Administration & Exploration - Sept 2

 So I woke up today to a rather startling and hopelessly loud buzzing sound coming from the wall of our room. I then covered my ears for like 7 minutes until we figured out how to make it stop. Apparently the pull cord in our shower makes an evil sound. So we don’t touch it now. Since I’m up I might as well take this chance to write about my room which I was somewhat less than descriptive about yesterday. So it is on like a third or fourth story level in the back corner of the villa. Unlike many other bedrooms here it looks like this one may have actually been designed to be a bedroom (albeit a smallish one for the richness of the people who built this place). When  you come in there are three beds, 2 dressers and a wardrobe for hanging clothes. We also have drawers under our beds, so that even with three to this room there is plenty of space for everything.  We also have our own bathroom which is a luxury that (so far) we alone have. Most people share with bathrooms in their hall. We also have a ceiling fan that some people don’t have and a magnificent view of Italian rooftops and some statues and a courtyard. On the whole I think I’m pretty lucky with my rooming situation.

The Villa Corsi-Salviati where I’m staying is not in Florence proper, but rather a small town called Sesto Fiorentino six Roman miles outside of Florence city center. The villa belongs to the Giucciardini family and was built back in 1480.

Much of the inside has been modernized and retro-fitted to accommodate students which leads to rooms that once belonged to the kitchen staff or served as living rooms.  The inside walls of many rooms are covered in beautiful frescoes while the outside is ornately decorated with scores of marble, stone, iron, and bronze statues as well as a beautiful garden surrounded by a 10 foot tall wall of alternating stone pillars and iron bars.

After waking up I operated in British time for a bit and was, therefore, late for breakfast. After a rushed breakfast I headed with all the other 60 or so students to a room where we were given an introduction to the program, the villa, and the area in general. We also met our teachers who introduced themselves and their classes. After this meeting we reassembled to go through an hour or so of extensive paperwork. I won’t bore you or myself by recounting the details but let’s just say I am now really familiar with my name and the address of this villa.

After this meeting a large group went to Helen’s office to pick up phones. I got a phone for 20 Euro and will use a pay as you go plan. Then we went to lunch.

Lunch get’s its own paragraph because it was that great. We started with a tomato soup and it was THE BEST SOUP I HAVE EVER HAD. It was even better than the butternut squash soup we usually have around the holidays. I had to full bowls and every bite was amazing. It was somehow sooooo superior to normal tomato soup. I must find out how it is done. We also had some roast beefish stuff, seasoned eggplant, and delicious fried potato pieces.

After lunch I headed with my friends Laura and Ali and several new friends/classmates to the nearby market called Esselunga. There we did some necessary errands like fetching shampoo and turning in emergency insurance forms. We dropped our things off at the villa then Laura, Ali, and I headed into the center of Sesto to do some more errands at an electronic appliance store, a copy shop, and a café. Ali and I who both have Italian experience got a chance to put our language use to the test as we navigated through the stores.  We found Sesto to be a really nice small, but modern and convenient town. Though the town has many medieval buildings the stores and conveniences were all up to par.

We got back just in time for dinner and had left over soup (!!!!) and followed it up with some Pasta Pomodoro (tomato) which was basically penne pasta with a really good tomato sauce. After dinner I headed into town with my roommates Luigi and Jin. We walked around with no particular goal, but to get to know the town. We grabbed some gelato at a nearby place. I had nutella and strawberry(very good). Then we headed to a bar where we each got a glass of wine and sat outside by the street and chatted. It was a very nice and Italian evening. After drinks we headed toward Piazza Vittorio Veneto where they were beginning a local comedy. They first started with a video and Luigi and I tried to practice our Italian to a fair degree of success. As the play began it started to sprinkle and we feared it would rain, but it resided quickly.  The show finally started with an opera-ish song sung by a woman in a maid costume. She was good, but unfortunately shortly after her song another woman had technical difficulties with her mic and the show was stalled for a while. We waited for as long as we could stand (literally since when we arrived there was standing room only) then headed back to the villa for the night.