Life in Florence

Origianlly published on: Jan 11, 2007

I enjoyed every moment of my stay in Florence. The school I attended set up lodging for me with a retired signora, who we called YoYo. She lived in a flat on the fifth floor of a building on one of the busiest streets in Florence. She was quite a character, eager to share stories of the art, architecture and history of Italy. She said she enjoyed having me around because I was "interested in culture," and most of the students who stay with her have not been. (They are often quite young.) But on the flip side of that, she had to get her nightly "fix" of the American tv show, Texas Ranger (dubbed, of course). I resisted her constant invitations to watch the program with her. Here's YoYo in her kitchen, where she served us breakfast each morning.

Another student at the school, a young woman from Japan named Haruko, also stayed with YoYo while I was there, and we became good friends.

We walked to school each morning, shopped at the San Lorenzo Market (below), and had some nice meals together at various places in Firenze. We also strolled on weekend evenings through the streets of the city center, taking part in the Italian custom of the passeggiata.

We went to Ponte Vecchio several times, and here's a photo I took there one evening.

My room at YoYo's was nice and cozy. I loved looking out the huge windows each morning to see what kind of weather we would be having. Though it rained several times, it never got really cold and the weather was pleasant during most of my stay.

Here's the wild chestnut (castagno) tree that was outside my window. It still had most of its leaves in early December!

Another view of the kitchen, where Haruko and I often had long talks in the evening.

For two weeks, I went to school every day for four hours. I was thrilled to have learned enough on my own to be placed in the second level (out of 6) of Italian language courses. There were about 10 people in the class, from Canada, Guatemala, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Britain, and the U.S. I did well in the first two hours of grammar, with our teacher Ester. I often spent two-three hours every night studying my lessons, so I was well-prepared for each class.

I struggled more in the second two hours, when our lively teacher Monica led us in conversation. I could follow most of it, but I haven't had much practice speaking Italian, so I was behind most of the others, who were often fluent in Spanish or French. In general, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at the scuola, I loved my teachers, and I'm eager to return for another round of immersion Italian. Here's me with YoYo.