Greetings from…

Florence!!

            We’re now two weeks in to classes, so I suppose it is an appropriate time to sum them all up. Mondays and Wednesdays are pretty intense for me, with 7 hours straight of class. They don’t even schedule time between classes to get from one to another, so I have City & Its Edges (aka urban design) from 9-12 in the design studio, and then Italian at 12 in SACI a 5 minute walk away, and then back to the studio at 1 for another 3 hour design studio.  It’s intense, and I am never on time.  However, on Tuesdays I have no class, and Thursdays I only have Italian 12-1, so it evens out.  Friday I have Italian and European Architecture Seminar which is 1-4.  I found out only Italian and architecture classes meet on Fridays- lucky me. Alright, so here’s the break down on classes:

The City & Its Edges

This is our studio class, and it’s 9 other Northeastern kids, which rocks.  The project is exactly what I did last semester in studio 2, where we are redesigning a portion of the city for the first half the semester, and then for the second half we have to choose one building to concentrate on the architectural aspect of.  I feel really comfortable with this concept since it’s what I did last semester, and I like that.  We’re taking a different approach however, and the teacher – Alessandro- has a book with 7 steps to the urban design which we are following step by step. It makes it really simple and easy, taking it all one baby step at a time, which is great because it means not too much work right now, and there’s lots of traveling to come, so its great!  We went on a site visit one day, and since the focus is on city edges, this site is on the outside of the old Florence city walls, not in the historic district, which is an “edge” of the city.  We walked for all three hours in rainy weather to the most awful part of Florence where prostitution flourishes and there was plenty of evidence of this.  On the up side, it means that any planned development as a design idea can only improve the area!

Italian

This is a cool class.  Its all girls and some are kind of quiet, but it’s easy to learn the language and the teacher is nice and seems very pleased with us.  It’s pretty much exactly what I expected.

Environmental Design

At Northeastern, this isn’t considered a design studio, but here it is.  Our first assignment was looking through magazines, to find examples of European architecture, either residential or small projects, that we like, and choosing one word to describe what we like about it, and assembling 6 of these projects into a presentation. Ea-sy! What is better than flipping through magazines to find buildings you like??  Of course, I ended up having a hard time finding European architects I liked- I was so focused on non-united States architects I had several projects in south America and Asia and I had to look harder, but I really learned a lot about what I like in architecture from the project and it was really great.  Our teacher, Paola, seems very into educating us on European architecture, which I like a lot.  We gave our presentations today and I was a little apprehensive, but things were very relaxed and it went over very well.  The main project for the class is going to be to design a house, based on environmental design, obviously.  We were joking around today because Andrew pointed out that he had never designed a house; we’ve all done about 7 museums and 5 libraries, but no residences, so this is something new!

European Architecture Seminar

This is the lecture course, with all the architecture kids.  It’s a three hour solid block of lecture on architecture.  The teacher is nice, but not necessarily the most flavorful man, and the two classes we have had are not the most lively.  Although, this past week, half the class was in Rome on a field trip, but we looked at a few projects and out of the 3 hours of class, had a very interesting debate/conversation for about 40 min.  We’re going to learn all about contemporary European architecture.  Already we’re learning a lot of new names, between Marco- this class’s teacher- and Paola, who work together and like to reference a lot of the same architects and their projects.

Everyday life…

Loren and I had a wonderful experience baking a cake for Andrew’s birthday.  I went to the grocery store to buy cake mix and ingredients and I picked up one that seemed the most normal called “margherita” cake.  So I was thinking, “Yellow cake”?  “Lemon cake”?  Then two hours later…  “Pound cake”??  Reading the instructions in Italian was an adventure.  We took like 20 minutes just reading the back of the box and consulting a dictionary and our own cake-baking knowledge to get it figured out.  And then Loren’s over dial doesn’t have markings, so we had to geusstimate the right temperature. It was fun.  Turned out to be lemon cake.  I made chocolate frosting from scratch, and with no recipe either. I just kind of made it up, since I do have a lot of cake baking/decorating experience, and it came out really well, so I was uber proud of myself.

Fiesole!!

