i'm here!

well, here i am! i'm sitting on a couch in cassie's apartment, taking in the sounds that rise from the busy street below... speedy motorinos, a fair number of buses, fervent italian chatter... and then there's the simple piano tune that's coming from the next room over, where niccolo is practicing piano. i don't know what my piano playing sounded like at 6 years of age, but i'm betting it didn't sound as good as what i'm hearing right now.

so, my trip over here was pretty uneventful... cleveland to toronto, where i received the WONDERFUL news that joseph dominic pillari has entered the world! benvenuto, little one! and then from toronto to munich, by way of air canada, which was phenomenal. maybe if i was travelling with children it wouldn't be such a thrill, but on my own, i LOVE a cross-ocean flight... you get that adorable meal tray, free little bottles of wine, and the little screen right in front of you where you can pick from SO many movies, tv shows, music, you name it... i watched a documentary on the Medicis which was a great precursor to being here in this renaissance city, and i listened to Adele, who's got a great album.

we got in about an hour late to munich, which meant i missed my flight, but they got me on a later flight and i was really impressed with lufthansa as well... it was a short flight and everyone got wine (again) and little cups of fruit salad! (previously i've been swept away by southwest's peanuts and pretzels but i think the bar just got raised...) i also met a guy on the last flight who is american but has lived in florence his whole life (except for university) so he was fun to talk to, and he let me borrow his phone to call cassie when i got to firenze.

after getting here to cassie's BEAUTIFUL apartment, i changed into my new 'i'm going to italy' shoes and asked cassie if i could borrow one of her purses, to which she said yes, and upon looking at them all, i picked out the Gucciest of them all, wondering if i could actually pull it off. (when walking around the city later, i was so proud that vendors and salespeople would start talking to me in italian... i think it was the bag...) she had somewhere to be, so i walked around the city for about two hours or so, stopping to people watch in a busy piazza for a while. things are really accessible to where Cass lives so that's great for getting around.

At one point in the walk i passed a little tapas bar where danielle and I had tried to go salsa dancing when we were here four years ago... we had been told it was 'the' place for salsa in florence, and had gone and seen NO one there, and only realized later that we were there at maybe 8:30 pm, so of course no one would be there yet... another few hours and we might have actually found something. i picked up a pizza on my way home in a little pizzeria, and talked with the young staff there while i waited (no one was really there yet to eat) and got a bit of confidence in my ability to make friends. i mean, i didn't leave THERE with any friends, but it wasn't too hard to strike up a conversation, and there's just young people all over the city.

at one point the girl behind the bar asked me how much i made per year, (hey, i can answer that question now!) which i found a little bold of her, so i asked cassie today if that's more culturally accepted here to ask, and she said it's not as rude just because in general there seems like less of an assumption in italy that 'if you make more you're more important' so it doesn't seem so personal. it's just a salary. plus she said a teacher's salary would be more standardized in italy, so it's not just MY salary, it's the 'going rate' for any teacher.

after tossing and turning a lot last night, i somehow slept like a rock for most of the morning and got up around noon, at which time i went with cassie to the local market. it's a bit more tucked away than some of the other markets in florence, and MUCH more local... the only english i heard there was ours, and we picked up some phenomenal mozzarella di bufalo which we came back and enjoyed here for lunch. it's SO good to have GOOD mozzarella ! (my summer here four years ago really turned me into a mozzarella snob... ) one of my favorite things about going to the market was hearing cassie's italian with the vendors and learning the little phrases that are used.

other than that, today's been sort of low key, as i'm still a bit lethargic. i've just been trying to get settled in, putting my stuff away, taking a much needed shower... with all of that set, i'm feeling much more human. we're going to the house of one of cassie's friends tonight, a persian couple (maybe, like me, you heard that and thought, 'i wonder if they have persian cats...') with a few daughters around my age, to eat homemade persian food! yum yum. then tomorrow i'm going to be doing something with sofie and nico in the morning while cassie writes a paper, and then we're going tomorrow night to La Fornella for the rest of the weekend.

so, now that i'm here, i'm trying to figure out how best to use my time... any ideas? how would YOU make friends in florence?