Firenze

Hullo (that's how Lucia--my Contemporary Art Teacher--says "hello") all.

Something I've noticed as the semester has gone on, is that coming back to Firenze from trips has been really nice. It's really nice to arrive back in Firenze Peretola/Amerigo Vespucci (the airport) or Firenze Santa Maria Novella (the train station) and know exactly what to do, where to go, and how to get back to our apartment. It's really nice that this city has been starting to feel familiar, and (dare I say) homey.

Another sense of familiarity for me is that bar owners (remember, bar=caffé), waiters and baristas all recognize me. When I walk into the caffé down the street from our apartment (called Caffé Mexico. Weird...right?) the owner knows my order and sometimes gives me free pastries. Definitely cool. Although, he always tries to get me to sit down so he can charge me an extra euro. But I've caught onto his dirty little tricks. Italians are sneaky...

One of my favorite parts of being in Italy is going to the gym. I think I mentioned in an older post that we joined a gym appropriately named "gymnasium". Giovanni is the man in charge, and he is one of the most ridiculous Italians I have met. Yesterday, after my workout I was getting my card back and he looks at me and says, "Jo-el! You are number one!!" The comments are usually, "You need to fuck someone tonight!" or something along those lines. I always think that would never fly in the USA. Also, Italians have not been the nicest people, but the gym is a different story. All the Italians we've met at the gym (they almost look like the cast of the "Jersey Shore" in the sense that they are all jacked and some are heavily tattooed) happened to be extremely nice. I can't recall one experience that hasn't been good.

Currently, it's midterm week here at school Besides for all of the girls wearing sweatpants, it doesn't really seem like it's exam week. It's beautiful outside (72 degrees! Yes, I'm aware it's 79 in Madison today. Ironic how it's the warmest winter in Wisconsin and the coldest one in Italy.), people are still chilling and drinking espresso, and by and large everyone seems relaxed.

I keep on hearing from people ("people" defined as my mother) that I should post about life in Italy, not just about our trips. So I think from now on, I'll include an aspect or two about living in Italy that I think might interest the general audience of this blog.

1) Being here has made me realize that tourists are extremely obnoxious. And I really truly mean that. Although, I'm sure if you asked an Italian resident of Florence, American students are more obnoxious than tourists, but I'm not Italian. AND I know that every time I travel to a different country, I become one of those obnoxious tourists. But what really gets me, is the "shmob" effect. Let me explain, this word--coined by Benny's cousin--describes a group of freshmen. One freshmen is called a "shmen", and a group of freshman would be called a "shmob". Shmobs congregate in large groups consisting of 10 to 50 shmens and run around campus with each other and do everything together during their first year of school. They get in the way of doing basic things, like walking. Tourists are kind of the same way. I always find myself entangled in a busload of (Asian, American, Italian, French, etc.) tourists. Definitely not ideal. As a result, I'm sure if you flip through any of their cameras, you will see me walking--or trying to walk--quickly by.

2) On a more serious note, I'm taking a class entitled "Shoah: the Holocaust in History". I ended up transferring into the class because I absolutely hated the economics class in which I was enrolled, and I'm really glad I did. We just had our midterm on material a little after the Wannsee Conference. I really like our professor and the class, however, it's kind of taken me back a few times learning about the Holocaust in a country that sided with the Nazis during WWII. Our professor was absent one class period for some reason or another, and we watched The Pianist with Adrien Brody. I've seen this film a few times, so I wasn't really paying attention during the first part of the film. There is one scene where the Nazi's barge in to the apartment across the street from the Szpilmans' apartment, they grab the grandfather sitting in a wheelchair, pick him up (in the wheelchair), and throw him off the balcony killing him. After this scene, the entire room stopped texting, doodling, or doing whatever they happened to be doing, and started watching. By the end, there were a lot of people sniffling. It's an excellent, yet quite an emotional film--especially watching it in a country that sided with the Nazis during the war. So far living in modern Italy and studying about its terrible past has been an interesting dichotomy.

That's all for now. A post about our Copenhagen/Paris trip this past weekend coming soon!