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Gelato in the Rain
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So I arrived back at the hostel. It was fairly "late" like 8 PM, 7 PM, normally I come back to the hostel earlier than that because I'm by myself and am a young female and since I sadly fit the age and gender of horrible statistics I over exaggerate in regards to my safety so I try to get in before dark. Before going inside though I stopped by this little internet/phone place where I called mom to tell her about my day and how I was. After talking with her I went back to the hostel. I walked up to my stairs up the the 2nd floor, where my room was. During my stay in Florence, I was to be in a 6 bedroom all girl dorm. This was the first time I had ever stayed in an all girl dorm; before hand I had always stayed in a mixed dorm or in a room to myself, but due to my "odd" experience with the mixed dorm situation when I stayed at a hostel in Nice (refer to my "Christmas in Nice" blog for more info) I figured it would be best to try out staying in an all girl dorm for a change.
So I arrived in the room, expecting to find myself alone (which normally was the case) but some of my roomies were there. In my room were two girls from Brazil (they weren't traveling together actually) and there was a girl from Germany. There was also a girl from Canada and another from South Korea I believe. The Canadian and the South Korean wanted to sleep, and the other Brazilian (the other Brazilian was actually half Italian/half Brazilian) decided to go out for the night. Before the other two girls went to sleep and the other Brazilian went out for the night, all of us sat in a circle in front of our beds, and talked about literally everything: Florence, Europe, Italy, traveling, our home countries, college, history, science, boys, friends, family, current events, personal perspectives, food, etc. We talked and laughed with each other for several hours. I seemed to hit it off immediately with one of the Brazilian girls (she was from Brazilia) and the German girl (she was a classics major at university).
Well, when the three of us noticed that some of the girls wanted to go to bed and the other Brazilian girl (the half Italian one) wanted to go out for the night, we decided to go downstairs and continue the conversation there. So we went downstairs and sat oustide at the hostel's little "garden" patio area. Even though Archi Rossi Hostel looks small from the oustide, it's actually pretty big on the inside, and it's amazing to think that in the middle of a small, urban part of the city that you would find a hostel big enough to have a small garden/patio area. It was a nice relaxing place to hang out at-they had patio furniture, copies of famous Greco/Roman statues depicting the different ancient gods, and there were some plants and all. The three of us (the Brazilian from Brazilia, the German who was a classics major and myself) were the only ones there, but we talked for a long time about varied subjects and all while the German smoked her cigarette and finished off her can of Henikan and we laughed the night away. Finally, somehow the three of us started to talk about Italian food and gelato got mentioned. None of us had tried gelato yet and all of a sudden the German girl suggests "Well, why don't we go get some? There's a gelateria down the street let's go get some!" The three of us agreed, but I wanted to go up stairs and put on some decent shoes, get a jacket and also get my money (I wasn't expecting to go out again as you can tell) but once I got my things I went downstairs to meet them.
This was around 9, 10 PM when we decided to go out for gelato and as we walked down our small little street it started to drizzle softly. In no time we arrived at the gelateria (which was just down the corner) and the three of us ordered cones with three different flavors. After placing our order and paying for our gelato, we walked outside, stood right outside the door of the gelateria and ate our gelato. Even though it was drizzling and was a tad cold (a bit too cold for gelato actually, I remember shivering even though I had a jacket on, but hey that's what I got for eatting ice cream!) we enjoyed ourselves. The three of us continued to laugh and talk, and ate our gelato as if we hadn't eatten in days. As we stood outside the gelateria and ate, several umbrella salesmen walked by us, cooing a "chao bella" and asked us to buy an umbrella from them which we replied no to each time, but we didn't care...we were with each other eating real, tasty, creamy gelato in the rain....odd yet wonderful.
When we were partially done with our gelato the three of us headed back to the hostel, talking and laughing the entire way. Eventually we got back to the hostel, which by that time we were ready to go to bed.
Out of all my previous trips before Florence, I had not been invited to really "go out" with anybody until this particular night. I had always managed to make friends on my trips and I did do some "socializing" while in Poland, but normally in the evenings I was normally at the hostel, by myself. Well, during my previous trips most of the people that I had encountered had been traveling with other people, while everyone in my dorm in Florence were traveling by themselves and since we were all in the same boat I guess that's why everyone was so willing to hang out with each other. What ever the reason was for why I hit it off so great with everyone in my dorm, particularly those two, I don't think it matters. My first day in Italy, and in Florence in particular, ended with a bang...I had not expected such a successful first day; normally I'm trying to "get my barrings," but this time everything seemed to be going as planned and then some. As you can imagine, I was feeling very happy and alive right now; I was living la dolce vita and la vita bella in Italy...hopefull it was going to continue and sure enough, this first day actually ended up setting the tone for the remainder of my trip in Italy.
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