After finally leaving the apartment around noon, Nil and I wandered around the city for a bit and went to Santa Croce. Because this was Nil's first time in this church where some big names--Leo, Mickey, Machiavelli, Dante and Galileo-- are buried and my third, she was wanting to spend more time there than I was. I left her and met Emily and Blair for coffee. On the way back, we were caught in a water protest. There was a block-long blue paper sheet being waved, banners and drummers. I don't really know what it was about. Everything was written in cryptic Italian that I'm sure would be clever and moving if I knew what Florence's current water problems are and were above Intermediate 3 level of Italian.
The three of us then met up with Nil again and went to San Miniato, where I joined Eleonora's tour group and they wandered around the church separately. I could understand a decent amount, there were children aged in the single digits so Eleonora was using simple words. There was a frustrating moment when everyone was guessing what this animal was in this mosaic, then when it was finally revealed that the name of the animal isn't in my Italian vocabulary I was still left in suspense.
I then left the group to meet up with Nil, Blair, Emily and Allison, an old high school friend who happens to be studying abroad in Florence as well this semester, in another part of the church for the highly anticipated monk singing. They had already snagged front row seats. I had imagined that this would be like an A capella performance, or at the very least the monks would have a little more talent than the majority of the performers at the Italian karaoke. Not so. They sang in Latin for at least 30 minutes, mostly solos with three-note ranges. Then they began preaching. It was in Italian and they spoke very slowly, at first exciting because I could understand, but then disappointing because it appears traditional church sermons are universally dull and repetitive, no matter the language.
We left in the middle at a politely less conspicuous time, then went to get warm wine to warm ourselves in the frigid weather and recover from a painful letdown. There's a Christmas market in front of Santa Croce with nicknacks and food from around the world in little stands. I ate a delicious, thick wurst with craut and mustard. I've been told a few times since being here that I could pass as German. I don't know much about the country and haven't met many Germans, but I do like what they do to their pig meat.
That night, Blair and I went to the club Yab and we were dancing almost the entire time, and the fellas were all over Blair. She thinks every European guy's gay and therefore thought all her dance suitors were gay, but I didn't pay enough attention to know for sure for most of them. There was one human being with the same hairstyle as Johnny Depp in Willy Wonka wearing a white, pin-striped suit, thick, square, white-framed glasses, and male dress shoes with heels on them. We couldn't figure out if the human was male or female, it was the worst case of androgyny I'd ever seen. I was wearing black boots with heels that my mom brought me when she came to visit, and on my 20-minute trek home, my feet were dying.
Today, Nil and I went to Lucca, a little city an hour train ride from Florence. Our objective was to see churches, which we did, though less than anticipated. We also happened upon a chestnut festival, where we ate many food samples in a heated building. It's a lot quieter and greener than Florence, though we agreed that Florence is a better place to be living in this time in our lives. It's the best travel makes you appreciate home, or temporary home, more.
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