Cultural Do's and Don'ts

Spurred by recent adventures in the streets of Florence this afternoon, I realized a couple of things. Hopefully by reading this, you will be able to safely and comfortably travel Italy and walk the streets of Florence with ease. First lesson: While studying abroad in Florence, it is very important to bring with you a spiral notebook, or something to take notes in for your class. It does not weight that much and it is easy to pack. There are hundreds of small stores in Florence, however it appears that none of them carry notebooks. I read through my university handbook and got some addresses for some local school supply stores. Having the addresses conveniently memorized, I left the apartment with a confident Italian swagger, grinning at the tourists and snickering while I blew past them on the sidewalks while they stupidly studied their oversized maps. In Florence, there are two different types of street number addresses, thoughs that are black and thoughs that are red. Well, seeing where this is probably going, I forgot to look at that little bit of information. The street that my prospective notebook target was located on, of course, turned out to be the longest street in Florence. No worries, I had my chacos on...nothing could stop me now. My number was 55. Starting at 1, I marched on my merry way. I finally reached my destination, halfway between and unmentionables store for the females and a tobacco shop, there lay lucky number 55. The door had been removed and replaced with a sheet of ply wood. In Arkansas, that normally means "RUN FOR IT!! DANGER APPROACHES!!". But I have learned that in Florence to truly not judge a book by its cover. So I gave this place a chance. While skimming the yellow notice posted on the wooden door replacement, I tried to pick out key words. One drew my attention, it appeared something like this, "evictimente". Now my Italian is lacking in some areas, but I know that that can't be good. Down troddened and rejected, I called my trusty roommate for some moral boosting information. He informed me that the address was truly Via Cavour 55 but it had that dirty little "r" on the end, meaning red. This changes everything. I set off to find my new location. In true American fashion, red 55 was just passed the McDonald's. I knew that I was in the right place. As I happily approached red 55, I saw a man coming out of the door with a ladder and a bucket of paint. Sure enough, red 55 was being renovated. Strike again. I proceeded to walk around Florence for 2 more hours trying to find something resembling a bookstore. Every liberia I went into, only had books with words, I wanted the book where I could put my own words in. No one could understand. Rejected and slightly agitated with Florence, I headed back home. I made it into the tent market area and decided to go just a little past the apartment and give Florence a chance to redeem itself. Like an oasis in the Sahara, I found a bookstore resembling that of a Barnes and Nobles. I thought that surely this place had spiral notebooks. I asked the woman at the front desk and she pointed to the leather bound memo pads, 25 euro each. Out of politeness, I looked them over and then sneakly walked away to search the store by myself. I finally found some!!!! One problem, do I choose the Hello Kitty pattern or the flower power combination with purple pages. Strike again. With renewed hope, I continued to look and finally found something that fit the description of a notebook!!! Glorious! 4.8 euro later I was headed back to the apartment. Out of happiness, I finally stopped at the sunglass tent to see what there was to offer a triumphant American like myself. Luckily for me, the asian man working the stand neither spoke Italian or English or anything for that matter. This was a Clint Eastwood show down. We did the talkin with our hands. He held up a five and I held up a 3. He didnt like that much so I handed him the sunglasses back...he handed them back to me and held up 4. I grimmiced and shook my head. Reaching into my pocket I grabbed 3 euro out. He shook his head. 3.5? DEAL!!!! Tax free baby!!! Two glorious wins in the streets of Florence! A good afternoon.

Tripp