            Fiesole is my favorite place I have ever been to, no exaggeration. We went up on Sunday last weekend and it was beautiful.  A 20 minute bus ride outside of Florence, the little hillside town was so picturesque and quaint, and the views of Firenze were amazing!!  We climbed up to a monastery at the top of the hill, all with fantastic views along the way, and it was the most incredible little place.  Hiking back down the other side we stopped in the Fiesole cemetery which is the most peaceful beautiful cemetery ever. The graves are all decorated, every one with flowers and a candle and a picture of the person buried there, and its really an incredible celebration of the lives of these people, rather than a macabre remembrance of them through death.  We ate lunch al fresco (hehe) at a café in the town center and then got gelato at another little place.  Afterwards we went into the roman ruins.  We played in the amphitheatre and got to explore this site of excavation of old roman baths and whatnot.  There’s a museum too with all these artifacts retrieved form the site. It was really cool.  We went back up to the monastery again at the end of the day because another person joined up with us after lunch, so we went back up and were able to go in the church, which was in the middle of Mass when we were there in the morning.  It was beautiful!  We watched the sun set form the top of the hill in Fiesole over the city of Florence and the Duomo in the distance.  Pictures do not do it justice.  Anyone who comes to visit me is going to Fiesole!

Pisa!!

On Sunday we made a day trip to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.  The weather was abysmal.  We had heard there really wasn’t much in Pisa aside from the Tower and the Cathedral, so we were prepared for this.  I was in awe of it all, although some of our group were rather blasé about the whole thing.  I found it all incredible.  That thing leans even more in person than it does in any picture! Of course we took all the stupid touristy pictures, holding up the tower, etc. Check my website soon- I haven’t gotten around to sorting through my Pisa pics yet cause I took over a 100, but I will.  The cathedral was absolutely amazing.  I was in complete wonder and awe.  It was very moving in a religious way.  And I thought it was amazing to be touching the wall of the Pisa cathedral too, just for the pure incredulity of that.  It was a quick 1 hour train ride from Pisa to Florence, and it was our first experience taking the trains, and a very smooth and easy one.  This is encouraging since we have many big trips planned.

Hello Everyone!!  Or should I say, Ciao!

Florence is wonderful.  It’s amazing and I love being here!  Quick, grab a pee break and a glass of water, take the phone off the hook, and pull up a comfortable chair…this is a doozy.  If you cannot devote a large chuck of time right now to read all of this, please, save it and come back when you have time to devote to me :-) 

Our Arrival

We flew in from Frankfurt on Wednesday after a lovely 5 hour lay-over. Good times bonding in the airport- haha.  We all made plans to meet at the middle of the Ponte Vecchio at 3 pm on the day we arrived tough, having been previously warned that once you arrive at the airport SACI send you off in a cab to your apartment and you have no way to get into contact with the other people you came with unless you make plans.  So upon our arrival we were corralled through the baggage claim into taxi cabs where the driver spoke in Italian and I was with another random girl who lives near me.  The cab driver was really friendly and I tried my best to understand him and respond. He pointed out where school and the train station were on the way.  I got dumped on the street outside of my apartment- he pulled right up on the sidewalk!- and had to figure out which of my 4 keys opened what door, and what apartment was mine…let’s just say it was a bit of a fiasco, but I managed alright.

My Apartment

My place is amazing!  By Northeastern standards, there would be 24 people living in this apartment!  We have a decent sized living area with a ghetto couch and a desk and chair and a little TV that gets 3 stations- two of which are the same home shopping network.  There’s a nice kitchen that has big frosted glass sliding doors to separate it from the living room, and I think they’re awesome even though we will probably never use them.  From the big arched window in the kitchen you can see the campanile of the Duomo, and at night it’s the only lit up thing in the sky you can see from the window and it’s AWESOME.  Off of the living room are two little hallways- one on either end, and they each have a bathroom and bedrooms.  I share a double room that is huge, and the other side has two small singles, one off of the other.  My roommate’s name is Mallory (Mallory and Valerie haha very funny yes I know).  She's pretty cool.  She’s from Ohio and goes to Bowling Green.  She’s very mid-western sweet, and a little ditzy. She’s 19 and has never lived in an apartment and had to cook for herself and stuff before, which makes me feel kind of old and experienced.  The other two rooms are for our roommates Kevin and Sam. One’s from Cornwall CT and goes to Wheaton, and his girlfriend is also in Florence studying for the semester too, so they’re together, oh, all the time.  Kevin is from Lincoln Nebraska and goes to Drake and he hangs out with Mallory and I.  While they’re not the most colorful people, they’re decent roommates.

Wednesday I met up with my Northeastern group on the Ponte Vecchio.  We wandered around the city a little bit, led by this girl Emma whose from Northeastern and is doing her second semester at SACI, so she knows the city.  We all had things to take care of though, with moving in, so we disbanded after a little while, but it was reassuring to see everyone after being dumped in a strange city.

