report as most of it was spent recovering from the long flight. Oh, they made us get up at 7:30 am every day. On the third day we moved in with our host families. I live with Daniela di Bacco, a single woman with a 19 year old daughter (Luisa) and a 16 year old son (Paul0). Luisa is studying at university in Milan right now, but Paulo is here. My mom is super super nice, she wants to do everything for me, and is always going out of her way to take care of me. Everything so far has been very structured, so I haven't had a ton time to go out and explore, but I've still spent a decent number of hours walking around the city. A few nights ago I hopped on a bus that takes me right to the center to meet up with some friends, which was one of my first times being on my own and needing to use Italian. A lot of things are tricky to do here without speaking Italian, but I am learning very quickly I think. We start classes tomorrow, so I anticipate my rate of learning accelerating in the next week. Hopefully.

Last night my mama took me out into Tuscany to meet her sister, sister's friend, mom, and stepfather. This is a picture from the back porch:
I spent the whole time as the only man there (her step-father was only there for dinner) while the rest of them cooked and talked only in Italian. The other women didn't speak English. But they talked to me the whole time. Ay. My brain was very tired. Also, they kept making me drink wine. Although I am trying very hard to learn while I am here, right now I don't like wine. And they just kept pouring me more, and I kept choking it down. After dinner they poured me a glass of liquor which tasted even nastier than the wine. I choked that down too. Ay.

Any time we go anywhere, my mama tells me how American I am. Oh well. The people here are generally friendly towards Americans, I think especially so if you show an effort of trying to learn the language and culture.

Well, that's all I can think of for now.