Starting Anew.

In order to fill you in properly, I must backtrack a few days. I will first share with you the fact that I was having an incredibly lovely weekend until Sunday around noon.

Friday night we went out for aperitivi with Alessio and his friends (our Italian friends/babysitters who we met through Giovanna). We got all dressed up (as it was Victoria’s birthday) and we enjoyed an evening of snacking and sipping some fancy drinks. We then wandered over to Twice, a somewhat touristy and overpriced yet still enjoyable discoteca. We danced our bums off all night and meandered home.

Saturday morning, we went to Pistoia, as I explained a few posts ago (you can see Giovanna and I chatting at the train station station. Saturday night we went out to an fantastic bar called Das Brumeister (or something along those lines) – by far the best bar I have been to so far (I think I shared this with you already?).

Anyway. Long story short… I woke up Sunday morning in a jolly good mood because I had slept a solid and restful 8 hours in my bed, in my new clean, bed-bug free room and I was about to head out to an artisanal market on the street where Giovanna lives.

Or not.

Because as I was standing up to hop in the shower, something scuttled out from under my blankets.

Undoubtedly a bedbug. Which I tried to catch, yet I failed and therefore it escaped. No worries though, because in the next 10 minutes I found 5 more through my sobs. I ran up to Ali’s room in tears, and called Giovanna who arrived within 30 minutes.

The next 10 hours are somewhat of a blur but what remains most clearly in my mind is that I was devastated, pissed, soggy with tears, and often found myself sitting on Giovanna’s lap being rocked, or walking around the streets of Florence holding her hand and my stuffed cat. Embarrassing. But so wonderfully 

comforting.

By 2pm, Giovanna had found me another family. A perfect family. That lives on a perfect street. In a perfect house. A family with 11-year-olf twin boys named Filippo and Lorenzo and the sweetest young mother and father Florence has ever seen. They live in a brand new apartment complex, complete with indoor courtyard area, an electric fireplace, a loft, a completely modern kitchen and every Disney movie you could ever want to watch in Italian.

After meeting this picture perfect family, Giovanna whisked me away to her house where she made me shower and then wear her white terrycloth bathrobe while we washed enough of my clothing to last a few days and steamed my backpack and purse. God forbid I bring bedbugs into this incredible new house.

After dining out with Giovanna, Julie and Ali, I “moved in” to my new family (mind you I only had a backpack with little clothing and my school supplies…). My new family picked me up at Giovanna’s house and I was privileged enough to pile into the backseat of the car between the twins. It was perfect.

Yesterday morning we started our official classes – I had Italian Literature, History of Costume and Fashion and Stylistics. Today I had Literature and Art History. So far everything seems pretty great, although the amount of reading we have in Italian is feeling somewhat overwhelming at this point.

Today as I was walking to class, I realized that I am lucky enough to pass the Botanical Gardens of the Museum of Natural History every day on my walk to and from the sede. Naturally, Alayna (whose birthday was today!) and I decided to check it out after class today. The woman at the door let us pay the reduced price because we were so bummed when we learned that our “Friends of the Uffizi” card didn’t work at the garden. Of course, in true Italian style, this particular botanical garden is NOTHING like those in the States – it was disorganized, the map was completely incorrect, and most of the greenhouses were either completely empty, closed for some reason or another, or extremely dirty and full of moss. Even so, there were trees and grass and in the cool air, it smelled like home (speaking of which – what is with the SNOW in Vermont already? And yes that is indeed a pomegranate tree!!!)

Yet another miraculous part of today was the fact that as we were sitting in Literature, we realized there was some kind of band playing in Piazza della Signoria right outside our window. No big deal. Just some incredible, very Italian-sounding band. Rocking out. In a piazza where the Medici family used to chill. Whatevs.

Less than 30 minutes later, I was sitting on the steps of a church in the center of Florence with Alayna, Breana, Christine and Anna, munching some paninis and drinking some (AMAZING) lemon soda, and, again no big deal, someone started singing very traditional religious church music inside the church. In the middle of day, not during any service, but just because. These are the things that make Florence so divine. Literally.

The only thing left to do before I can be completely settled in this new house is to acquire the rest of my belongings from Luciana’s, dry everything, steam what can’t be put in the dryer, including my luggage, and somehow get it all over it from the other side of town. No need to fret though because this afternoon Monica and Giovanna decided that they are going to do it themselves, and leave me at the sede to relax. Yes, that is indeed correct – they want to go bag up all of my belongings, get them dried, steam my luggage and repack it all and send it to me at my new house because they a) don’t want me to be under and more stress and chaos and b) they don’t want me to feel uncomfortable around Luciana (who continues to blame all of this on me personally… I think not!). They said that next week they would take Ali, Julie and I out to coffee with Luciana so that feelings can settle and we can all move on. I highly doubt there are two greater women in this world. Thank you….

On that note, I do believe it is time to go do some reason about the history of Italian fashion! Stay tuned for more updates!

Baci e abbracci a tutti!

P.S. Many pictures on Facebook!!!