I Forgot I Had This!!

Alright folks, now seeing as the last one of these left off at my arriving in Florence, this is a bit of a gap that I'm creating in my experiences here, so I'm going to do my best to sum up the past month and few days in what is undoubtedly the greatest understatement in the history of mankind:

• Florence. is. amazing.

Seriously, from the moment I got to this city to the very second that finds me tapping the keyboard, I can completely and honestly say that I have been just as, if not more than, happy and comfortable here I would be back home. In my creative writing class I've listened to works by my classmates that talk about their feelings of homesickness, alienation in a foreign country, or just plain culture shock.  I expected at least a small amount of one of these things, but nothing happened. I just clicked. Italy was like the missing puzzle piece for my life.  

I fell into a daily routine here like I never have before, getting a cappuccino on the way to class, getting a panino con bollito for lunch, stopping at the market to buy dinner.  I can entirely see myself doing this for the next 50-60 years if I didn't have that lovely ball and chain that is America on my ankle.  

Since this is technically school, I guess I'll run down the dreaded class list for you....

• Creative Writing: Surprisingly, I thought Italy would give me inspiration, but it's actually taking it away (hence my not keeping up with this). My subconscious is more interested on seeing and experiencing the city than writing about it, and I can't say I don't consciously agree. 
• Music and Film: Very cool actually, but I can't take it when someone pauses Casablanca every 2 seconds to explain something..a quality film shouldn't be stopped, it's like eating a gourmet meal cold...
• Masters of Italian Cinema: Why did I do this, I'm drowning in a sea of film snobs looking into every single detail...."No I don't know what that one pebble symbolizes, I'm just here to enjoy the effing movie!!" 
• WWII History: First day in class I watched a video where Hitler and Mussolini rode through a parade on the street right outside my classroom window...Very cool/weird/interesting/surreal
• Italian: A bit self explanatory, ehh?...You learn more on the street or in a market than you ever do in a classroom.

OK......thats a bit of a brief vignette into my Florentine life, if you want a excerpt of how I think the Ponte Vecchio is sooooo beautiful, or the Duomo is sooooooo amazing, there's plenty of those types of blogs around.....I've got bigger arancini to fry

Arrival

Well people of the Americas, you've found me writing a second post on this blog thing, so YAY! I'm actually not quitting something semi immediately...

The first post I did ended up being almost a novel, and that never even reached the arrival in Europe.

To sum up the rest of the plane journey:
        Spent the gray hours in Frankfurt, then got driven about 2 miles across the tarmac by a very unsmiling German. (Not helping the cold and unfriendly stereotype here, Fritz)
        Boarded a very tiny Luftwaffe (oops, I totally mean Lufthansa) jet with a busload of Americans from my program and set off above the German countryside. Once again, WWII imaginations were buzzing through my head, and I had to convince my self that if I was a B-17 tail gunner fighting off German planes, I probably wouldn't be eating a mini-bowl of German cereal and coping with a middle-aged Danish man snoring in my ear.
        Looked up from the book I was reading at one point to see dawn over the Alps.  That was probably one of the coolest sights in my life.  Huge, majestic peaks, snow untouched by mankind, dotted here and there with tiny little hamlets. My family in Italy had existed at the foothills of the Alps, on the outskirts of the city of Verona, and I had grown up with stories of life in the mountains and sights of old postcards and placards saying "Saluti dalla Montagna" decorated with little embroidered Edelweiss, the flower that is considered the symbol of the Alps...Anyway enough of that stuff. What I'm trying to say was it was pretty cool.
         Had a pretty cinematic moment where the plane spent the entire journey through Italy in and above the clouds, so I never got a view of the continent. Then, as the pilot makes the descent into Florence, The cloud cover breaks, and I get this amazing view of green hills grid-marked with vineyards and olive groves and dotted with little red-roofed houses. Alright Italy, I'm impressed.

