Another Roommate...What?

6-20-07

When Jessie and I first moved into our apartment, our landlord briefly mentioned that another girl would be living with us. She has been going to our school in Florence for about a year to study fashion design and she is Italian. We were excited to meet this girl, but she never showed up the entire first week we were here. She did however manage to leave a refrigerator full of pasta, ham, cheese, and Coke, which started to rot, mold and smell within a few days. Fantastic. She also knew about a broken window in our living room and called a handyman to come fix it. How did she know about the window? We have never seen her in the apartment. Things were starting to get creepy . To ease our freaked out minds, Jessie and I went through all the options as to why she was never around. Maybe she is on a school trip? Maybe she went back home? Maybe she does not actually live here? Or according to Jessie, maybe her dead body is locked behind the door right next to our room? Yeah, that one really helped. We decided that if she did not come home by Sunday, we were going to talk to our program directors at school and then go home and eat her delicious-looking tortellini in the frig. On Sunday, we spent the day going to the grocery store down the street, figuring out how to use an Italian laundry machine, walking around the neighborhood, reading girly books, and relaxing from our busy travel weekend. Still no sign of the roommate. We left the apartment for a couple hours only to return to our drying laundry rack moved from the living room to the front doorway, our dishes cleaned and put away, our bath mat missing, and a restocked frig. We wandered the apartment in silence completely confused. She was still nowhere to be found and her bedroom door was still locked. As we were cooking dinner, we kept a constant eye on the front door and finally, it opened. The mystery roommate was alive! Her name is Nicka and she lives in the south of Italy, but has been studying here for a little over a year. She speaks decent English, but I speak to her in Italian. I am hoping she will help me with my Italian homework, which I can never understand. The coolest part about Nicka is her fashion designs. Love it! She showed me her portfolio and pictures from a fashion show she put together. They are incredible. One collection was made entirely of straw. How about that? After watching her sew this adorable jacket the past two days, I am inspired to...go shopping :) Definitely not to learn how to sew, although that may come in handy. Our apartment has turned into a live Project Runway. Mom and Murph eat your hearts out!

Last night I met up with my two Kappa friends, Caitlin and Annie, from Purdue that have been studying here for 4 weeks and leave this Saturday. Sad. We went to a little bar called BeBop to listen to a Beetles cover band that performs every Tuesday night. They were hilarious. They also introduced me to Kebobs, which are very hard to explain but resemble a BLT wrap and are absolutely delicious, and these gold keys you wear on a long chain around your neck. Apparently, girls literally fight each other for these keys. Guess that means I will be getting some. Today we are climbing the Duomo together and eating at the Oile Shoppe, a place highly recommended by the Florence crew. My to-do list just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Cousin Kate comes today, but she seems to have a packed schedule while she is here. Hopefully, I can meet up with her.

Train Traveling

6-16-07

This weekend marked the very first travel weekend of our 6 week stay here in Italy. I decided to visit Venice, a city of romance, waterways, hungry pigeons, decorated masks, and gondola rides. All week I tried to convince people to come along and ended up traveling with about 20 Arcadia students. Out of those 20, only 5 of us really bonded with each other and have officially formed our own little clique. Jessie, Bryce, Mark, Julian, and I are a great traveling team. We purchased tickets together through a complicated machine at the train station the day before and managed to only screw up one ticket. Poor Bryce lost about 30 Euro at a malfunctioning machine and had to stand in another line for over an hour to retrieve the money. Keeping in mind our “traveling team” modo, Jessie and I left Bryce and the boys to figure out the dilemma on their own. We were hungry. The morning of the trip we reconvened at the station, grabbed our usual cappuccino and pastry, and headed off to Venice by 6:30 a.m. We switched trains in Bologna and tried to sneak into some first class seats. Traveling to Venice should be done in style, right? Well, apparently not because we got caught. Dang it! In Venice, we headed straight for San Marco, which is a huge plaza with museums, shopping, live music, cafes, and pigeons. Oh the pigeons. There were hundreds of pigeons hanging out in the plaza begging for food and well, tourists can pay to feed them. Being a tourist, I decided to pay the Euro and bravely walk toward the flapping, black mass. Instantly I was attacked! Pigeons flew in from all directions and latched on to every part of me they could. My hands, my arms, my head, my shoulders…the food was gone in milliseconds. It was the most terrifying thing I have ever done, but it was so worth it. Next on the itinerary was a gondola ride. Jessie and I were beyond excited about riding one, but the rest of our team was less than thrilled. They bought beverages to help them get through it. Seeing Venice from the water is definitely a memorable experience and one I will never forget. It was just like the movies with heart shaped seats and a real live gondola man. Our gondola man was pretty popular on the waterways and would yell “gobble, gobble” to every other gondola man we passed. They thought they were hilarious. We thought they were strange. Before we left Venice, we just had to stop and say hello to some very important people. Georgio Armani, Prada, and Gucci were all there and looking even more glamorous and expensive than ever. How I love them.

One more thing…our school took us on a day trip to Siena and San Gimignano this weekend as well. These medieval cities have lots of history and lots of character. We visited churches and museums in Siena, but loved just sitting in the plaza people watching and eating some of their famous treats. Yum! In San Gimignano we looked at old towers, watched two boys play soccer, and took scenic pictures. Although, I will say that Venice has been my favorite trip so far. Next weekend….Sicily.