So my weekend in Florence turned out to be absolutely AMA but the day of travel was pretty much the day from hell.
Series of Unfortunate Events:
I woke up in the morning and I did NOT feel like P-Diddy. It was 8:30 am and I was tired. I woke up a few minutes earlier than usual to look over the notes for my presentation that I would be giving at 10:30am in Business Ethics. I was feeling pretty confident, and hoped that my Dutch and Chinese group members felt the same way when they arrived at our one building of a school. I saved the most updated Powerpoint on a flash drive and secured it safely in a zipper pocket in my purse. My backpack for Florence was all packed, passport in wallet, and all other necessary items so I could head to the airport directly from school. I couldn’t have been more prepared.
Jaclyn and I left a few minutes earlier to make sure we arrived to class spiffy and on time. This meant leaving at 9:30am instead of 9:35am which got us to our classroom by 10:20am. My two group mates and I sat anxiously in the classroom awaiting the arrival of our teacher. My flash drive gripped in hand ready to clip right into her little computer that she brings every single day to class to present us with PowerPoint’s on the projector. Out of the ten or so groups in our class, we would be the first out of everyone to present for the month.
10:30 am on the dot she enters the classroom, calls our names, and expresses she is ready for us to go. But wait – there is no computer in her hand. Did she forget it? Is it hiding under the desk? Is it wearing an invisibility cloak? No to all of the above. Apparently if we were going to use any sort of media, we should have informed her BEFOREHAND and she would have either brought her computer with her, or suggested we bring our own. Well, you never told us that miss. Blank stares are going all around and of course the rest of our classroom is unprepared as well so no one has any sort of laptop or hookup. This leads us to frantically run downstairs to the library, which is constantly crowded with Dutch students hogging the computers to check out their new mates on Facebook and we get dizzy trying to find a free computer. Finally, we find a free computer and upload our PowerPoint so we can print it since none of us actually memorized what we were going to say. The first two attachments don’t download, and finally after we are already holding the class up about 15 minutes, we find the correct document and print out the slides. I wipe the beads of sweat dripping from my brow and boldly introduce the presentation about the Toyota Recall.
I spoke loudly, I spoke clearly, I spoke English, I made eye contact, I didn’t read straight from the (printed) slides, I made the crowd laugh, and I most importantly was informative. My Dutch teammate spoke softly and read directly off the slides and my Chinese teammate spoke in slow scattered English. At the end of the presentation, our teacher graded us out loud in front of the entire class. As a group, we received a 7/10 (which is actually a decent grade in the Netherlands). She then persisted to look at each of us and let us know our personal presentation grades. She pointed to me and said I received a 7. At times I ‘spoke too fast’ and since ‘English is my first language I should speak it being aware that not everyone’s native language in the classroom is English.’
WHAT?
You teach the class IN English. We are all supposed to present IN English.
Oliver, my Chinese teammate receives an 8 for his presentation grade because he spoke slower…
…
So pretty much I was punished for speaking perfectly good English rather than inserting a lot of ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ in order to scatter my flowing natural language. I guess I should have given the presentation in Spanish and then I would have received a 10 for using improper conjugations and misusing words.
As you can tell I am bitter. I did talk to her after class but her reaction remained the same. U G H
Well, at least I was off to Florence! Right!? Just two simple short flights and I should arrive by approx. 7 p.m. and giving my lovely Christine a hug by 8.
The one smooth part of my day was getting to the airport from school. The train to the airport came right away and I was checked in with more than enough time for my 2:50pm flight! Unfortunately, my flight was delayed until 3:15, but I figured that was still more than enough time to get to Zurich for my connecting flight. Plus – the connecting flight to Florence will probably have a small delay too so I only arrive a little later to Florence.
Soon enough, it’s 3:10 and we still haven’t boarded. Only then do I realize our flight is actually delayed another HOUR until 4:15. Oy vey. For some reason, I still think everything will be fine and I’ll hop right on my plane in Zurich. Finally we take off and the flight lasts a short 40 minutes. We landed in Zurich only 15 minutes before my flight was originally supposed to take off, and I still assumed it would be delayed. After speed walking to the transfer desk in Zurich, I am unfortunately informed that I will not be able to make my flight as the original time stayed the same. Also, there are no more direct flights to Florence – AWESOME!!! As I am breathing deeply and trying not to scream at the rude lady who tells me this, I ask her in the nicest way possible: ‘well what the hell am I supposed to do?’
