Getting things up to date

21 June, 2:09am

Well, I would have liked to have been a bit better about keeping up with this blog but it's been difficult. Most of our free time has been planned or been spent doing things with each other. But tonight I'm not so sleepy that I can't write a bit before bed, so let's see if I can catch up.

So, I left things off in Amsterdam. The flight to Milan was interesting. We flew over the Swiss Alps, directly over Zurich, which was beautiful. I stayed awake to watch the scenery pass, and the air pressure was intense. Not only my ears but all along my nose. It didn't die down until we'd landed in Milan and it got surprisingly painful. But we were there. In Italy. So I got off the plane and headed to the luggage claim and waited about five minutes. I wanted to check and see what time it was so I reached for my cellphone....which was gone.

At this time I soon realized that my phone, which has a tendency to fall out of my pockets, must have fallen out into the plane. Problem was, there weren't many signs telling me how to get back to where my plane had disembarked. There were no arrival screens, only departure. I blindly guessed where I had been before, and managed to figure out which plane it was based on the color scheme. I pushed my way through some electric doors that didn't want to open and found the plane crew, and it was the right one. They let me look, and sure enough my phone had fallen between two seat cushions. I still can't believe how lucky I was to find it.

So I returned and the baggage claim and the bags still hadn't come. So I took a look at the public transportation information. It appeared that there was a train to Milano Centrale, which was the station I needed to go to in order to catch the train to Florence. I got my ticket, found the train, I was feeling pretty savvy. There train ride was about 30 minutes, and I arrived at the station, Cadorno, at around 1:30pm. I was hoping to catch the 2pm train to Florence, but I soon realized that this was the wrong station. In fact the sign had said there was a train to central Milan, not "Milano Centrale" the station. I later found out there was a bus shuttle to that station.

My only course of action short of getting a taxi (which, from what I've heard from others, would have cost me 20-40 Euros depending, whereas the train was 7) was to take the subway. Now, I lived in New York for a year, and I mastered the subways there pretty easily. But the Milano subway stumped me. They have a system where you pay by the distance, not per ride, and you must figure out which buttons to press on a bafflingly complex machine in Italian. Luckily for me, a very nice Pakistani man who spoke good English came to my rescue. He hit the buttons, I put in a Euro. He showed me to the green line and I waited. Then I got in, with three giant bags, to a crowded subway car, smacking into the occasional person and embarrassingly mumbling "scusi."

But somehow I made it. I got to Milano Centrale in time to get the 3pm train to Florence. That was simple thanks to automated ticket systems in 6 languages. I did accidentally get into the first class section before realizing I had a seat assignment, and I was politely kicked out. I drug my huge suitcases and eventually found my seat and made it safely to Florence with about 15 minutes to spare.

In Florence I couldn't get my ticket to San Giovanni, but I made it to McDonald's ok. Upon entering, I was less politely refused entry by an annoyed manager who said, I think, that my bags were too large. I told him in halting Italian that I did not speak Italian, but he repeated himself and made gesticulations for too big, so I left. Outside, dejected, I figured I would run into someone even though I couldn't get in, and I found someone else outside, and eventually they came out and all was fine. I got my ticket and we all made it safely to San Giovanni.

Once there, as I noted previously, Adrian Kiger had us all come out for dinner and wine, and we had a great time bonding together. Everyone here is pretty nice and no tensions have yet arisen. I was in a room on my own in an apartment with two girls, one from Philadelphia and one from Florida. In general everyone is from WVU, except three girls from Philly, Brittany, my Florida roomate, and Jessie, who was born in WV but goes to school elsewhere, though her parents still live there.

So today we had our first session of Italian, which was very long, but generally pretty fun. Our teacher barely speaks English although Adrian is there to help us, and even though it's much faster than general English classes, it's not too fast to comprehend easily. We had a lunch break at the same restaurant on the Piazza as the night before, and had some excellent bruschetta. Then we were given a tour of San Giovanni Valdarno, which is quite old dating back to about the 13th century and has a beautiful church almost as old. It's situated around one very large piazza where we spend most of our time.

Following the little tour, we went back for a little more Italian instruction and then had a short break. I took a nap, since I was exhausted. Then we met in the piazza and went to a bus. From there we journeyed into the Tuscan countryside, to Chianti country. On the way we passed many gorgeous views and, our driver assured us, Sting's house in Italy. We got a tour of a winery, some excellent wine samples and a proper class on how to sample and drink wine, which was quite fun. There was a very good blush wine, lots of reds, which I normally don't care so much for, and at the end either some grappa or sweet wine liquor. Grappa and the liquor are both alcohol derived from the grape skins and much more potent than wine itself, more like vodka or whiskey in alcohol levels. The sweet wine tasted amazing despite the alcohol level. Sweet and honeylike, a little like Melomel. I bought some, and a very cheap bottle of the blush, to take home. Everyone was a bit sauced for the ride back, and we were all in great spirits when George, one of the students from WVU, said he had bought enough wine for us all to have some tonight.

We got home and I couldn't get into my apartment because I have no key and my roomates had gone shopping, so I just found some people and attempted to go to the party, which was at Ferrai's (another WVU student). We had some trouble getting up to her place, but once we did we had a great time drinking on their balcony. Eventually everyone came by, but the girls from Philly were yelling down to Italian boys and some of them came up. It was fine to be meeting them but the circumstances were a bit strange. Eventually a bunch of us went downstairs and ordered some pasta, and the three Philly girls had caused quite a stir. There must not be a lot of girls coming round San Giovanni, or Italian women must love Americans. Anyway, much drama ensued, and people became upset that they had ordered gnocchi and instead got bowtie pasta. The waiter barely spoke English but he was so nice, and had sung karaoke for us only last night. We barely spoke English but had met a guy originally from Brooklyn who spoke English and Italian both, and kept badmouthing the restaurant. Eventually Adrian came and smoothed things over.

We mulled about and talked about doing something else, but in the end most people left and a few people and I stayed. We talked some to one Italian who spoke decent English and our Brooklyn friend, Jake. We talked until 2am when someone spilled a beer on Brittany and we took it as a symbol we should get to bed. That was almost an hour ago and I'm done! I feel like I've left out so much but there's only so much time to write and your attention spans probably dwindled long ago.

My problem now is they never give us time to go to the internet cafe, but I will try tomorrow. We're going to Florence so I don't know if I'll be able to or not, but we'll see. For now I need to catch up on some sleep.