near the stadium and one of the florence train stations. as a result, tess and i have mastered the art of the public bus system. this means we must brave overcrowded, sometimes smelly, awkwardly jerky rides day in and day out. it is very liberating though. riding the bus with the florentines makes me feel a little less like the obnoxious american students i see (and hear) all over town. tess and i live with our italian mamma; a wonderful lady who never ceases to delight us with her AMAZING cooking (i would highly recommend her tiramisu) and wonderful italian way of doing everything whether it be worrying about her ragazze, taking care of us when we are sick, teaching her (adult) daughter how to make minestrone or sneakily eating walnuts. my classes are a bit scattered. italian helps me with all the times when im not in class. art history has given me an idea of what all the beautiful things i live near actually mean. and the narration by the roman catholic priest professor doesn't hurt. he drops gems like "...over there with his pendulous buttocks. that SAUCY boy...". verbatim. i've also got photo on my plate: basically me trying to get the creative juices flowing since i haven't done any theatre for too long. it also gives me an excuse to take photos of italian people without feeling like a stalker. and finally a class on democracy aka my pathetic attempt at a class that is slightly related to my major/future. at least im having a cultural education. and these classes happen to fall on monday, tuesday, wednesday, leaving me with a four day weekend to explore italy. cue: last weekend.
one fateful day at the stanford center in florence, a group of us were discussing our first tuscan travel weekend. tess fortuitously happened upon a page in a guidebook titled "montepulciano". a photo of a beautiful church set on the mountainside enticed her to throw this little town's name in the pot. a couple days later, inspired by our mamma's promise that we would love montepulciano, we set off for the train station with three ragazzi who we will call the uomis from here on out. tess and i quickly learned that the uomis would be completely useless on this particular journey and that we would have to rely on our italian to get us there and back. we made the first leg of our trip unscathed except for tess and brad almost getting left by the bus because they chose an inopportune moment to run to the bathroom. our plan was to bus to siena and transfer to montepulciano. but when we got to siena we discovered that the next bus to montepulciano left at 7 am the next morning. in true italian attitude we shrugged of this setback and contented ourselves with a spectacular 4 course dinner at the restaurant jesse and i had discovered on our last trip to siena. we made a second appearance at the youth hostel with minimal difficulty and managed to wake up at 5:30 am to catch our bus.
despite the early morning after a late night, the bus ride was incredible. watching the sunrise over the tuscan hills is basically as good as it gets. at one point it felt like we were riding the line between day and night. on one side of the bus, the hills were basked in the glow of the rising sun, the air and light mingling only as it does in tuscany. on the other side, the land was covered with frost and shadows, homes dark, people still sleeping in anticipation of the light reaching their corner of the earth. and there i sat in the middle, speechless with awe for this countryside that so very few get to experience. my meditative wonder was abruptly interrupted by the entrance of 60 twelve year olds and one small explosion. they literally came in with a bang. but their shock soon outweighed ours as they saw that five strangers were occupying the sacred back of the bus on their ride to school that morning. (yes italian children go to school on saturday...one of the many differences of our educational systems) as brad pointed out, it was quite the juxtaposition. the silent consideration of the beauty that surrounds 5 americans on an italian bus through the tuscan countryside with the boisterous excitement of a throng of 6th graders trying to fit in the maximum gossip possible on the same old bus ride to school. i think its fair to say they rocked my world as much as i did theirs.
montepulciano was a dream come true. shortly after being ditched by the uomis, much to our delight, we came across a friendly italian man who invited us to return to his winery later in the day. tess and i trekked all over the highest hilltown in tuscany, pausing to make conversation with any italian who cared to and taking plenty of photos for class. we wandered down to the famous guidebook church,
allowing us to declare our day trip a success. we then sampled the town's reason for fame, vino nobile, at various wineries including the aforementioned kind italian's. later we lunched on delicious pecorino cheese and then made it back to the bus station where we jumped on a direct route back to florence. by this time we had reunited with the uomis, who probably felt a little sheepish for their previous condescension. on the bus we had another run-in with school children, this time 16 year olds on their way home. we summoned the courage to chat a bit and had a delightful exchange. after they got off, a nap took us through the rest of the ride. we returned to firenze only to discover that a bus strike was in full effect and we taxied home, exhausted, but quite content with our adventure.this past week flew by, what with classes and the opportunity to play volleyball with a local italian team. they worked me but it was fun for me and pretty funny for them. tess got sick (who knew that a colon could spasm? and what does a colon do anyway?) so we decided that this weekend would best be spent in florence. the rest of the group ended up traveling so we had the city to ourselves. friday morning we discovered the mercato near our house and did a little too much shopping for our own good. we lunched with my language partner who turned out to be a wonderful albeit quiet italian girl with an american boyfriend. a facebook friendship promptly ensued. we rounded out the day with a trip to the cinema to see the dubbed version of "rumor has it". i was proud of my ability to understand most of the movie although there were times that i laughed when no one else did and vice versa. saturday turned out to be another shopping/exploration of florence day. we met luca, the proprietor of our new favorite sandwich place and vendor of our brand spankin new "antico noe firenze" shirts. (which i am not ashamed to say that i am wearing right now) in the evening tess, jesse and i discovered florence's surprisingly delicious version of mexican food.
if it sounds like tess and i are basically inseparable i would say that you are definitely on the right track. we seem to bring out the weird in each other, exemplified by last night's self imposed 80s night. at our mercato we invested in some dollar fifty leg warmers and felt that last night was the perfect opportunity for inauguration. tess's language partner and friends bore witness to this momentous occasion and tess and i ended up with an album of photos and a bunch hilarious moments to boot.
so that brings me to right now, sunday afternoon, sitting in moyo, the hangout of the quarter due to its free wireless internet, not the appallingly slow service. tonight we will head to our first fiorentina soccer game, the italian equivalent of basically the superbowl. but for now, i believe tess and i will begin our hunt for soup.
