After I finished up with my two classes of the day, my roommate Kate and I went on a scavenger hunt to find this supermarket we had heard of called Billa. I had heard nothing but good things about it. My other roommate Jess said she felt like she stepped into a Giant Eagle. It's really sketchy on the outside with spray paint, but she was right! As soon as you step into it you feel at home, minus Italian writing everywhere and Italian music playing over the speakers. They even had normal carts like at home!
As much as I loved it, I still want to make my way to the market around here where you haggle for prices and buy everything fresh. I believe that would be the true experience while being over here. It's just a matter of forcing myself out of my comfy zone because my one friend went and she said she didn't run into anyone who spoke a lick of English. Kind of nerve racking if you ask me.
My other experience of the day was with Kate as well. I had to go to the post office to mail Ali her birthday card. It had something little inside of it, so it weighed more and needed more than €1,60 like a light letter or post card take. The post office set up is different than my hometown's. At home you just hop in line and wait until one of the two clerks are ready for the next person in line.
At Florence's, you take a ticket in the entrance. There are different types of tickets and each category has different services. So I pushed the button "P" because francobolli was listed underneath it, which means stamps.
I was number 354 and I waited with Kate in this big room with windows numbered 1-17 in a square around me. There were three signs where ticket numbers were listed with window numbers. When your ticket number shows up, you go to the window number listed. Sounds easy enough, right? However, I was beyond confused because I thought the three boards all had different numbers on them, so I was constantly turning in a circle making sure my number wasn't showing up. Not only that, but some of the numbers were 027, 024, 348 and 275. I was thinking what the heck, the numbers aren't even in order!
I was also nervous I was going to miss my number because they weren't calling out the numbers, you just watched the board, hence me spinning in circles. THEN it clicked. The boards were all the same, so I didn't have to continue spinning and the numbers were different numbers because of the different categories. Yeah, I felt rather silly.
So while waiting for another 10 minutes, I practiced my Italian in my head: Buona sera. Posso avere francobolli per un lettera? Grazie. Ciao! Translation: Good evening. May I have some stamps for a letter. Thank you. Goodnight.
Not too hard. Not too hard at all. My number was shown, I walked up to window number 17 and I stared at the man and said posso, ummm, ummmm. He just smiled. He had to have known I was nervous. But because he smiled my nerves went away and I said my practiced Italian. I'm learning if I at least attempt their language they are appreciative. I can only imagine why because if someone were to come into my work and bust out fluent French or something and expect me to know it, I'd be excuse me, you can go somewhere else.
In the end I successfully mailed the letter, and at the end of the Italian conversation he busted out English. At least I'm learning.
Afterwards, Kate and I went to our friend Yelena's house and we cooked dinner. Chicken, pasta and mashed potatoes. It was delicious.
Today (Tuesday) was another long Tuesday, but I have been enjoying my classes and have actually been productive. I wrote out my cover letter, updated my resume and began applying for more internships and scholarships. More than I've done the past three weeks here.
Today I also had a meeting with Flonthego, which is a website in Florence that the Communication students have to write four articles while we're here. Compared to being a writer and editor at the same time last semester, writing four articles total for the semester should be pretty easy.
Check out the website if you're interested: www.flonthego.com — I'll post links to my articles on here when I do them.
For the website, I have to pick a category I want to write for. There is the Arts, Music, Opera & Theatre, Travel and Lifestyle. All you do is write a presentation article 15 days before the event happens that you are going to cover and then you go to the event and write a critique the next day. It allows people in Florence to know what's going on and for students my age to see what their peer thinks about it. I think it's a really good idea and a cool online publication.
The other perk about it is that the editors can get me either free or discounted tickets for events, simply because I'm writing for them. Not too shabby. I was nervous in the beginning when I found out about this project because I thought I would have to interview Italians and write articles about the events, and knowing my Italian I would fail at doing it, so imagine the relief when I learned it was opinion based. I also just love to write — obviously, look at my blog— so it's another excuse to write more.
I'm off to make some hot tea! Buona notte!
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