The Lost Blog Post!

This entry is but a shadow of its former glory, but I will try to recall the details I wrote. Ok maybe that's a bit dramatic, in fact this probably includes a few more details. You see, I posted this yesterday and it was up for a few hours, but I went back to make some minor changes and the computer I was working on froze up. So when I looked at our blog again it was all the post was all garbeled up. I thought to myself, “no problem, I’ll just go back to my word document on my flashdrive and copy/paste it back in, like the first time.” However, it was all completely deleted from my document. I must have typed over it while it was highlighted to copy for the first time I tried to post it. So, alas the information is gone. So… this is me trying to re-write everything. Here goes…

They say it takes a whole month to adjust…

…it’s true. Yea! 1 more week to go! haha. We will probably be learning how to live here all they way up until the day we leave. But we had a productive weekend thanks to some tips from friends and profs, mostly pertaining to grocery shopping.

Indeed, just as we thought we had it all figured out where our regular grocery shopping was going to take place, we discovered Billa and Coop. Upon our entrance, mouths dropped and eye widened as we beheld 2 super markets actually and finally deserving of the title “super market.” Both of these places are 3-4 times the size of the small grocery markets we had been frequenting such as Meta and include a much greater variety at better prices. A dream-come-true, right? Well, their only downfall is that they’re located a good 45 minute hike from our apartment. This means we plan to do our weekly shopping on Saturdays so we can make the long haul without other appointments to dodge. (fun fact: super markets aren’t open on Sundays) Although we’re considering going on another grocery store expedition this weekend. Billa and Coop are located on the far edge of historic Florence, but we live pretty close to the other edge on the opposite side of our apartment. So, we might venture in that direction to see if we can find anything closer to home. It’s worth a shot and we don’t often travel in that direction.

We still plan to make regular visits to open market of course. We feel like we’ll never be so good at eating fresh fruit and veggies ever again in our lives. It’s just so available, affordable, and delicious!

We had fun on Friday running around town looking for goodies and things to serve at our movie night. We actually found some microwave popcorn, Little Debbie-like snack cakes, really good Oreo-like cookies called Ringo, and some Trolli gummies. For some reason Trolli gummies are easy to find at any 1 euro store (more on this later) for some reason. After shopping and much debate about how to arrange the living room so that 5 people can comfortably sit around a lap top screen, we were ready for our first guests! We work well together because we have a microwave in our apartment, meaning we were able to provide the popcorn, while they girls came bearing frozen pizza since they have the apartment with the oven. It works. We had a good time watching The Proposal and trying to play Blackjack 21 without anything to bet with. Fun evening.

Backing up still further, we learned some interesting things on our City Walk on Wednesday night. City Walks are nearly weekly, free, guided walking tours through specific parts of the city to learn a little about its history and significance. The most interesting thing we learning, in my opinion, is that pieces of architecture can actually be moved!! I can’t remember its particular architectural name, but the structure you see in the background of this picture is sort of a roofed, open corridor built to house the fish markets. There are little round emblems above the pillars of fish and other sea food, depicting the purpose of this structure. The fish market used to be located on the Ponte Vecchio – one of the bridges over the Arno that is lined where the gold artisans and merchants are located to this day. When the Medici family moved into the area however, they didn’t want the place smelling like fish, so they had this outdoor corridor built in the Piazza de Repulica for the fish market. I don’t remember why but in the 1900’s the structure was carefully taken apart and rebuilt in the Piazza de Ciompi where we are in this picture. Cool. That was probably more than you wanted to know, but I was amazed so I thought I would share. The best part of this tour however, was the fact that school bought us all gelato (Italian ice cream) at the end. Delicious!

