Abe's Adventures in Florence: Familiar Faces

I know it's been a while since I've posted on my blog, and I'm sorry about that. The Internet's been slow and classes have been time-consuming, but I've also come down with a cold this week. An exciting tidbit from this past week is that I found a nice restaurant where I had a delicious penne ai funghi porcini (with mushrooms) dish for a mere 6 euro and there's no cover charge! I'll certainly be returning there. I also had the wonderful fortune of seeing a slew of familiar faces. A friend from a summer program 4 years ago spotted me on the street and contacted me via Facebook to find out whether I was in Florence. It's been a long time since we've spoken but we're getting together for dinner tomorrow night and we'll use this chance encounter to catch up on our lives. Another participant on that program is also here for the semester, so I may see her as well at some point. This program, Career Explorations, seems to have sent quite a few of us to Italy: Kate is studying with Syracuse, Jenna with UMiami, native Italian Alberto at the University of Milan, and Chris (a film major) and I at NYU. It's pretty cool.

Even more fascinating and coincidental, however, was completely randomly and unexpectedly running into Allison Greiner-Ferris, a Holliston native who attended high school with me, on the street last Tuesday night. She's studying in Madrid for the semester and was on some sort of break, and we happened to bump into each other on the street! I like when those kinds of things happen.

When I saw Allison, I was actually already in the midst of catching up with an old friend. Miriam Iken came to visit from Israel for her winter break, and despite some trouble getting in touch, we got together on Tuesday night. It turns out she was traveling with two other friends of mine from USY - Tova Stark (from Providence) and Ruthie Edelstein (from California). It was great to see all of them, and we went to get some gelato on Tuesday night. I'm happy to report that I have a new flavor which I love - cantaloupe! It's quite delicious. The weary Israeli travelers, who were a few more than just the three I knew, were delighted to be able to use my Internet on Tuesday night (which, on a rare occasion, was working). We met up again on Wednesday night at Ruth's, the Kosher restaurant, and took advantage of the nice 10 euro Wednesday student deal for a pasta (penne alla vodka) and dessert (that cheese and cinnamon blintz which was even more delicious the second time around!).

Other happenings from the past week: the residents of the Castle had to move out and relocate to a long-term hotel for the duration of the semester. Apparently the landlord hadn't payed his rent in years or something like that, and he was going bankrupt, so NYU had to move them. I haven't heard too much about their new digs, but I'm sure I'll be visiting soon, though it's hardly as close. I made a video tour of the Castle on Saturday night to commemorate its awesomeness and I'll post that in a couple of days if I can get Internet working fast enough to upload a two and a half minute video.

I've booked my spring break plans, which are very thrilling. I'm traveling with peer advisers Lauren, Lauren (there are two), and Amanda, as well as fellow normal student Jamie, as always all girls since the female-male ratio here is about 260-40. We're headed to Paris aboard EasyJet on Thursday, March 5th (only three weeks from tomorrow) for a weekend, then taking the Chunnel to London on Sunday or Monday. I've confirmed that I'll be staying with NYU friend Meghan Mucciarelli in London, and I'll also be celebrating my 21st birthday while I'm there. The four ladies are continuing on to Ireland on Thursday night, and I managed to find a great direct flight back to Florence on legitimate airline Meridiana. Lara's coming to visit the next morning, and after she leaves, it's only two weeks until I head to Israel for Passover! Time will fly by! In the meantime, I'll try to update some more on my adventures here, and I'm headed to the Office of Student Life to pick up an extra blanket so I can combat the unexpectedly cold nature of the indoors in this country and get better right away! As always, a few quick photos: