It's a Small World After All (I just didn't think I'd realize it this soon.)

After spending Sunday evening with Penn kids, I've spent most of the last few days with Kyle. He is, like the recent graduates I saw this weekend, on a eurotrip and spending a few days in Florence. Monday night we met up for the first time, grabbed some pizza, then went to the train station to pick up his friend Sara, who will be traveling with him for the next few weeks. I was telling him on the way to the train station that I couln't wait to randomly run into someone I knew on the street, since my meeting with him was my second planned event with friends in Florence. After we got Sara, we all went back to their hostel to look at Kyle's pictures and let Sara rest a bit. We decided to get gelato and left the hostel. Kyle had lead the way there, so I was a little turned around and we soon realized we'd gone the wrong way. We were headed back in the right direction soon enough and I was just starting to get my bearings when I saw a girl on the street who I thought looked like my friend Leah Abrams from Italian and English classes at Penn. I was almost past her when I realized it WAS Leah Abrams. She and her friend were only in Florence for that night and the following day, and we ran into her on a back street at 10:30 pm! Crazy.
Tuesday I met Kyle and Sara for lunch at my favorite sandwich shop, then after I was finished with afternoon class we walked to the Piazzale Michelangelo. It used to house Michelangelo's statue of David, though only a replica stands there now as the original has been moved to the Academia. The Piazza is on the top of a hill south of center city, so visitors have a panoramic view of all the important Florentine sites. It was a beautiful day, and we could see forever, even out to the rolling hills of the countryside. On the way down we walked along the old stone walls of the city for a bit and then sat in a little garden for a few minutes before heading to dinner. I saw Kyle and Sara for the last time at lunch today - they should be on their way to Siena as I type this.

Also, I think I should say a few things about the city of Florence and the culture in general, since I've only talked about specific places.

1. Streets: All of the streets in Florence are cobblestoned. The cobblestones are big slabs of rock, not small bricks like in the United States. This definitely matches the overall look of the city with all of its gothic and Renaissance buildings. So the cobblestones look nice, but there are two problems with them: a) they collect dirt. Whenever I wear sandals, I have to scrub my feet at the end of the day because they are black. The city owns many street cleaning machines that wash down the streets every night, which brings me to problem b) Polished stones are extremely slippery when wet. It's hard to walk wearing rubber-soled shoes after it rains or right after the street cleaners come through. I actually fell down and bruised my tailbone last week wearing sandals on the cobblestones. Ouch.

2. Streets part 2: Most of the streets in Florence are very narrow and therefore one way. Their cars, like European cars in general, are much smaller than American cars, but it still can't be easy to navigate the tiny, twisty streets. Only the small portion of the current city that was the original Roman camp is organized on a grid. The city's sidewalks are narrow too, so most people walk in the middle of the street. Everyone runs out of the way when they hear a car approaching. But there are also thousands and thousands of Vespas in the city, which are impossible to hear coming until they've almost run you over. Vespas don't have to obey traffic laws as far as I can tell, though there aren't many traffic laws, as far as I can tell. There are certain streets that are fully lined with Vespas parked within inches of each other. I would NOT want to drive here.

3. A few more food observations: There are a million places to eat! Florence is now a very toursity city, so every other storefront is a restaurant or "bar." I put "bar" in quotation marks because an Italian bar is a place to eat, not necessarily a place to drink. Many have large counters where you can choose your sandwich, pizza variety, salad, etc., then sit down to eat it (though you can even sit down and order in some of them). Most also serve coffee and espresso drinks as well as water and alcohol. Usually these places don't have menus, just things in a case to choose from. This is because they change what they offer based on what they have available and what's in season. I've been eating as many meals as I can with tomatoes because everywhere I've gone they've been incredibly ripe, read and juicy. Everything served here is extremely fresh. Many places serve cheese for an appetizer: one restaurant we went to served a variety of cheese with honey and fig jam to spread on top. I have never had better cheese in my life than I've had in Florence. The only issue with such a wide variety of food choices is that there are an overwhelming number of places to go. We've started asking our teachers and the hotel concierge where to go, though sometimes we just wander around until we find a place that looks good.

Still trying to firm up plans for the weekend, though we're taking a group field trip to Assisi tomorrow. I've heard that it is one of the most spiritual places in the world, so I'm really looking forward to it.