Cody speaking: Saturday evening we joined our friends from SPU (Seattle Pacific University, aka our WA friends) again, and we went to Mass (in English, thankfully) held in the Duomo, the giant church in the center of historic Florence. (FYI! All the historic cathedrals and religious sites in Florence are now government property, and as such, are now more tourist sites than worship centers. Thank you, History of Christianity!) After making our way through the ocean of international tourists that always fills the Duomo square, and after finding the right entrance for the service we were attending, we found our eyes drawn upwards into the massive vaulted cathedral ceilings, all painted and decorated with images of biblical stories and saints. Even though the priest spoke English (in a thick Irish accent), the service might as well have been in another language. For the five of us twenty-something’s American protestants, we were pretty lost in the liturgy. Still, we enjoyed hearing the sermon from the Word of God, something we’ve been missing, and I (Cody) despite my strong Calvinist background, found meaningful worship in the richly decorated space, understanding myself as in the throne room of God, and surrounded by images of the saints, our faith ancestors (whether revered or not). We left the service appreciating the rich diversity of worship found within Christianity, as well as appreciating our own traditions that much more. We’re not sure if we’ll attend that service again, I should be getting a list of protestant churches in the area from my His. of Christianity prof. so we will hopefully be able to check out some of those.

Kait again: Cody and I are becoming increasingly impressed with our skills in the kitchen. Our cooking classes have helped us immensely; we’re figuring out how to use our resources and have been putting together some mighty impressive meals ;) We can’t wait to cook for you!! Although I am still mourning our lack of oven because I love to bake. Pictured here is the real mac & cheese. yeah us!

We were a little afraid we’d get pretty bored on our 3 day weekends. We don’t know why we didn’t pack more movies because we love watching movies together and now we’ve begun this movie night thing. However we’ve taken advantage of the time to read books for fun, which we barely ever get to do. I have already completed a book and Cody, a whole trilogy. This is saying something for me, since I’m a slow reader, but it was so good! So if you’re looking for some good reading, I highly suggest Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers!

Culture Clues!!

* No food tax! We were quite delighted when we discovered this. I’m not sure how taxing works here but there’s none on food so shop on!

* Let it be known that the Dutch can survive in Italy. For my cooking class I have come across many recipes that call for the use of almond. Last week we had to use these small, crumbly, almond cookies in our recipe. These cookies are called “macaroons” here, but I don’t think that’s what you normally have in mind when you hear, macaroon. They are delicious.

* Perhaps this method exists elsewhere, but I have never encountered it before. At the Coop (grocery store) if you’re a member or something you can grab a scanner from the wall at the entrance (like the clickers you use when gift registering = fun!) Anyway, you can bring your own bags and just scan in the prices as you shop, so all you have to do is bring to the scanner to a specific counter, pay, and go!

- Also, most people bring their own bags when grocery shopping. You have to specifically ask for bags; they don’t automatically bag things for you. Interesting. Seems economical.

- The people who work in the checkout lines sit in chairs so they don’t have to stand all day. This also seems like a good plan, though possibly less polite.

* There is no yellow cheese here. No cheddar to be found. It’s all white. Hmmm.

* Preservatives in food are not to be found here. Meats are cured and things are fresh or frozen. This seems dandy until you get a little tired of salty.

* Tutti 1 Euro!! “Tutti” meaning “everything,” These stores are the 1 euro stores and they pretty much kick the Dollar Store’s butt cuz everything ACTUALLY IS only 1 euro! Good place to buy snacks, school supplies, and cleaning products all for the low low price of uno euro. Fantastico!

* I was pretty excited because my Italian prof suggested a place to go where you can get a small gelato cone for 1 euro! This is impossible to find because of all the expensive touristy places in our area. But it gets even better! This shop lets you get 2 flavors for 1 euro, and on top of that, it’s only a block away from our apartment! Kait is happy.

* We have had quite a fiasco with water while we’ve been here. You may recall information from previous posts, but we’ve gone from believing that you shouldn’t drink the water without a filter, to a filter is a fine idea but the water is perfectly safe to drink. It is by they way and it tastes fine, generally. But decided to keep buying these six packs of huge water bottles we found at Meta (another smaller grocery store) for only 38 cents…or so we thought. Turns out this whole time we were paying 2.10 euro for these packs, b/c when the label says “0,38” on the shelf below these waters it means 38 cents per bottle?? That is quite deceptive. We never noticed before because we always bought them along with the rest of our groceries, but we found out because we went in just to buy water. Needless to say I think we’ll be living off of tap water from now on.

