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.
