Baby Steps

After 22 hours of bus rides, 7 hours of floating in a plane, and 2 days of figuring out what we need to survive in a foreign country... we still don't know how to survive in a foreign country, but we have accomplished a few baby steps.

The name Inside The Walls comes from a beautiful little city called Prato in Tuscany. A place so rich with history that the entire city is surrounded by a medieval guarding wall with gates permanently open and guarding posts left abandoned. Our hotel is a successful family owned business that has been passed down through generations. The Hotel Giardino (Photo 1- LS) has been nice enough to let us occupy their rooms as the first class of Beacon College to be in Italy (A.K.A. guinea pigs).

(Photo 1 - Drawn by Lianne Smith)

 When walking around Prato you tend to notice the various ethnicities that are also present aside from the native Italians. The most surprising to us was the presence of Africans living in the city. A week before coming to Prato, I got my passport stolen and had to go to the passport office to replace it. The man that processed my passport asked where I was headed and went on to say that the Italians first impression of me would be that she came straight from Africa. Now we know why. 
 On our trip to Florence we got the immediate historical aspect as our lovely guides, Constanza and Sylvia, walked us around the city. Sylvia started with the history of the Medici family and how they grew their empire from bankers of the most famous families and the Pope to becoming royalty themselves. As you walk around the city and near Piazzo di San Lorenzo, you see their family crest (Photo 2- LS) everywhere and there are a few theories as to what it really means.

Medici Family Crest -  (Photo 2- Drawn by Lianne Smith)

The Orange Tree -  Laurentian Library (Photo 3)

• The first theory is that they're coins because they were severely well known bankers
• The second theory is that they represent the balls of a man meaning that they are the strongest family
• A third theory is that they are oranges because in  the center of almost every garden square they built was orange tree (Photo 3).

Regardless of the meaning, they became a very prominent and powerful family in Florence's history and it is evident all around the city.

After Piazza di San Lorenzo, you run into the square of the large Duomo (Photo 4). Its one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, especially at night. The full experience of street music, evening light, fantastic architecture and the thinning of the rushing crowd is one to completely immerse yourself in.

Photo 4 - Duomo

 

  Joined by Dr. Brode, we walked through many streets of leather vendors and designer shops. We experienced just about every targeted cat call you could get from vendors from "You look like Rihanna, come shop here" to "you look young, we have the best student prices". A couple blocks down from the Duomo was an H&M that caught all of our eyes and all of our wallets. The three of us walked out with shopping bags in tow almost missing the train back to Prato. 

On a final note, our end goal is to learn Italian and become so familiar with city that we are seen as locals. Until next week, Ciao!