Hannah Girls in Italy!

Mom arrived safely, although delayed by one hour, in Florence yesterday! She had quite a time in coming here. She got on her flight from Atlanta, GA, to Frankfurt, Germany and when she got to Frankfurt she was not shown how to get to her next flight to Florence. Being well aware of security issues, she still ended up having to go through security once again which really upset her. She accidentally exited the "secure area" and had to be practically stripped down again with security measures. On the flight from Frankfurt to Florence, she accidentally sat in the wrong seat. She was looking for a window seat in a half-full plane. All the seats were the same except for a few seats in the front of the airplane being separated from the rest by a small curtain. The stewardess came by, looked at my mom, and said according to my mom, "how dare you come into business class? you need to go back to economy class". And so my mom apologized by saying she didn't know it was first class, and she said the stewardess gave her an evil, demeaning look. So mom's trip here was slightly dramatic, but the important thing is that she made it here safe and sound! I met her at the airport and we took an airport bus from the terminal back to the main station of Florence. From there, I bought her a 3-day inner-city bus pass and we made our way back to my little home. We settled into the apartment without a hassle. From there, we went on a small shopping expedition to the 10-minute away supermarket Coop, which was a fun experience. We both salivated over the fresh prosciutto and parmesan cheese. We had a great dinner here at the apartment and saved our energy for the next day.

Today we headed out to explore Florence. I tried to show Mom as much as I knew about Florence so far. We started off from the apartment and walked most of the way into the city:

Mom along the banks of the Arno

We caved into the tourist flow and headed towards the Duomo. It's a beautiful spot to view history and also to people watch!

(click photos for larger, uncropped view)









While we were in the heart of Florence, we wandered to many different piazzi (squares) and statues so I must ask forgiveness for not knowing the identity of each photo figure. Still, I think the beauty of the art can stand for themselves regardless.







an interesting clash of the old and new

We finally made it into the part of Florence that I consider to be my "stomping grounds" - the roads around my school. We stopped for a moment outside one of my school classroom buildings:

Mom posing outside my school door!

After seeing my usual haunts around campus, we weren't sure exactly where to go. We're saving the big museums for another day, so we just wandered again. And suddenly, there was the sound of drums and chanting in the distance. Fascinated, I dragged Mom in that general direction. We came across a huge peace parade with people chanting, drumming and waving flags and banners to support Abdullah Öcalan, a founding leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was founded in 1978. I wasn't even aware there were such strong political issues in Kurdistan! Much more information on Öcalan can be found (((----->here<------))). Very interesting history...I'm surprised I've never heard of it, considering the amount of US involvement in the matter. Photos from the peace rally:

















The streets, of course, were devoid of the usual hustle-bustle traffic because of the peace march. Mom wanted to have her picture taken in the street to show off this very fact:



The crowd's chanting was extremely loud and honestly somewhat scary. When I first heard it, I thought it was a violent rally. The only thing different about this peaceful rally was that every so often, the entire parade would sit down and continue chanting. Super bizarre since I'm so accustomed to these streets being the arteries of city traffic. The police didn't seem overly concerned with the march though. There were 6 police officers in front of the parade and 6 following it. They did have riot helmets, but they held them in their hands and seemed to be casually chatting to pass the time. I have yet to see Italian police get uppity about anything here. They're certainly not worried about enforcing traffic infractions. Improperly passing? HAHAHA yeah right! I don't think that law even exists here. Motor scooters regularly execute death-defying road maneuvers all around town.

We tried to find an outdoor cafe to get an early dinner at after our walking extravaganza, but at 5:30pm it was way too early to find anything. All the dinner places were closed. People start eating dinner around 8:00pm here. So instead we made our way back, stopping occasionally for a few photos:

window of a cafe

Mom looking fabulous in a road-side park

me by another final example of Florentine graffiti


Before home, we stopped by the supermarket again to pick up a few essentials. We both had a good laugh over this:



Cat grass! How posh!

And we ended the night with great Italian gnocchi at home and with good company. I've truly missed quality time with family, especially since family is so important here. I feel very grateful to have my mom here with me. The conversations are deep, lovingly familiar and also in wonderful English. Here's to another successful day tomorrow.

Computer parts went to sleep?

According to Alberto, my computer angel tech guy, my computer parts "went to sleep" aka my hard drive failed. I was almost positive it was a virus, but he didn't think so. He installed a new 160mb hard drive and is still in the process of moving my old files over to it. I'm pretty excited about it! He said they don't even make my small old hard drive type anymore, so the new one should run much better. It's like I'll have a new computer! It's going to be like waiting for Christmas morning all day tomorrow. I don't have any class, so it's just going to be study time for my Thursday exams while I wait on my computer. Woohoo!!!!

Midterms are here

After a weekend of studying, I've arrived at the week of midterms. My Italian midterm that I just took was confusing with many different verbs I've never even seen before, but at least that was only a part of it. I studied all day Saturday and Sunday, so it annoys me that I didn't know everything on the exam. It's something to discuss with my professor for sure. I did get to see Mamma Mia! the movie with Elisabetta and two of her local Italian friends though. The amusing part was that is was all dubbed in Italian except for the songs. So the English words of the songs were the only parts I could understand. Regardless of not being able to comprehend a vast majority of the dialogue, I still found it to be an amazing movie and highly recommend it. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

I've also fallen in love with Nutella. I had it in the US before, but I think it tastes different here. It's like chocolate peanut butter, but SO much better. I've had it with crepes, toast, oranges, and with just a spoon. There's even Nutella gelato here. Must...have.....more! Wow, so delicious.

I'm also hoping that my computer will be okay by Tuesday. I know the tech guy promised it on that day, but I'm still worried. I really miss being able to Skype people and email. It's also usually very crowded in our school library and often hard to find a free computer to use.

Well, back to the grind of studying. I have a midterm in international marketing in an hour. At least it will be in English!