Interim

So I came home the other day, and my totally wonderful host mother informed me that she needed to give my roommate and me bed making lessons.  Yeah, bed making lessons, as in lessons dealing with how to arrange sheets and blankets on our beds after we wake up, because she was concerned all the blankets would fall off our beds and we would freeze to death during the night.  How very . . . normal.

Because, in the end, the old lesson surfaces again and you see once more: it’s the little things that have meaning.  Hanging out in the hundred degree computer room with a smelly fridge, chatting about anything from schoolwork to pets, sitting in a rented room eating a turkey sandwich for the first time in months in the heart of a hill, jumping between buildings because you forgot your umbrella again, dashing down the center of the road with a group of other students at midnight, spending dinner sharing threats with your host brother about plots to stab and or shoot each other, walking past the man who plays violin for pennies on the street, or heading off to class with five other people, none of whom have more than a vague, general idea of where you’re going.  These are the things that will be remembered, the anecdotes told and retold at dinners throughout the years, the things that have meaning, perhaps only to you, but still meaning, more than the towering cathedrals, the breakthroughs in painting depth, the miracle working Madonnas.  These are the real miracles – that twenty-five students from a dozen schools could bond in a month, that you can’t imagine a time when you did not know them, that you can’t even comprehend leaving this place.  The memory of yesterday, perfection of today, horror of tomorrow, moments between the breathtaking . . . This is what matters.

Addaddendum to Basic Survival

#10 When using the elevator, realize that the four person limit relates to the fact that literally only four people can fit at a time. Also, there are two doors — an outer door connected to the floor that you’re on, and an inner door attached to the elevator itself. Be sure to close both of these, or the elevator will not work no matter how long you stand there stabbing the fourth floor button impatiently. Upon leaving the elevator — assuming that you have room to scramble around trying to figure out which of the two possible exit points will actually open — make sure you have again closed both the outer and the inner doors, or you will leave some poor soul, undoubtedly late for class, standing on the ground floor frantically pushing buttons for an elevator that will never arrive.

#11 It is quite warm in Florence, if not atrociously hot, and your host father and brothers will wander through the house without shirts on during these.  It can be a little disconcerting, but most of the time, you’re about to die of heat stroke yourself, and so don’t have the energy to notice.

#12 There is no need to study Italian before traveling to Italy.  All you need to do is take at least a year each of Spanish, French, German and Latin.  Between the first three, you should be able to piece together the entirety of Italian grammar, and between Latin, Spanish and French, Italian vocabulary becomes a matter of pronunciation.  Some confusion may, of course, still occur as to which language you need to draw a grammar point or vocab word from at which given moment, and you may at times find yourself speaking a weird conglomeration of Italian and Spanish that leaves everyone bewildered, or simply lose the ability to speak any language — this has happened relatively frequently to everyone on the program in the past month – but for the most part, all these confusions, somehow, always seem to get you farther toward the goal than you were before.

#13 When your Italian teacher assigns homework in the form of writing a paragraph about some topic or other, make sure what you have written is as ridiculous as possible and in no way fits into the framework of reality.  This way, when you are inevitably called on to read your butchery of the Italian language to the entire class, at least the teacher won’t be laughing just at you.

And, of course, always remember the two most important phrases in any language, I don’t know — No lo so — and I don’t understand – non capisco.

The Odysse of Permisso di Soggiorno

It all began one stifling hot Florentine September afternoon when twenty-five already overwhelmed college students were crammed into one Linguaviva classroom to be given to heart wrenching news: “Rules for Residence Permits (Permisso di Soggiorno) have CHANGED” (insert aggravated groan here). Fifty yards of paperwork — in Italian, and filled out en mass with one professor giving instructions no one could understand until the third repetition and another professor inserting her advice every sentence or so — later, we began to insanity of gathering all necessary documents and condensing them into one comprehensive list: passport, photocopies of passport, insurance statement, letter from Linguaviva, passport sized photos of . . . no wait, those are for later . . . proof of financial support — which apparently is just a photo copy of your credit card — and a few other things . . . no, that’s it . . . um . . . maybe . . . no, that’s all you need, for now. You’ll need the rest — including receipts from the post office — for when you go to get finger printed down at the police station later, (at this point, don’t ask me what “the rest” entails).  Oh yeah, and you’re going to have to pay fourteen euro for a stamp so they can mail everything about three blocks to the police station, and then twenty-nine for this, and another about forty more for that, and don’t blame ACM because no one knew about this until, well, right now.