So, quick bus ride later, end up at the Gran Baglioni Hotel in the old section of Florence.  BOOM, this.hotel.is.effing.opulent.  Seriously, the door was opened by a old-school, impassive doorman. I'm not sure what type of card game the owners of this place were playing, but they lost a major bet, that is literally the only way that my program got us bunked in this place. Spent a couple of lovely days there, eating breakfast and dinner in the rooftop dining room.  Funny, the waiters don't seem pleased to see hundreds of American college students demanding cornflakes as opposed to the typical businessmen and royalty (I assume).

............Alright readers, here's the deal, it is currently three weeks since I arrived, and I only just decided to  continue this blogthingorwhatever.....going to condense the time in between....I've got a bottle of wine next to the laptop that says I can do it.....or it's just saying "Drinkkkkkkk Meeeeeee"

...Yea, it's the latter
       

Take German Efficiency To Get To Italian Luxury

Figured I'd satisfy the curiosity my ego assures me you all have about my current semester studying abroad in Florence.  If you're not curious, perhaps you should see a movie, go out to dinner, or fall off a cliff.

Right then, Act I: The Journey.
         A week ago today I got to JFK airport in NYC, which gave my parting views of America some wonderful sights and sounds (I think I'll miss you most of all, Tony's Cheap Bail Bond Service). Walked into the Lufthansa terminal with my family to check my bags and whatnot...At this point the casual reader might wonder why I'm taking the German airline to a decidedly un-Germanic location. Well dearest reader, taking the same airline as the country that I'm flying to would be simple, and make perfect sense, two things that every online airline ticket purchasing website has dedicated its entire existence against. Successfully checked my baggage, barring some extra fee that those stingy Krauts saw fit to drop on me. (To any reader of German heritage who is offended by my use of "Kraut", let me assure you I do indeed love your pickled cabbage)
        Sitting in the terminal food court with my family, I think some of that famous American "Melting-Pot" imagery is messing with me; the terminal is German, the food courts are Asian (One's called "Wok and Roll", I simultaneously found that funny, and wanted to murder the person who thought of the stupidest pun in life) the music playing is some sort of faux-Marley reggae ("Almost as rasta as the origional!" No thank you Jamaicaman) and I'm surrounded by the voices of Swedes and Italians....
        Spent some last few fun minutes with my family, my brother made every attempt to get in the proper quota of insults to last me the flight. Went to the bookstore to grab an issue of the DuPont Auto Registry, which is basically Craigslist for the uber-rich. I get one every time I'm at the airport, just so I can spend the flight looking at adds that say "1956 Roll-Royce Silver Phantom, Never been driven in bad weather, a complete steal at $200,000!! No tire-kickers or wishy-washes"....At least they can pay people to correct their typos before printing.
          Anyways, I go ahead to the wonderfully cheerful government screening area to play a quick game of "Will I Get Groped By TSA Agent Today?"  Bid my farewells to the family, then stood in line five feet away from them for 20 minutes. Since we already said goodbye, I just smiled politely and whistled impatiently.... Looking around the line, I realize I'm the one white boy in a sea of Bhutan(an?) families on their way home to Bhutan,  a country which I'm pretty sure exists. It seems that these Bhutanians(?) sure do love having children, and then putting their children in large, overtly complicated strollers, two of which are conveniently located to the front and rear of this traveler. Looking over at my parents, I'm frantically making eye motions to try to alert them to the fact that the Bhutanese (I give up) mother behind me is quietly but determinedly trying to embed the stroller into my calves. I'm going to chalk it down to a common Bhutanic (F-you Bhutan) greeting. My mother of course remains oblivious to the silent torture of the lower six inches of her sons legs and waves cheerfully goodbye.
           While all of this is going on the mother in front of me was clearly paid by some enemy of mine to take as long as physically possible to go through a goddamn bag check. She's trying to understand the very easy hand signals of the security folks motioning to put her bag in bin.(Going to start screaming) Meanwhile her kid is wandering around, crawling through the X-ray machine like this is some adorable family movie. I don't hate all kids, just the ones in my immediate area.
            Made it to the gate in time, my head full of resolves never to go to Bhutan.   Welcomed on board the flight, settled in. The guy next to me is reading a biography on Slash and a German toddler is deutsch-screaming behind me. Still, I'm on my way.