Learning Our Way Around

Nicole (my amazing roommate from Uconn as well as here in Florence) and I decided that when its comes to having a sense of direction, we are extremely spoiled as Americans. I can find my way around Cheshire, around the mall, even around New York City once i figure out which direction is uptown and which is downtown. However, here in Florence, we quickly learned that our admittedly small senses of direction are quick to get confused. All the city blocks look the same, and when not in view of a familiar landmark, it is very easy to get lost. While this provides some funny moments (Example: me sitting down with a map on the steps of a church determined to find my street without asking for help...and then realizing this was the church directly next to my street) it also is helping us to learn our way around the city. After two fast weeks here, we are slowly learning (Nicole much quicker than I) our way around.

Our favorite technique of learning the city is to go walk around, get lost, and then find our way back to a familiar landmark. This brings us to new parts of the city we would have never seen before. Yesterday, we found an older Jewish neighborhood complete with stars of david in the windows, Hebrew store names, and an old flea market. There was even a random Catholic Church there. Then, later last night (while eating chocolate gelato from the world famous Vivoli) we were determined to find out what the large brick building was that we can see out of our windows. After a few minutes of wandering, we discovered it is an old prison/fortress which has since been turned into a museum- this is one landmark we will definitely have to check out further!