Next step, of course, is to find a guinea pig — one daring soul who’s either too brave or too impatient to wait for things to be fermented and most deal with the entire thing immediately.  Having dispatched this student, we all sat back and waited from the inevitable entrance of a professor into our morning class saying “here’s what we learned . . .”: photo copies of everything, basically, since you’ll need the originals later, no need for the proof of financial support — save it for later.  Likewise, save the photos.  When you go to the post office, you’ll get four recites, one of which has the appointment date when you must appear at the police station and give them the remaining paperwork.

Okay, by now we’ve been in Italy for about two weeks.  After class, after searching the Piazza della Signoria for the post office for about fifteen minutes (and the Piazza isn’t that big), my roommate and I make it inside and take a number.  At least I can say this: the lady working at that window was extremely nice.  She knew exactly what she was doing, and all I had to do was hand her what she asked for and sit back while she stamped, and endorsed, and scanned, and scrutinized, and ran to the back room, and printed, and ran to the back room again, and typed, and wrote over every one of my trillion pieces of paper.  So, about two hours and seventy-three euro later, I was the proud holder of a piece of paper that says I basically have to go do the entire thing again, only even more involved at the police station where they’re almost guaranteed to be less friendly, on September twenty-ninth.  At this point, thankfully, September twenty-ninth is almost a month away, so I can go home and block the entire thing out of my mind for a few weeks.

Today, six days before my own impending doom, Janet – our mighty, awesome and dearly loved leader in the ACM Florence program — takes a group of students, who had appointments for today, down to the police station.  She interrupts our Italian class about twenty minutes in — a usual important announcement time here at Linguaviva – to tell us this.  An hour and a half or so later, so interrupts class again, once again heralding the words “here’s what we found out,”: no more appointments.  She was told at the station that, rather than having all twenty-five of us sit there for hours, just to get another number and sit for a few more hours, to get fingerprinted and turn in information, so we can get another appointment and do it all over again in a few weeks to be re-fingerprinted and receive — probably only weeks before returning to the United States by that point — at long last our residence permit, rather than that, she just has to write a letter saying we all have important classes and fieldtrips that we can’t possibly miss so that our appointments can be rescheduled for January — a month after we have left the country.

Ah, politics!  It’s a good thing we have all this paperwork and hoop jumping to occupy our time.  Without it, too much freedom would drive us, through boredom and lack of stress, to a vegetative state little better than the primordial ameba.

               

Attack of the Evil Flying Demons

Several years ago, it came to the attention of my immediate family that, if bitten enough times, my brother will have an even more severe allergic reaction to a mosquito bite than normal. After being in Florence for a few weeks, I began to form the hypothesis that perhaps I simply require even more mosquito bites to experience the same overreaction. An intriguing theory — but how could it be proven?

Happily, the Florentine mosquitoes are friendly creatures who kindly agreed to take time from their busy, bloodsucking lives to assist with my experiment. They successfully covered any area of exposed skin — arms, hands, fingers, feet — with bites while I slept over the period of two weeks. One was even thoughtful enough to bite my eyelid and facilitate the entire process.

Complete success was achieved on Wednesday morning when I awoke barely able to open bloodshot, puffy eyes and could concentrate on little other than wanting to return to sleep. Though the reaction was far short of my brother’s — and it lasted only a day — I believe that I can safely count myself among the sensitive.

Next I began to experiment with the effectiveness of various repellents. Spray may work — but it could have been that my roommate shut our window that night, tragically condemning my little co-experimenters to the cold dark night. The zappers that our host mother installed also seem to be having an effect, and I will probably have to remove them if and when I feel the need for further experimentation.

But, with the majority of classes beginning to roll slowly into session, the sad hour may have come for me to bid farewell to my dear little bloodsucking friends in the interest of serious study.

I hope they will understand.

Addendum to Basic Survival

#7 When you get locked in the bathroom, don’t panic. Door opening devices have a tendency to turn when you think they should slide, and slide when you think they should turn. Also, when locked in the bathroom of your hotel, and the skeleton key just doesn’t seem to be working, keep turning it every which direction calmly. Eventually, something with click — hopefully before you’re late for dinner.

#8 When it’s raining, make sure to bring an umbrella, not because getting wet is so terrible, but because when the rain comes out, dozens of people suddenly appear on the streets hawking rain repellant devices. I can’t imagine that they really make a lot of money at this, or that many people actually stand in the rain long enough to pull out money and choose a color instead of scampering home through the downpour; but regardless, if you’re the only one in a crowd of thirty without an umbrella, they all inevitably descend on you.

#9 Maps make everything look farther away than it actually is. Italy’s really quite a small place.

And remember, no matter what your host brothers try to tell you, they do not eat dog in Italy.

