Italy Trip: Day 7

(Sunday 24, 2012) Today was a bittersweet day because we left the amazing town of Forte Dei Marmi to go to our next part of our adventure in Florence. Before we left, we had another group discussion about our perceptions of Italy so far. I remember after our first group discussion, Umberto said how he was surprised how no one said anything about religion and that got me thinking about why we didn’t, even though it was such a major part of their culture. So I decided to do a little social experiment to see if anyone was going to talk about religion or not. I opted to go last to see if my hypothesis about no one talking about religion was correct, and it was. When it was my turn, I felt that I needed to give my two cents about this topic. Originally I wrote about what I talked about in I think Day 5 about my interaction with this fellow named Guido. He thought that Italy wasn’t a good place to live and Los Angeles was so pretty while on the other hand I thought Los Angeles was a horrible place to live while Italy was paradise. I don’t really know about others, but I actually really enjoy these conversations because I like to know what other peoples perspective is when it comes to the same places that we went to. Even though the majority of the people talked about how good the food is and how nice the people from Italy are then back home, I was still thankful for the ones who decided to think outside the box and give a valid observation though their experience. After the talking session we set out to go to Florence where we will be living for the next three weeks. The bus ride was the most stressful one yet because no one really knew what our apartments were going to look like nor did we know what the city was going to be like. The biggest thing that everyone wanted to know was if they were going to have air conditioning or not and don’t get me wrong, so was I. But when we finally got to Florence, we were all presently surprised for more than one reason (at least for me). I felt more comfortable here then I have in the other towns and I don’t really know why. I think it might be because Florence reminds me of back home where there are so many different people with different nationalities. That, and probably because the rooms look like they were taken straight out of and Ikea store, which was AWESOME! It is modern, yet homey with all the amenities. My only discrepancy is that we are on the third floor so even time we come back from going somewhere, it feels like a chore just to get back to our room. But, I can’t complain because I am in Italy learning how to make amazing food while also making new friends and creating amazing memories.