Thursday morning we had to be at SACI at 9 for orientation, which consisted of 3 hours of listening to the important people (dean, housing lady, etc) talk.  I think we had the rest of the afternoon free until 6 when there was a pasta dinner at the school.  Free meal?? We’re there! After the talk in the morning the whole NU group went together to get cell phones. The place was mobbed and it took all afternoon for the 9 of us who went together to get our phones. After the nice free meal- the first one we did not have to go find a random Italian place to buy some food at- we all went back to one of our apartments and hung out, and then went out for a little while. It was a good time.

Friday we had more orientation= walking tours of the city, the first one a 3 hour event with the longest winded history teacher ever. Seriously- the woman didn’t have to breathe. It was educational, but looong, and it was cold out after 3 hours.  And later that day we had a tour of the Design Studio, which we took a nice little walk to, followed by another grand tour around the city to learn where the post office is and some good groceries and pharmacies and stuff.  We lapped the city at least twice, and while it is much smaller than Boston, this was no small feat. And by the third day here we were all starting to feel our jet lag.  Also, I was starting to feel really comfortable that I was getting to know my little neighborhood of the city and the way to SACI really well, and then this tour just blew the whole city WAY open, making me realize there was so much more than I realized. Of course after the third time to these places I was beginning to pick up on their locations in relation to the places I know, and to put the pieces together well, so it’s not too intimidating.

Saturday the entire day was spent grocery shopping. Honest. I went around 11 after our room check to the mercato centrale with Brian and Loren (girl).  This place is like Haymarket in Boston where it’s all vendors who have fruits and vegetables to sell and its all great cheap farm stand prices. Except that this place is indoors and two floors, with all the meat and cheese places on the ground floor and produce upstairs.  It’s kind of creepy the meat you can get here.  There were cow tongues and hunks of meat with the rest of the leg attached with fur and a hoof and all!! And you could buy cheese by the…Giant block!!  I got a variety of things- some oranges and potatoes and bread and cheese and spices.  Loren and I were both glad we had done the Haymarket thing numerous times before so we had experience with the market atmosphere and had only to deal with the language thing mostly, which wasn’t too difficult.  We know our numbers and some basics and everyone is very helpful.  Afterwards, we disbanded briefly to drop off our food and reconvened to go to the grocery store to get things like pasta and cereal and milk- other basic essentials. You have no idea what a relief it was to buy groceries and know I had food. Last semester when April and I would say we had no food we might be really low but we at least had some croutons in the cupboard and coffee creamer ion the fridge, and a whole lot of meat in the freezer, but it was really unsettling that I had no food.  For each meal I had to tackle the language barrier and find a random place to buy something to eat and I was getting a little tired of paninis and it is not cheap!

I got home from the all day shopping event and Mallory and some girls she is friends with who are really nice were going to Mass in English at the Duomo, so I went with them.  I was a little afraid I might just drop dead when I saw the inside of the Duomo from its being so amazing, but I am here now to write this, so obviously I survived the experience. Mass was in one of the side chapels and its all so HUGE.  Honestly, I never realized the scale of everything here. My apartment- and ALL of them- must have at least 15’ ceilings!! And there is no normal sized door here. They are all Gianormous. Or freakishly short…I saw a few of those.  The scale of everything is just amazing, and something I totally did not expect. Well I think a little I did expect it, but I had no real idea of it.  We did church and then I went with all of them back to one of their apartments to have a big pasta dinner which was amazing and pretty much my first real meal in Italy. It was great and these girls are really nice and I think I can be good friends with them while I am here.  I get torn between who to spend time with though.  I mentioned to the Architecture kids that I was probably going on a walk across the arno into the countryside with these other girls today and I was like “I know this trip is all about us bonding and becoming great friends, but I kind of feel the need to have other friends too and they’re really nice girls!”  That is what I ended up doing today. We walked across the Arno River and up to San Miniato- this church up on top of a hill.  The full name is actually San Miniato alle Monte I think.  They do Gregorian chants there in the evenings at 5 and I really want to go sometime. We all took a lot of pictures looking out over Florence because the view was phenomenal as we continued to climb up this mountain. 

Contact Me

There is limited internet accessibility here, obviously, but send me email, I miss you all!!

My phone number, to call from the states, is 01139 348 1510040. All incoming calls are free, so call me! (especially if I gave you a phone card- I expect my full 7 minutes from you!)

You can send me mail too :-D  Our mail is supposed to be sent to SACI - the address is: 

Via Sant’Antonino 11

Florence, Italy 50123