Basic Survival

Now that I’ve survived two weeks, and one dreadfully long weekend with no internet access to speak of (oh! the horror!), I think it’s time to relate some useful information I have learned about surviving in this big, alien metropolis.

#1 Stop signs are suggestions, put no faith in them.

#2 Bicycles go almost as fast and are just as hazardous as mope heads, so be wary.

#3 Sidewalks — except on the busy main streets — exist so that pedestrians, if they feel so inclined, can scurry out of the street, temporarily, to allow a car, mope head or bike to pass. After doing so, the pedestrian may continue walking leisurely down the center of the street until reaching his destination.

#4 “Class starts at nine” means that the teacher may saunter in between ten and fifteen after — except, of course, on the day that you’re running late, so be on time anyway. Likewise, the thirty minute coffee brake can easily branch into forty-five minutes, so bring something to do.

#5 When in doubt, say prego. This small word has proven itself one of the most useful in the Italian language, having a variety of meanings from “you’re welcome” to “please, madam, take my seat on this bus because you’re a pregnant woman and I’m not.”

#6 Remember, if you ever get lost, and can’t remember what streets the school’s on, or that you live on Via della Vign Nuova, in all likelihood, you need only walk a few steps and you’ll be able to see the Duomo, and consequently can find your way anywhere.

And remember, wherever you go, try not to step on the poor, pathetic pigeons.

Ciao.

Per Favore, Try Not to Step on the Pigeons

They are fat and numerous, wandering through the streets with expressions half vacant, half terrified, at every moment about to be stepped on by the careless tread of another denizen, and by some miracle managing, at the last moment, to scurry out from under certain doom.  I am, of course, referring to what may well be the largest demographic in this city: the Florentine Pigeon.

Though perhaps once a noble race, over abundance of food and lack of natural predation has turned these beautiful yet stupid creatures into mindless vagabonds who search the streets day and night for scraps of food and hardly seem to care for their own lives.  Many a time, my roommate and I have nearly tripped over these pathetic wanderers while innocently attempting to traverse the distance between home and school.  Less innocently, we have often joked about kicking them across the streets where the waddle away from our feet — flying only as a last resort, apparently — or catching one with one well aimed grasp.  They perch everywhere, sleep anywhere, and appear completely ignorant of the dangers posed to them by human traffic.  Still, it is possible that they are smarter than their scurrying feet and vacant gaze suggests, for I have yet to see one dead on the city streets.

But speaking of roommates . . . we moved from the hotel into our families exactly one week ago and I am pleased to report that I now live in a really old building with a family of five.  Our host mother was once an American student who married and Italian and never left.  You’d never guess that from her accent though.  Years of Italian have clearly influenced how she speaks English.  Her husband is outgoing and friendly.  Their daughter doesn’t live at home anymore, but comes around every once in a while to eat.  The sons still live at home, and despite the fact that they tried last night to convince us that the meat balls were made from dog meat, they’re both very nice. 

Thus far, most of my energy has focused on basic survival – keeping clear of pidgins, hunting for lunch, finding ways not to spend money and avoiding the Permisso di Sojourno, Residence Permit, insanity for as long as possible.  My roommate and I finally went to the post office to apply for a Permit yesterday, and after searching for the building for about twenty minutes, waiting in line for another hour and paying over fifty Euro, plus fifteen for the stamp, I now have the honor of an appointment at the immigration office, scheduled a month into my three month stay here in Italy.  Ah travel! how wonderful to be a stranger in a foreign land! 

At least I get wine for dinner every night.

Air Planes, Skeleton Keys, and This Street is Older than America

From above, the clouds look like an endless desert, blinding white against the sun.  I couldn’t see a thing for most of my first transatlantic flight, first because of the never ending clouds, and then because the sun had set and everything was pure black outside the window.  But I had to sleep anyway, since with time differences and trudging through airports with my eight hundred pound shoulder bag and making my way through the back streets of Florence with crazy cab drivers who knew when I’d actually get to sleep again.  So I didn’t mind the darkness, and the cloud desert is breathtaking in itself.

Sleeping’s an adventure on an economy class plane ride.  The chairs recline, a little and I find airline pillows rather comfortable, but the lights stay on for quite a while, there’s no leg room to speak of, and some people never even go to sleep, but stay up talking or playing video games.  So it may come as a surprise, but once I put the chair back and threw my jacket over my face, I actually did get a fair amount of sleep.  I slept through the breakfast cart altogether, which didn’t really matter, since the flight consisted of almost nonstop free food and drinks.

We started our descent into Switzerland about an hour after breakfast and for a few minutes everyone was scrambling to stow things and turn electronics off.  The clouds had cleared, and from that height, Europe didn’t look that different from the United States, with cities and forests, and huge forests.

