what a week it has been! remind me…when was the last time we spoke? oh right, saturday. crazy walk/hike/surprise ending up at michelangelo. alright. so saturday night, we finally found a place to DANCE. twice. it’s this swanky little nightclub that all the americans go to of course, but they’ve got their fair share of italians, let me tell you. none of them were remotely attractive. mostly they were just gross. and sweaty. and they just stood around all of us like vultures eyeing their prey. ignoring them was the way to go for sure. but we all had a blast DOAO (dancing our a$$es off).
sunday, yoanna, gaby, christo, kevin, and i decided to venture out to fiesole, a charming little etruscan town a half an hour bus ride from firenze. the views on the way up were incredible—even the duomo looked tiiiiny. the five of us “window” shopped in the open air garage-sale-ish market thing, hiked around for a bit (omg views), played some dice in a park, visited the monastery (chilled with a nun), and grabbed some lunch at a little café in the main part of town. i should probably mention that peperoni pizza is not pePPeroni pizza. peperoni are bell peppers. definitely failed at that order. gaby and i both did actually. haha. kinda disappointing.
to commemorate the night before birth of the virgin mary, firenze holds an annual festival where all the children carry around lanterns they’ve made themselves with tissue paper (or even those they’ve purchased) in a procession throughout the city. called la festa della rificolona, it begins in the piazza santa croce through to piazza della signioria (where the palazzo vecchio is) to the duomo until it terminates in piazza santissima annunziata. the kids also shoot at each other with blowguns with little wax/clay pellets. yesm, i have one as a souvenir. in piazza annunziata, there are carts with weird black licorice-tasting chips, sugar-coated nuts, and other candies and about a million people. seren and i got up to the top of the main steps and we watched from the side as the cardinal addressed the crowd. a bunch of schoolchildren then sang traditional italian songs. so adorable. it was just this crazy celebration with everyone in florence and just made me that much more excited to be in this beautiful city!
for mary’s ACTUAL bday on tuesday, florence opens the duomo terrace to the public—gratis—for free. more amazing views coming our way. it was absolutely surreal being on top of that thing. akdjflakjadkjflka. amazing amazing amazing. i need to come up with some more creative adjectives.
class with marcello. phenom. hilarious little man. can’t wait to learn all about italy from this guy. he is seriously THE MAN.
just wanted to mention that i made gnocchi for dinner the other night. it was superb. i’m excellent at boiling water and cooking onions. and heating up bolognese sauce. mmhmm. i’ll make it for you if you come visitttt.
ooo here’s an experience i would love to share with you: nude figure drawing. not as awkward as you might think. oh wait, i already met the model. at his other job. as a dj for the pub 5 doors down from my house. so awesome.
don’t make eye contact. don’t make eye contact. don’t make eye contact.
but honestly it wasn’t horrible. it was actually very cool learning how to get the proportions correct on the human body. lot’s of things to think about fer sure.
tonight, patti smith (do you know who she is?) played outside santa croce. picture snape from harry potter (but a woman version) with long grayer hair. apparently she’s really popular? so popular that they had to block off all the entrances to the piazza and we had to walk around the whole world to get to my street. but nevertheless, it was really cool listening to a concert in santa croce while drawing the statue of dante alighieri (before they closed off the piazza).
also tonight, yoanna and i had a candlelight dinner date. delicious bulgarian food. i’m definitely coming over more often.
once we found our way back to via dei neri (my street) we chilled in front of the gelateria, studied up on some italiano for tomorrow’s quiz, and met christo’s new italian friends—roberta, georgia, massimo, and matias. they were so friendly, and hopefully will be our first real italian friends!! they spoke italian to us the whole time and surprisingly we understood it very well! excitingggg! i think we’re having dinner with them on monday night. woo wooooo. ok sleepy time.
ciao mi amici!! xo
sunday, yoanna, gaby, christo, kevin, and i decided to venture out to fiesole, a charming little etruscan town a half an hour bus ride from firenze. the views on the way up were incredible—even the duomo looked tiiiiny. the five of us “window” shopped in the open air garage-sale-ish market thing, hiked around for a bit (omg views), played some dice in a park, visited the monastery (chilled with a nun), and grabbed some lunch at a little café in the main part of town. i should probably mention that peperoni pizza is not pePPeroni pizza. peperoni are bell peppers. definitely failed at that order. gaby and i both did actually. haha. kinda disappointing.
to commemorate the night before birth of the virgin mary, firenze holds an annual festival where all the children carry around lanterns they’ve made themselves with tissue paper (or even those they’ve purchased) in a procession throughout the city. called la festa della rificolona, it begins in the piazza santa croce through to piazza della signioria (where the palazzo vecchio is) to the duomo until it terminates in piazza santissima annunziata. the kids also shoot at each other with blowguns with little wax/clay pellets. yesm, i have one as a souvenir. in piazza annunziata, there are carts with weird black licorice-tasting chips, sugar-coated nuts, and other candies and about a million people. seren and i got up to the top of the main steps and we watched from the side as the cardinal addressed the crowd. a bunch of schoolchildren then sang traditional italian songs. so adorable. it was just this crazy celebration with everyone in florence and just made me that much more excited to be in this beautiful city!
for mary’s ACTUAL bday on tuesday, florence opens the duomo terrace to the public—gratis—for free. more amazing views coming our way. it was absolutely surreal being on top of that thing. akdjflakjadkjflka. amazing amazing amazing. i need to come up with some more creative adjectives.
just wanted to mention that i made gnocchi for dinner the other night. it was superb. i’m excellent at boiling water and cooking onions. and heating up bolognese sauce. mmhmm. i’ll make it for you if you come visitttt.
ooo here’s an experience i would love to share with you: nude figure drawing. not as awkward as you might think. oh wait, i already met the model. at his other job. as a dj for the pub 5 doors down from my house. so awesome.
don’t make eye contact. don’t make eye contact. don’t make eye contact.
but honestly it wasn’t horrible. it was actually very cool learning how to get the proportions correct on the human body. lot’s of things to think about fer sure.
tonight, patti smith (do you know who she is?) played outside santa croce. picture snape from harry potter (but a woman version) with long grayer hair. apparently she’s really popular? so popular that they had to block off all the entrances to the piazza and we had to walk around the whole world to get to my street. but nevertheless, it was really cool listening to a concert in santa croce while drawing the statue of dante alighieri (before they closed off the piazza).
also tonight, yoanna and i had a candlelight dinner date. delicious bulgarian food. i’m definitely coming over more often.
once we found our way back to via dei neri (my street) we chilled in front of the gelateria, studied up on some italiano for tomorrow’s quiz, and met christo’s new italian friends—roberta, georgia, massimo, and matias. they were so friendly, and hopefully will be our first real italian friends!! they spoke italian to us the whole time and surprisingly we understood it very well! excitingggg! i think we’re having dinner with them on monday night. woo wooooo. ok sleepy time.
ciao mi amici!! xo
i am soooo jealous! it sounds like you are having the most amazing time. i can't waaaait to eat gnocchi!
ReplyDeletefunny about patti smith--she was playing the santa monica pier last week! its a sign that i need to get out there...
miss u boo!
xoxo
lmm