I feel like instead of making you read about ever single one of my days that have passed since we last spoke Ill give you a general overview and some specific highlights. 'Cause lets face it no one wants to read something 897 pages long.
The first thing of note since last I wrote was my first day at the Uffizi library. To say the least I was a little nervous. I woke up at leas 9 times the night before paranoid that my alarm was not going to go off. Thankfully it did, and I made it there in plenty of time. Making it to the museum and then into the library presented a small problem. Since it was my first day, I did not have my official Uffizi card and therefore when I showed up at the door to get into the library ( which happenes to be a fire door but the alarm will not go off if you open it, they just apparently say that so people dont - note I do not recommend trying this with other doors...) Anyway. I got to the door that Giovanna and I had gone through the previous week, told the (unfriendly) security woman why I was there, and why I needed to go up to the library. She however would have non of it. Telling me the library was closed, that I would have to come back later, and when I did I would have to go thorough security through the main door (already a 2 hour wait and the museum was not open yet) to get it, she closed the door. By now its 8:54am and Im beginning to get a little worried about how Im actually going to get inside. One call to Giovanna solved everything. In the end the man at the front desk of the library came to fetch me, and let me in (yes through the same door that was just shut in my face) and brought me up to the so called closed library. The very open library is quite a sight. It is lined with bookshelves for books bigger than you could handle, and just incase the book self cant either there are rough iron caging on all the shelving. The library itself is two floors (sounds small for all the books but its only a small portion, I found out later that there are a few other locations). On both sides of the long hallway, there are large windows, and also is decorated with frescoed angles, and mythical characters. Down the center of the walkway of the room there are two sets of dark brown desks that run the entire length of the room. (see the very slypicture I took when everyone left the library)
For the first hour or so I had to do some official looking paper work with a woman that worked there, Silvia. Signing confidentiality agreements, giving contact information, being told how to use certain things - all pretty official and daunting. After that the woman that I had met with last week came out to explain to me what I would be doing. She brought with her a huge book - probably 15x9in - which held a list of all the books in their collection. What I would be doing would be reading the entries, entering the title on a particular program on the computer, and if it came up write down the system number. Sounds simple enough right? Well that means you have never tried to read Italian cursive. Very pretty to look at, but impossible to read - for an American at least. All the letters are perfectly curved and linked together in a perfectly formed line of letters all the same size. So really first decipher, then enter, then write is what Im more or less doing. So after a while I was getting used to the cursive - not so bad (some of them at lease), and at least I can understand the Italian ones I was thinking to myself. And then the German started. Talk about a oddly written language. Literally have no idea what any of those books could possibly be about - only that they relate in some way shape or form to art.
Next - Halloween. Let me start of by saying that Halloween is probably on of my favorite holidays. Dressing up + receiving free candy = awesome day. Halloween in Italy is more of a new 'invention' really. In their quest to be more American (why I am still trying to figure out), they have adopted
Halloween. However, everyone seems to celebrate or not celebrate at different degrees. My family for example laughed when I brought up Halloween. Not going to be discouraged by the lack of celebration a big group of Smith and Italian friends alike headed out to celebrate in some sort of fashion. We went to a place called BeBop, a little music bar in the center. In a festive spirit, they had put up (minimal) decorations which were appreciated on my part. The cover band for the night also sported some attempts of costumage - boas, tall leather boots, bandanas, leather things were all sported (please note the band were all guys). The crowd ranged from fully decked out costumes, odd pieces (like eye patches - not not lying), to normal every day italian clothing. Not deterred by the mismatched Halloween spirit we continued to have a good night (as pictured both with Sera and Oliva to the right and Oliva to the left), listening to an eclectic assortment of music, laughing, and general merriment. The beginning of last week was pretty uneventful. Class and school and homework and italian all ensued. I did successfully finally get to a University of Florence class - which in my book was a big deal. Its really incredible how disorganized the Italian university system is. I finally found a class that worked with my schedule, and that was actually happening - for me a small miracle. Sera ended up coming with me and we sat in on a History of Cinema class. The room was filled with students who for the most part talked throughout the entire class, while others came in late and left early. The professor said nothing - just continued talking the entire class. Well that is after he got off his phone that he answered within the first 5 minutes of the class. It was interesting to see some of the big differences between the italian classes and students and Smith - lots to say the least.
Friday came another day at the Uffizi, which was a little bit easier this time since I was a little more used to the perfect cursive. During the afternoon I wandered the city with Alayna attempting to find a open shop to look at boots, but to no avail. We had the brilliant idea of going out at 230. Everything closes for lunch at 2:30 and does not open again until 3:30 or 4. Needless to say we did not find anything.
That night after dinner - despite the warnings from every person I met prior to my arrival in Italy - I went out to the movies with a boy, Dino (yes I know you immediately thought of a dinosaur) I met through some of my Italian friends. To everyone who has told me to not trust italian boys and are now thinking to yourself how I could have possibly gone against your warnings - dont worry all advice is lodged in my brain. I was a little nervous because although my Italian is good enough to get by, its not top notch by any means, and the thought of having to hold a continuous conversation in Italian was a little daunting, especially since he can only speak literally 2 sentences in English. We ended up going to the movies, which meant not a night of continuous talking for me which was fine, but also meant watching a movie in Italian. The 30 minute car ride to the theatre when very well, not to many miss understandings, confusion, or miscommunications on my part and was able to keep a conversation flowing for the great part of it. We ended up seeing 'The men who stare at goats', in Italian of course. Throughout the whole movie he would check in to make sure I got what was going on, and what they were talking about - cause lets face it they dont really teach you military terms in school. Only missing a smalllll part of the content (at least I think...) I was still a bit confused about the story itself - meaning why they would actually make the movie. It was very strange to say the lest. I was somewhat happy to hear that Dino did not like the movie either and thought it was really strange, only because that meant I did not totally misinterpret the entire film.
The rest of the weekend passed very uneventfully - filled with homework and reading. There seems like there is always something more I can be and should be reading for school. In fact I probably should get to that now....
(ps pinky promise not to wait another 9 weeks until I write again)
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