As we got closer, however, the forests popped out from the rest of the scenery, growing into tree-covered mountains with cities tucked into the valleys between.  Huge mountains, covering so much ground.

After a few hours sitting in the terminal in Zurich, where I met up with four other students, one professor and her two daughters who were also traveling on my flights, there was a short flight over the border into Italy during which the mountains got even bigger, covered in snow and literally touching the clouds.

Immediately after landing in Florence, we were greeted by a solid blanket of heat that has not released us, and will not for the near future.  Amazingly, no one’s passed out yet, though I expect to every day, since it’s probably about ninety degrees out and we have to walk everywhere dragging books and lab tops without even the promise of air conditioning when we get inside.  Also, Italians apparently consider it “barbarous” to eat or drink on the streets, and carrying a water bottle around is, to them, a strange Americanism.  Or so I’ve been told.  Well, when in Rome . . . or Florence, as the case may be.

After sharing a taxi with another student, I arrived at the hotel, home for the next half week.  Cramming two people and four suitcases into the insanely small elevator was an adventure in itself, but we made it to the second floor alive, and even managed to get out — another adventure.

Everything’s smaller here, streets, buildings, classrooms, rooms in general.  And no, the title was not a joke.  They do still use skeleton keys, at least in that hotel.  No key cards, no deadbolts, just an ancient key hole, and an ancient key to match.

But then everything is older here too, including the streets.  They’re paved over with blacktop mostly, but all extremely warped and twisted, mostly too small for two cars to pass at once, and beneath the pavement is the reason why.  On our first morning, I was crossing a street between hotel and school and happened to look down.  Some parts of the streets have no blacktop, and in these places you can still see the old paving stones from centuries ago which still form the bedrock of city streets.  To be correct, of course, the streets are not older than the American continent.  But I think I am probably walking on streets that pre-date the formation of my own country.  It doesn’t get much cooler than that.

Except maybe to moment that, while searching for a place to buy lunch in the outdoor market, I happened to glance up and realized the Duomo was two yards away.

Freak Out Moment (#1)

A little earlier today, while having a pleasant conversation with the optometrist as he probed searing lights into my eyes, it hit me: in exactly fifteen days and four hours I am getting on a plane without even the comfort of family, friends, teachers, authority figures or distant acquaintances, flying further away from home than I have ever, ever been, getting off that plane, waiting two hours, getting on another plane, flying even further away from home, and landing, hopefully in one piece, though I’m not counting on it, in Florence, Italy where I will be spending the next few months of my existence.  (Insert frantic scream here).

After taking several deep, cleansing breaths, and staring through new and vision-twisting contact lenses at all the different eye glass frames that I was not planning to purchase, I had managed to get this profound and terrifying realization suitably crammed into the Hazardous Waist Containment section of my brain, and went about the rest of my morning sojourn into the big city in peace and contentment — after almost losing my glasses in the eye doctor’s sitting area, and getting on the wrong highway home, twice.

Because that’s how freak out moments go, isn’t it?  We panic for about two seconds, until we feel like we can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t go on with anything in the rest of our lives so we have to repress it, stamp it down, and keep moving, closer and closer to the thing we fear most.  Then we hit that moment, the moment we dread — the moment the plane leaves good old terra firma, lifting up into thin, invisible air and you realize that you’re trapped inside this metal coffin for seven hours with no chance of escape if it decides to take a nose dive into oblivion.  It’s enough to make you want to quit sometimes, these freak out moments, to curl up in your nice, warm bed and never do anything new.  It’s enough to make you okay with the idea of dying. 

But what I live for, what makes life worth living at all, is the moment after the freak out, the moment after the moment when the plane takes off, the moment that you realize that yes it may have been one hundred percent every bit as bad as you expected, but it’s over now, and if you let it, it could give you wings.

I think I’m still freaking right now.  The adrenalin rush hasn’t warn off yet, at least.  And I fully expect to be freaking right up until the plane lands back in Chicago three months from now and I run frantically into my mother’s arms screaming “home at last, thank-you God!”  But I know that one day in the future I will look back on these moments and they won’t be tangible anymore.  They’ll just be memories.  And I will have survived them all.  Well, if my plane doesn’t fall from the sky to crash and burn in the ocean, that is. 

Anyway, since the purpose of this blog is mainly, for now, to keep my family, friends, relatives, and anyone else who may happen to stop by, updated about what I’m doing off in that other country across the sea, I thought this an appropriate place to begin.  Consider this my first freak out moment (it’s actually the second, but who’s counting).  Don’t worry, it only gets worse from here.

Until next time . . .