“Well, we can put you on a flight to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt you can fly to Florence. “
I tell you, zig-zagging across Europe on budget planes is going to be my new hobby. I only let one measly tear get right beneath my right eye and pinched myself to grow up. I guess I was just lonely and wanted to see my friends! Luckily, the lady who actually printed out my tickets was a bit nicer and got me on an earlier flight to Frankfurt so I had more time in between my flights to have a cocktail. I sprinted down those cool moving sidewalks and was sufficiently sweating when I finally got my seat on the second plane of the night. I drank my free wine and then enjoyed a nice cocktail when I was jotting around in Frankfurt airport. Finally at 9:00, I boarded my plane to Florence. By this point I could hardly hear anything because my ears wouldn’t stop popping from the constant take-off and landing. Finally around 10:30 pm, the wheels on the plane made contact with the runway in good ol’ fashion Firenze. My Italian blood pumped a little harder and I knew I was home.
TG for a BB. (Thank God for a Black Berry) I hopped in a taxi and bbmed a few Loyola peeps to see where everyone was. The taxi dropped me off in front of a lonely door that apparently housed the hostel I was staying in. Luckily, the duomo was in clear eyesight. I threw my stuff on an empty bed, changed my travel outfit, spruced up my face, and ventured to meet a bar full of Loyola students.
Eureka!
Christine and I embraced in a long squishy hug…. I continued to catch up in some hugs and kisses with some other Loyola pals including the lovely miss Kaela Keyes! Christine was a little tired from too much hugging so went back to her home stay before the rest of us ventured on the club. Kaela and I danced the night away with the Saxophonist on the stage. As the night was winding down, I found Brendan so we could walk back to our hostel with the Jacuzzi since everyone else was staying in ‘Hotel California’ – a really classy establishment. I saw a large dome in the night sky and assumed it was the main duomo so I led Brendan in that direction insisting it was the right way to our hostel. Well, let’s just say we took a little detour. We enjoyed some early morning shopping on the ponte vecchio, did some touring of the palazzo de vecchio, and watched the fake David being moved at 5:30 am in front of the duomo.
Still a little shaky on Saturday morning from all the redbull the night before, we thought it was a great idea to climb the duomo! Success – we all made it without getting sick and got a lovely view of the city. The rest of the day consisted with a lot of walking and some more sight seeing. Saturday night was great again!
Christine, Brendan, JD, Chris and myself enjoyed some quality time at a lovely restaurant called Mamma Mia. My Gnocchi was absolutely delicious and my stomach just grumbled thinking about it. After a few glasses of vino, we moved on to the next bar to reunite with the rest of the Loyola crowd. We all enjoyed our three drinks for ten euro at Bigallo and next went to the Red Garter. Margaret is so used to taking shopping carts to the clubs in Paris so she was extra excited when she saw one on the streets of Florence! Needless to say, she arrived quickest to the bar as we all walked slowly behind the speeding four-wheeled crate.
After some popcorn wars and some good laughs, I found Brendan sitting in his reflection at Santa Croce. We missed the ponte vecchio so much that we decided to walk back and meet some of his friends. Brendan’s friends thought I was the bomb – just because I studied in Amsterdam. They persisted to claim that they were coming to visit me this weekend because they loved it so much. They haven’t contacted me yet though – maybe they’re just last minute kind of guys.
Back to sleep in the hostel by 6 am, Sunday was enjoyed by some more touring of Florence. Although most of the Loyola crowd departed the Italian city, I was there to stay for one more day! On Sunday night, Christine’s host nona Silva invited me over for a home cooked Italian meal. If you read my blog post below, you can imagine that the meal was VERY similar to those I experienced in Italy in August. I was stuffed but fully satisfied by the end of my meal. Since my hostel was now emptied out for the weekend, Christine was kind enough to stay with my on Sunday night so I wasn’t completely alone. We enjoyed an American breakfast on Monday morning before I was headed back to the Dam. After we scarfed down our bacon, egg, and cheese’s, we met Kaela and Margaret for a quick goodbye hug then sent me on my way to the airport.
This time, I actually had no delays. I made it safe and sound to Amsterdam by 7 p.m. Carpe Diem!
This weekend will be just as fun – the small apartment I live in here in Amsterdam will be crowded with 8 people. Look forward to some stories to come!
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