| | Florence is a very strange city, I've decided. I would call it the city with the world's prettiest alleyways. Those gorgeous, earthy Tuscan colors rising on both sides, glowing underneath a stained glass dusk-- all those balconies and hanging plants and enticing smells-- it really is beautiful. And yet, at some level they still feel like alleyways, cut off, enclosed, suffocating and a little unnerving. It's such an urban center that flourishes of Tuscan countryside seem almost-- almost-- out of place.
It's a city, I suppose, that exists in a tension of opposing forces-- urban and rural, classical and modern. And yet looking out over the city as I am now, seated in the Boboli Gardens, who could help but love it? Clustered in a valley beneath forested hills of greens and yellows, that array of clay roofs and stone walls seems to rise out of the landscape, fresh red earth baking under an afternoon sun. It's such a different experience even a mile from the city center. I think it's a good place. It didn't open itself to me immediately like London, but after a few days I see its appeal.
At any rate, last night a few of my friends from Cambridge passed through town. I knew before I left England that they'd be around, but I thought it might be a bit awkward to just say "let's hang out in a foreign country!" -- I didn't know them that well. But once I realized how lonely traveling is, I sought them out for at least one Italian dinner I wouldn't have to eat alone. I found out where Allie was staying from her on Facebook, and pretty much the only time my Italian has been genuinely useful was in trying to explain to the staff of Allie's very strange hostel that I needed them to give her a with a meeting time and place. ("Mia amica Allie Butss arrive a Dany House mezzogiorno! Puoi dare un questo foglio a Allie quando arrive?" is how I should have put it. I wasn't quite so collected at the time, but I got the point across).
In retrospect, I'm really glad I did. We went to a supermarket (supermercato!) and cooked dinner at their hostel. It wasn't the best meal in the world-- if only I'd had a little garlic, cream, and tomato paste-- but I was so glad to eat it in good company the taste wasn't all that important. The whol hostel, unlike mine, was very social, cooking and eating together like a family, and that-- that!-- is what Italy should be like. Allie was telling me she envied my indepence, my ability to see what I want to see when I want to see it without having to negotiate intergroup dynamics, and that has been a plus. But it was nice, at least for one night, to have people to come back to.
As I wrote while I was in England, I like people. I think they're neat. |
| | Posted 9/23/2007 8:58 PM - 15 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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