Sono Qui!

I'm here! And it only took 36 hours of pure hell.

It started with a heart attack situation flight cancellation out of Kansas City, mental breakdown in front of 6 dudes on the plane, then a flight cancellation out of Chicago, thus overnight in Chicago, booking a whole separate connecting flight from London to Firenze, spending 10 overnight hours (awake) in Gatwick, waiting in the wrong lines to finally board, and finally me making a fool of myself at the Florence airport by walking out of the airport before ever getting my bags. All that plus many different people, odors, languages, etc.. on only 4 hours of sleep.

A few moments really pushed me to question what I was doing this for, but then I remembered that it's so I can live in Italy. I finally landed on Friday at 1 p.m. and went to the apartment where Andrea was waiting and cooking some pasta and homemade pesto. I was super duper nervous to speak Italian so I blamed my English on jetlag. Anyway he showed me around the apartment, we had lunch, I walked through town for about 30 minutes and them came home and slept for about 12 hours. (This is my room. There is a closet behind where I'm standing.)

I woke up, went on a two hour run/mostly walk and took in the scenery. There's just no place like Florence. My apartment is just across the Ponte Vecchio and a block to the right. It's in the Santo Spirito neighborhood. The scenery everywhere is gorgeous - the buildings, the river, the hills with winding paths, the Duomo. Che bellissima. That day I finally met Nancy the other roommate. She and Andrea are both great. The three of us went to meet Tuillio, a friend of Nancy, in piazza Santo Spirito for some drinks. I pretty much entertained everyone by practicing my Italian. I told them that I studied Italian for two asses and when I tried to order more drinks for the table, I asked the bartender for due negri instead of due negroni - instead of the Italian drink, negroni, I ordered two black men. Sweet. After that we went to Flo - an uber-hip dance club at Piazzale Michelangelo. (A beautiful piazza in the hillside that overlooks all of Florence.) It's not exactly my scene, nor do my roommates frequent it, but they wanted to show me the scenery and start things off right. Plus we rode scooters up there and I was in heaven. (Below: Nancy, Tuillio, me, Andrea in the kitchen for late night pasta and wine after the bar.)

All-in-all, it was a great start to life in Italia. Sunday I finally got my senses back and had a truly fantastic day. After sleeping in then walking around with Nancy, Andrea invited us to go with him to his cousin's country house for dinner. Obviously I jumped on board. A of all, I learned the beauty of the scooter the night before and will take any opportunity to ride on one. and B of all, duh. First of all, his cousin, Raffa, is a sculptor in Florence. (I was looking at a photography book about the Santo Spirito earlier and a picture of Raffa working in his studio was featured in the book.) His great great great grandfather, Romano Romanelli, was a famous sculptor and there are actually two of his sculptures are in Kansas City. In fact, one of them is at 69th and Wornall at Romanelli Gardens - a stone's throw from my second house in Brookside. Anyway, Nancy decided not to go because only two people can fit on the scooter so I was especially nervous heading out the door with Andrea because I was picturing sitting around a crowded table with a loud Italian family and having to keep up in conversation.

We jumped on the scooter and took off. I am now convinced that I was born to own a scooter. I love it. Anyway we headed outside of the city, through the Old Door and into the country. The scenery was too much to take in. I can't begin to describe how beautiful it was. Rolling hills - mountains - with hilltop towns, cypress trees lining the road, vineyards, patches of sunflowers, you name it. After about 20 minutes of being blown away, we turned off to a side road and drove for about 5 minutes on a stretch of gravel road with a field of sunflowers surrounding it, then started scaling the mountain. It vertically snaked up the side of the mountain and all I kept thinking was, I don't want to come back down this bad boy.

Anyway we got there and pulled up the most perfect Italian-country looking home ever. We walked around the side of the house and saw beautiful patio area next to a pool, then just acres of orchards  and gardens looking down into the valley. Walking back to the garden we passed blocks of marble for his sculptures, along with apple trees and plum trees. Back in the big vegetable garden, Raffa has everything from onions, to corn stalks, to zucchini, tomatoes, you name it. He also has a very loud rooster and a chicken in a coop by the garden gate. It ended up being just Andrea, Raffa and I for dinner (I was comforted to find out), which they made from the fresh vegetables in the garden.

Here's what we ate:
Antipasta - Chopped fresh cabbage with salt, red wine vinegar and olive oil. The cabbage was so fresh, it was amazing.

Dinner - Sauteed vegetables cook on the stovetop in a tomato, olive oil and basil base. Fresh zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, red onion. Che fantastico.

We had some beer with dinner and ended up sitting there for about 3 hours just talking about everything and nothing at all. It was great. We were speaking 60-70% Italian. At some point, all of a sudden, Raffa started speaking perfect British English. I guess he has been holding out on me for a while. We mostly joked about scared I was to drive back down from the house to go home. We finally left a little after 11 and the ride back was amazing. It was very cold even in jeans, a sweater and a jacket. Anyway, he took the "panoramic view" home and we just crawled our way up and down hillsides and through tiny towns until we got home.

Driving up

Path to backyard

One of the many views

Deck and pool

Orchard leading to garden (and rooster and chicken)

Overall I couldn't be happier or have asked for a better reception to in Italy. I love the apartment, I couldn't have asked for better roommates, everyone is so nice and the weather is perfect (abnormally not hot for this time of year.) I am so comfortable here already, aside from the language (which is coming along), that I know I'm in for a great time!