When it Rains, it Pours in Florence

February 9, 2007

1. When it rains, it pours in Florence.
2. Our apartment is the noisiest place on this earth.
3. We cannot figure out where all the Italian women go out at night.
4. We went to a huge club, Universal Firenze, and determined that it may be the craziest place in Florence.

1. It has been raining here for the past couple days. Not only is the rain a downer, but it makes walking around in these cobble stone streets more difficult than it already is. Everyone seems to be sick here, and you can see why. People going out late, scantily clothed in a rainy city.

2. This apartment is driving me insane. Yesterday it sounded like there was a full air raid going on in my room, only because the people on the other side of the wall were drilling something hind my armoire. And the street outside with the constant truck traffic, you would think that we are in some huge metropolis. The clicking heels at 4am, the trucks, the honking, then vendors. It is virtually impossible to sleep here. Yesterday, I was woken up by someone pounding on either our door or another door on the street. This wasn’t just like one or two knocks, this was full out pounding for a good 10 minutes. It was quite a shock to the system being scarred stiff like that at 7am, because there would be no way in hell that I would get up to answer that door. It turned out to be someone down the street, but it sounded like it was ours, I guess that goes to the fact that this building has paper thin walls. OOOH! And we kind of got a noise citation from Leonardo. We sprayed protectant leather stuff on our boots and put them in the bathroom with the fan on. Evidently, our neighbor didn’t like the fact that the fan made so much noise, that she called Leonardo.

3. We still have not found where all the Italian women go out at night. We have found all walks of the Italian men, and where they hang out, but the Italian women remain a mystery.

4. Last night we went to a club called Universal Firenze, which was the biggest club that I have seen so far in Florence. It looked like it was something right out of Eurotrip, which sounds like a very American thing to say, but oh well. We actually met three girls from Holland at the welcome dinner earlier in the night who went out with us. Universale is across the Arno, which when we asked about it wasn’t that far, until we started walking in the rain. It must have taken a good half hour to walk there. When we got there, there were the very professional bouncers at the door and a coat check that cost three euro. The clubs here are interesting, because they give you a credit card when you walk in and you charge all your drinks on the card and pay at then end. Of all the places that we have been so far that was by far the most diverse crowd. There were people from every country there last night. It is going to take a good long time to get used to the way the European men dance, because its not in the states where they are looking to dance with they girls. The will dance in groups just like the girls, but never really make an effort to go up and dance with a girl, which I have to say is kind of a bummer. Or they will crowd around a group or girls who are dancing, and one will go out on a limb and try to infiltrate the female group, try to dance with a girl, get rejected, only to be replaced by another man who doesn’t speak English and usually doesn’t understand the body language that it screaming, get off me you skeezy haired, pawing beast. And meeting people is a completely different game at places like this too. People will come up to you and try at least three different languages to see if you respond to any of them. And then proceed to try and hit on you in whatever broken language they choose. And another note on Universale, it was mostly techno, and I do not like techno. It was definitely a European Rave last night. And then we walked home, which took and hour, again in the pouring rain, which sucked.

-I have been discussing this with the girls, and we have all met our fair share of bitchy girls here, girls that are here with daddy’s credit card, who really have no interest in absorbing the culture, and just want to be able to say that they spent a semester in Florence. People are not outwardly friendly in my classes. I feel like I’m making a special effort in classes to say hello to people, and yes, some people are very nice, but others, they really are just not that quality. And it seems like a lot of people are running into this problem. I know that it is the first week, and that it wouldn’t be a good thing to get frustrated, but people are just not as friendly as I had hoped. I’m finding that a lot of people came in large groups from their home schools, and aren’t really that interested, at least yet, in branching out to meet other people. This is not saying that I haven’t met some very nice people, because I have, but I guess that time will tell.

-Last night we went to LDM’s welcome dinner for the students. I was expecting the school to take us to some smaller restaurant, but we went to the restaurant at the Hotel Ambasiodori, which is across the street from the school. We were seated in an enormous, beautiful dinning room and given the royal treatment last night. Large round tables, with complete place settings and beautiful dishes. A three course meal, complete with wine and coffee. And the funny thing was, is that the thing that we were most excited about it the fact that we got to eat turkey, the only source of meat that I’ve had in the past couple days.

Today is our free day, and it has finally stopped raining, although my faith in the weather here in Florence is on a very tight wire right now. Sleep this morning was hardly an option, even though we got back into the apartment at 3 from the club. Again..the noise. I think that I will go book shopping for my classes and birthday outfit shopping around town. Next weekend is birthday weekend!!

And we are going to Venice over the weekend. It is the beginning of Carnivale and all Europe is going to be there.