Che giornata!

Che giornata (what a day)! 

Waking up, I was somewhat skeptical about the type of day I was going to have. I usually try to stay as positive as possible, but when you are running on one hour of sleep, "positive" is far from my English vocabulary. Jet lag and a noisy neighborhood are to blame for the lack of sleep; all 5 of us live on Borgo Pinti, which is a "via" commonly used for the party people of Florence to walk home late at night. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, but the windows here in Italy lack the strong seals we are used to in the United States. Therefore, we can hear EVERYTHING going on outside (a pro and a con, unfortunately). On our first night here, Vanessa, Kate, and I all had a little scare when it sounded like a man was talking inside of our apartment at 3 a.m; it ended up being someone talking on their phone right outside, but that goes to show how little of a seal there is on the windows. We also live very close to a hospital, so we have occasionally heard sirens blaring late at night. 

On the other hand, living so close to the center of Florence has its many perks that, in my opinion, outweigh the negatives. A 10 minute walk is all it takes to reach the Piazza del Duomo, and a 15-20 minute one to reach other breathtaking areas of Florence (Santa Maria Novella, the train station,"high-end" shops, endless gelato and cafe bars). Also, who is going to complain about an apartment location in ITALY?! It is an amazing location, and after a few days I think I will have this sleeping thing down. 

Back to our day.

As I said, it was quite the task waking up at 7:20 a.m considering I fell asleep at 6 a.m. We met Rachel and Chris at the train station at 8:45 where Angelo picked us up to drive us to Lucignano for a festival called "La Maggiolata." Some cafe americano helped wake me up, which was much needed because we spent all day in Lucignano (10 a.m until 8:30 p.m). La Maggiolata, at a basic level, is to welcome Spring. More complexly, it celebrates the passing of youth. Lucignano is a very small town consisting of about 3,000 Italians. It is guarded by high walls and beautiful architecture. There were 4 neighborhoods competing in the festival to win the beloved trophy at the end. The people representing these neighborhoods all dress in full-blown costumes, have intricate props, and play the part. It was amazing to be a part of the celebration and did I mention how welcoming the people were? It helps a LOT that we have Chris who speaks fluent Italian, so the locals really light up when they hear him talk.  If he didn't accompany us on these trips, I think we would be perceived differently. However, I am determined to learn some basic Italian while I am here, so hopefully we can get by without him. The other girls are picking up Italian, too, so we can all help each other. 

There is so much I could say about our day today, but I would have to say my 3 favorite parts were: the stripping of flowers from the float, talking to 2 Lucignano men (who were about 65 or 70 years old and knew little to no English), and bonding with the girls.

When the parades have made their rounds, they come back and strip all of the flowers from the floats and throw (and I mean THROW) at the crowd and all over the streets. It is absolutely beautiful and exhilarating. 

The 2 men I talked to were the cutest old men I have ever met (I probably say this about all old people, but they really were). The language barrier was severe, but we were determined to talk to one another, therefore we were able to understand some things. Overall, we talked about the Wizard of Oz (because of Kansas' relation to Nebraska), tornados, and the Greek mafia historically making its way into Sicily and then Sicily mafia making its way to the United States. We obviously weren't able to talk in great detail about these, and in retrospect it was a rather silly conversation, but it was still a very genuine experience for me. 

Lastly, I had a really amazing time with all of the girls. We won't go into detail about what happened to Rachel, Kate, Caty and I (ha ha), but it's the little things like that and delirious car rides home with Vanessa and Caitie that really help make the trip special. 

Fino a domani

Steph