Week Two

The focus of this week has been classes. I have Italian four days a week for two hours each day (seriously? Yes.) and four other three-hour classes, one on each day Monday through Thursday. I’m taking Photography, Renaissance Art, Sketching, and The History of 20th Century Fashion. Photo and Sketching are extremely interactive within the city, as we spend most of the class wandering around Florence taking in the people and sights and recording what we see through the lens and the pencil. I haven’t done too much drawing since Studio Art in high school so I can’t wait to get started and brush up on my skills. Photography will be mostly with my own digital camera and I will also learn how to use the darkroom, which I’ve never done before. The professor for this class seems very cool and is a professional photographer for musicians and rock concerts around Italy. She is hip and sarcastic, or as my roommate Allie called her as we left class – very sassy. I can’t wait to hear what comes out of her mouth next week. Her introduction on the first day was mostly about how much she loves Obama and how Italians should be able to vote for the President of the U.S. too because our Pres has so much influence on Europe as well. Interesting thought. Not only that, but she was basically a walking advertisement for smoking – as she explained in length how she took maternity leave last semester and the worst thing about having a child was that she had to quit smoking for nine months. I haven’t actually seen as many people smoking in Italy as I thought. It’s common, of course, but honestly not anymore than back at GW. Anyway, to finish up on my synopsis of the classes…Renaissance Art involves going to lots of Florentine museums, for free! And will be a much-needed run down for me of the most important histories of famous artwork. 20th Century Fashion also brings us to various fashion sites in Florence, including the Capucci Museum and the Ferragamo Museum. We also visit a costume exhibition at the Palazzo Pitti, which is right across the street from my apartment. In this class, we watch a few movies that I can’t wait to review and analyze in terms of fashion, like Casablanca and The Great Gatsby. The class focuses on placing fashion in a social and political context, showing how fashion influences and has been influenced by various social movements, economic changes, wars etc. The professor, Marco, is well-dressed and therefore well-equipped to teach 20th Century Fashion. I especially liked his light brown corduroy suit today. Should be great!

We ran out of matches yesterday. Since it’s been raining for a few days, and the week has been consumed by class-time, this is probably the most interesting thing that’s happened lately. Exciting! I bounded down to the wine bar that’s below our apartment and asked in Italian if they had any matches, flicking my fingers against my hand in a match-lighting motion. Then, the guy – in perfect English – explained that there were matches at the nearest Tabbachi and pointed to it down the road. Tabbachis are like drug/corner stores, sort of a smaller version of a 7-11, and would obviously carry matches or lighters. They are on every corner of the city, silly me. In the end, I got a lighter and we could finally have dinner, thankfully. Phew.

Another thing – They have dollar stores in Italy? Yes! They actually have quite a few 99-cent stores, and this is where Allie and I traveled yesterday to pick up school supplies. On the way, we stumbled across a great shoe store and ended up buying two pairs of shoes each, at only 9 euro a piece! I really needed slippers. So as we reached the 99-cent store, in a chipper mood after our shoe purchases, we were excited to find that the store not only had school supplies but also toilet paper, shampoo, paper napkins and sponges – all things we needed for the apartment. Toilet paper! It was a great day :-)