RVs and Russian Ringtones

My lessons are going well. I find it ironic that my sole purpose in this program is helping people overcome the one language I want to be speaking. Walking back through the graffitied tunnel that runs under the train tracks, I see the sun set on Florence's orange horizon.

"Obey your thirst," says the ubiquitous Sprite ad we know so well. In Italy, you are merely asked to "listen to your thirst."

Friday at the bar in Piazza San Jacopino, there were only a couple customers other than me and 3 other kids in my program. One lady, chainsmoking the whole time, leaned over a carriage only to gently lift out a pet skunk. You never know what you're gonna see here.

According to the folklore of my childhood, I'm turning into a carb. Whatever that is. Probably some kind of geometric-looking, polygonal shape I haven't seen since 10th grade chemistry class. Ah nutrition facts. They're a new addition to Italian food products, apparently. "Calories" are scripted instead as "energetic value." Why would you want to count energetic value?

The head of my teaching program has confirmed it. Baroncini Gelateria is the best in Florence. The worst? I don't know for sure, but probably the ones with the brightest colors and the cheesiest flavor names.

I wake up each morning to my neighbors' shouts and the slams of doors. My arms are mosquito bitten, and I scratch them as my alarm goes off. My ringtone? This tacky and annoying Russian-sounding tune. Cultural, I know.

I'd heard of this kind of chocolate before, but I bought a bar of Ritter Sport. It's German. I hate the name though, because after eating chocolate, there's nothing I'd rather do less than a sport. I'd prefer, I think, a nap.

I was thinking back to Viareggio the other day, some of the things I heard Serena's family say. One of her father's lifelong dreams is an RV roadtrip across the United States. The stuff of novels worshipped by hipsters and B-movies starring Robin Williams. It must seem weird to Europeans, then, that we Americans want to vagabond around their continent on shoestring budgets, wearing coffin-sized backpacks.

Salute.
-a