- I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but water is NOT FREE in restaurants. Not at all. You are always served bottled water, sometimes even if you ask for tap. And bottled water is expensive in restaurants. This seems crazy unfair, but we survive.

* We’ve been having a rather tough time picking up on the Italian language. Apparently we both know and remember more Spanish than we thought because at least I am having a hard time getting it out of my head. This class is different than other language courses we’ve taken. Mainly because we’re given what looks like really simple homework but turns out to be impossible to complete because we’re learning more grammar than we are vocabulary. For some reason we aren’t given regular vocab to study or be quizzed on. So… how are we supposed to learn this language??

* It is a regular adventure trying to take the trash or recycles out. There are dumpsters all over the city specifically marked for what can go inside them. But you never know where you're going to find them, because them move! Dumpster hunt! We presume they change locations so that they don't always stink up one area or as to rotatingly convenient for others as the weeks go on. We haven't noticed a pattern yet but we continue to watch and learn. Luckily, the first time we needed to use one we were able to observe someone in front of us. There are these handy foot pedals on the bottom that you step on in order to open the lid so you don't have to touch it with your hands. Germ-o-phobes gather around!

* Our life has become a musical. Italians like to randomly burst out in song, especially the men. Whenever, where ever, out on the streets. Jolly good fun.

* Stephanie and I had a fun conversation about this so I thought I’d share some of my observations with you. Fashion in Italy: From what I’ve noticed it seems ok for older women to keep dressing young and stylish and most of them rock the heels well into their elderly years – which impresses me to no end. What I mean by stylish is, I see a lot of leggings and skinny-legged pants, and dresses, and high heels. It’s true, the locals seem to dress-up on a daily basis. To my surprise, I see more jeans than I thought I would, but it’s sometimes difficult to differentiate between the locals and stylish tourists. Cody and I are equally relieved that Cody has not caught on to the male fad. Holy Pastel Pants!! It's a trend around here for the men to wear pink or lavender pants. No thank you. What really gets me as that it seems socially acceptable here to wear thin shirts with no cami underneath. I could never do this, and feel I’ve seen way to many bras where they shouldn’t be seen. I learn many interesting things in my fashion design class. My professor, Marco, is so much fun and the class is unlike any I’ve ever taken before, so every time I come home I feel I must regale Cody with every detail for at least an hour. Marco says that it’s really unfair how the people who work in couture (fashion) shops treat the people who walk in. They instantly judge whether or not the shopper is going to be able to pay for anything in the store or not, so consequently, they would most likely ignore or be quite rude or unhelpful to a student like me if I were to enter (I haven’t tried). This is because, in Italy, if you have money, you show it by how you dress. This is sort of true in the States, but it’s emphasized more here. It’s pretty important how you look.

* As you may have gathered, Cody and I often spend some time writing these posts at home and then transferring them online when we can make it to a computer lab at school. This is especially convenient because it’s sometimes difficult to use the school’s computers because they keyboards are set up differently. All the letters are in the same place but the punctuation is all mixed around. To make it even more confusing some of the keyboards are set up to respond as US keyboards even if the icons are on the keys are European. Makes typing very confusing. So it’s nice to use our own. After getting the school’s wireless set up on our computers, we sometimes bring our laptops to use at the lab as well.

Prayer request:

* Breathing the city air, or the time of year, has brought me to a cold. And mine can last anywhere from a week to a month. Pray that this one is the one week sort. Thank you!

Ok that’s plenty for now, I’m sure. We are so looking forward to having our moms and my aunt and uncle come to visit. So we’ve been having fun scheming and planning for those thins as well. Until next time!

Ciao Ciao!

This is the rose Cody got me for our anniversary. My favorite.