Day One in Florence

We caught our first glimpse of the city of Florence during our half-hour bus ride to La Pietra, NYU's campus. The villa is located on a hill, and walking down the path to the first building was really pleasant. The weather was about 50 degrees, far more comfortable than freezing New York or Massachusetts. NYU's check-in process was remarkably swift and well-organized. We started by checking our visa materials, receiving orientation packets and new ID cards with enormous photos of our faces, and making a free phone call home to our parents. We then waited in one of the rooms in Villa Sassetti, the building where all of this excitement happened, for a van to take us to our apartments. I parted ways with all the girls I had been traveling with at this point, and was thrilled to discover that there are in fact male participants on this trip. It turns out that many of them are from Massachusetts (Foxboro, Concord, and Newton lead the pack), and that some of the kids in my dorm go to Boston College, so my proclamation of my Holliston heritage was met not with puzzled looks or mistaken for Allston but rather with an "oh, yes, I'm from Newton."

My apartment is located at Borgo Pinti 66 (Google Earth it if you'd like). Laura, Laura, and Alana (for those who didn't read earlier posts, friends from NYU also on the trip) live along with many other people I know (Ilana, Leora, and Shayna) at Piazza D'Azeglio, which is a mere three minutes and three rights away from us. There are two floors at Borgo Pinti, and the all-NYU apartment houses 22 males. There's a monstrously huge communal kitchen and somewhat random but nice loft space accessible from the first floor. I had forgotten this bizarre European thing about the first floor actually being the second floor, on top of the ground floor, but it doesn't matter too much since it's not a terrible flight of stairs. The only real problem is that the door at the top of the stairs requires a key that is near-impossible to use, and it's equally impossible to locate the light switch to turn on a light to see what you're doing. Put simply, it's an adventure just trying to get in to our apartment. I'm living at a room near one of the corners of the building with two roommates. David Zandi and I met back at NYU in early December, and as of this writing, we've been sticking mostly together. The other roommate, Daniel, is a PA (peer adviser), which is pretty much the equivalent of an RA. He's been asleep or absent for most of the time so far, but from what we've seen and heard, he seems cool. Our room comes equipped with three beds, night desks, and desks. A mini-room to the side includes closets for all three of us, and leads to our own personal bathroom, complete with toilet, sink, and a shower that appears to zip closed through two perpendicular doors. It's sort of cool, but a bit alarming. There's not really enough room to get out of the way of the water to let it warm up before standing right in front of it, but it shouldn't be a grave problem. Overall, the room is fine.

The girls' room, on the other hand, is cray. It's like a castle. They're located on the second (in European terms: first) floor of a huge building overlooking a park (Piazza D'Azeglio, the name of the apartment per NYU). There have an enormous common area, with a lengthy table that could easily host a large Passover seder, and two big couches with plenty of room to pull up chairs. There is a fresco on their ceiling, and it's pretty incredible. There are 14 of them there, and one resident, Michelle, has her own room up the stairs with her own bathroom. She wasn't too pleased about the room's size when looked at based on the price of her housing, and upon talking to the housing coordinator, it appears the room will be stocked with all-new furniture of her choice. Good deal for her. I realize this description may not seem as relevant as that of my own room, but they basically live in a castle and we (David and I) will likely be there all the time, especially given the proximity.

We met up around 6:30 or 7 and then went out for dinner. We walked down Borgo Pinti in search of restaurants. We finally located one, and though its name began with pizzeria, I can't quite recall exactly what it was called (I'll be sure to remember from now on). There were nine of us, and our meal turned out to be a fairly low 64 euros. I went for a safe spaghetti with garlic, basil, and tomatoes because I was craving pasta and they didn't turn out to have too much of it, so I thought I may as well pick something that would be decently satisfying and still pasta-y, and that it was. We ran into some confusion when Alana and I said "same" following an order of a bruschetta and the pasta dish, and the waiter thought we meant both the appetizer and the dish, when of course we only meant the latter. Not a problem though, as we explained it all and his English was fine. I tried someone else's pizza, which was rather good. We're not quite clear on the tipping policies in Italy, so we left a bit extra money, but not too much. It was a positive experience to be sure, though I'm looking forward to more exciting restaurants in the coming weeks.

Day one ended with our return to our rooms and a brief Skype call to my family at home (4pm for them). We were all heavily jet-lagged, so 10:30pm seemed an appropriate time for sleep. Unfortunately, I awakened at around 12:50am, but luckily fell back asleep until my alarm at 9:00am.