Il servizio comunitario e' buono!

From the very first day, near the main gardens of Villa La Pietra

Not from the first day; apparently I'm a DJ of extremely old, tacky music. That would also be known as the obsolete music on Kerstin's laptop.

She is crazy. Ma mi piace molto.

She's REALLY good at READING!!

Piazza della Liberta'. Really nice at night.

Santa Croce (it is a church! This was in one of my earlier photos from Day 1)

A quaint street near the Duomo on our way to.... yes, you guessed it. Eat gelato.

Woke up at the crack of dawn today (6:30AM) to get involved in a new community service project while I’m in Italy. My friend Nadia told me about it (she’s pretty much fluent in Italian) and I thought it would be a cool way to practice my language skills and get out of the American tourist bubble for a few hours each week. Basically, we go to a supermarket and help gather foodstuff, drinks, house supplies, etc. for senior citizens. After doing this, we place the parcels on a truck and go for a ride with the other volunteers to deliver the packages to the old peeps. We got off to a rough start today, our first day. We had to take the 25 bus to the station and then transfer to the number 23; after getting coffee and panini, we transferred to the 23…but in the wrong direction! Cazzo (=shit). We wound up making it to the supermarket (it’s called ‘Coop’) and the head administrator who we were supposed to talk to wasn’t there. Another big ‘cazzo’ was let out, damn (but not too loud as people would hear us). Finally, we found Lorenzo and finished the process of selecting foods and putting them in boxes. Nadia left at that point (there was only room for one of us. I went on delivery today, she’ll go next Tuesday). And then I went with some guy who smoked like a chimney (didn’t catch his name) and Vittorio, a 60 something old guy with white hair and pretty bad breath and body odor. I sat between them, che bello!!! Anyhow, the deliveries took two and a half hours (roughly); we delivered ten packages, most of which included huge cases of bottled water that weighed my ass down and made me lose my breath (most Italian apartment buildings don’t have ascensori, elevators).

It was still great, though. Even though I couldn’t understand most of what was said because the Florentine accent (coupled with denture-induced incoherency) made it impossible. For real, I think I’m damn good at Italian and at times I seriously wondered if they were even speaking in the language. Come to think of it, almost all the clients we delivered to were old women who, upon opening their doors took one look at me and shouted to Vittorio ‘un ragazzino!!!’ (‘a young boy!’). Yes, I pretty much made their day. And it felt nice to know I was doing something that was good and well-intentioned. Obviously I’m not being paid; the incentive is to help get the clients what they need (and lug it up stairs for them) since they have no way of doing this themselves. It reminded me of the times I packed similar food packages for old, poor Jewish people around Passover time with my family, except it was much more grueling; the packages were heavier, and as I mentioned, elevators were scarce. I’m happy I did this today, and I’ll be doing it every Tuesday that I’m here. It’s cool to escape the Villa and Little-America once in awhile to get an alternative window onto Italian life.

After I did this, I took the bus back to the centro (city center) and Duomo zone. Tourists galore. They come here in droves; honestly, I don’t think there were half as many the day I got here (just over a week ago) as there are now. There was a line stretching around the piazza to go into the Duomo when one week ago, I waltzed right inside on a whim. Got some gelato (this stuff is addictive and will be my downfall) and then took the bus back to the villa. Did laundry yesterday morning, so that’s out of the way. Now all I have left today is class from 3 to 5, then we’re going (as a class) to the cinema (movie theater) for an activity. Truthfully, I don’t want to go, but it’s mandatory. This weekend we’re going to Verona and Mantova and staying overnight on Friday in a supposedly really nice hotel. I’m stoked. I’m also going to go to my first opera there! That’s exciting, I suppose. I still don’t know what I’m doing when this trip is all over on August 8 and I have two weeks til I go back to America. I’ve decided I’m going to make a list of things to do, places to see and if people wanna jump on the bandwagon with me they can. If not, I’ll fly solo. Either way, I will see Europe and everything I want to. It will happen! Now it’s off to finish my homework and post a few photos, even though I don’t have many new ones.

A presto,

David