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| Zak & Ana |
Once every two or three weeks, the
school organizes a dinner out at a local trattoria. The evening is always great
fun and is a nice relaxed way to meet other students who are not in your
class. Tuesday night we went to Ristorante
“Il Pennello” which is famous for having been a local hangout for Renaissance
artists and it’s just around the corner from Dante’s house. The school is truly a United Nations of Students
and on Tuesday there were people from: Canada, the US, Australia, Brazil,
Poland, Costa Rica, Russia, England and Germany.
Afterwards, a group of us went for a
drink. NEVER go drinking with people
half your age!
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| Sultry Ana - she really is a lot of fun! |
The Red Garter is a popular local hangout for
American students in Firenze. They like to drink ‘cause its better than studying, and the legal drinking age here is 16 - so they can finally, legally, drink. I was
clearly the oldest person in the bar that night. However, half way through the evening whilst
Ana (a classmate from Poland) and I were dancing, two women in their
mid-forties strolled through the bar, then left. If I felt out of place in a straight bar
filled with 18 year old Americans playing “Beer Pong,” I can only imagine what
those cougars were after…hummm…now that I think about it…..
After two gin tonics, the urinals in
the men’s washroom were more comical than sad, and I went home. As my very good friend Geoffrey would say, I
was not very “fresh” the following morning. Lesson learned: don’t mix red wine
and gin!
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| John, Ana, & Mariana (from Rio) |
The following evening I hosted my very
first dinner party! There were six of us and the menu included a chicken and
mushroom risotto, preceded by some antipasti and a simple caprese salad. The
signature aperativo was Crodino and Aperol – best served in the late afternoon on
a hot summer’s day, but Crodino is hard to find in Toronto and I wanted
something unique.
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| Ana, Natalia, Michel, John, Marie |
The guests were all students from the
school, so naturally we gabbed a lot about our experiences in class. More
interesting though, were people’s backgrounds, how they came to be in Firenze
in January at Istituto Michelangelo,
and what they were looking to do after their time here.
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| Ana, Natalia, and Michel |
Ana was wondering if
there was a better way to make a living than flying 5 days a week for Ryanair
and having to deal with passengers who’ve paid €5 for their ticket yet think they own
the airplane and all the flight attendants.
Natalia (Los Angeles) packed up all her belongings, rented her house and
came to Firenze with two suitcases after a TV production job fell through. With no fixed address at the moment (a bit
like me) she was enjoying her photography class, the city, and wondering if
Bali would be her next stop after Firenze.
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| Michel |
Michel (Barcelona) lamented the
current state of Spain, with its high unemployment and grim prospects for the
future. But he had a job he loved and travelled at every opportunity. John (Sydney, AU) had a stable job as a
pharmacist but he knew he’d get tired of dolling out drugs and was thinking the
pharmaceutical industry might not be a better choice. Marie (Montréal) was in the midst of a huge
transition, having sold her business and divorced her husband. Her passion is helping
women in developing countries and was wondering if she should set up her own
non-profit (I respectfully counselled her against doing this.) And then there is me, but I was just hosting
and doing the cooking!
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| John, and Marie |
Six “quasi” strangers, far from their real
homes, connected by a school in a city in a country that was “home” for the
moment, sharing a glass of wine and a piece of bread and enjoying each other’s company.
What could be better to do on a
Wednesday night in January!
