Protest in Florence

13.2.2011

                Today in Florence Camille and I decided to go do homework at a café on the other side of the river (this is supposed to be the more “Italian” side of Florence).  Little did we know a huge protest was taking place.  From what I can tell it is to protest against the leader of Italy who recently was caught being promiscuous with underage girls.   There were huge banners and signs saying things like “Italy isn’t a brothel”.  At one point we stopped to watch (partly due to the fact that we could get anywhere because it was so crowded).

                All of a sudden the entire group of protestors seemed to stop and infront of us was a group of drummers.  They were playing beats while everyone around them was clapping, dancing and swaying along with the music.  People were even adding in to the music with their own version of symbols (pot and pan lids that they would hit with a wooden spoon in order to add a little something to the drum beat). 

                The protest was probably one of the coolest things I’ve witnessed to date.  Although it was a protest it almost seemed joyous.  Everyone seemed to be involved and everyone was unified.   There were children walking and dancing along next to their mothers or even grandmothers.  Men and women, young and old, it didn’t matter who you were everyone was welcome.  The protest stretched for a good couple of miles hundreds of people were cheering, dancing and chanting.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

The Fish Market in Venice

                On our last morning in Venice we decided to go to the Rialto Market.  My mom had suggested it saying the fish market was really fun to see.  So we headed off from our hotel making it to the market around nine or so.  The market was completely alive from tourists taking pictures to the vendors and locals making selections to purchase. 

                We slowly weaved our way through the smelly market, noticing things such as squid, octopus, clams, monk fish even eel!  Everyone seemed to be at the market, my favorite “type” of shopper had to be the old couples.  They’d be moving around in their tweed and fur jackets hollering at the vendors to get service lugging their grocery pull carts behind them as they held hands and scooted from stand to stand finding the best selections.

Throughout our walk through the market we constantly kept stopping to watch the vendors precisely and perfectly fillet any fish that was handed to them.  For me, while watching them a face of disgust and amazement would appear on my face.  Disgust when they would yank out the guts or easily pull off a fish head and amazement at the precision and ease they would execute and decapitate each fish with.  Of course I wasn’t the only one to notice my facial reactions, eventually no matter which stand we were observing the vendors would see our faces and laugh at us (in a friendly manner of course).   And of course the vendor who noticed would tap all of his fellow workers and eventually all the vendors would be smiling and laughing at us.

The fish market was probably one of my favorite parts of our trip to Venice.  Is it weird that while surrounded by breathtaking buildings and picturesque scenery my favorite part was the smelly fish market?  I think I’m my mother’s daughter.

The adventure of the leather market…

Today I got up early and met up with some other girls who didn’t have class, including my two roommates Camille and Taylor, and we set off for the leather market also known as the San Lorenzo market.  I went there with the intention of simply looking around, I was not ready to make any big purchases.  But I wanted to look into a book bag/purse, a leather jacket and maybe a leather duffel bag.  We arrived at the market around 9:30ish, of course we had to stop at a café for espresso and croissants.  The girls we were with went to a leather bag store they had in mind in order to pick up a few things.  We have found that the vendors will love anyone who buys something in their store (especially if you make multiple purchases, this often leads to “special friend price”).   The vendor at this particular bag shop was in love with my friend Michelle.  Before we left the shop he asked to take a picture with her.  We all laughed and of course Michelle said yes, little did we know he was going to sweep her off her feet while saying “amore” over and over again – only in Italy.

                Next Camille, Taylor and I went off just to browse through some jackets nothing too committal.  We saw a nice shop off to the side and decided to wander in.  A few hours later and several shops involved all three of us had our very own genuine Florentine leather jackets.  It was one of those purchases that we went into saying, “oh I’ll just try it on” and once seeing ourselves in the mirror absolutely fell in love with the jackets.

                I think my favorite part about all of our jackets was how completely different they were.  Though yes they are all brown and yes from the same market.  None of us purchased them from the same vendor.  My vendor was Marco, his family is from Sienna and he makes the jackets himself!  He also sends leather jackets to his brother who has a leather jacket shop in California.  I like to get to know the vendors when I make purchases, can you tell?  I wasn’t in the shop when Taylor purchased hers but Camille’s vendor was Valentino.  Valentino was a beautiful Italian man that smiled the entire time we were in the shop (I think he has a bit of a crush on Camille).  His family is from Florence and he and his father gave us a quick lesson on leather…

                Lambs skin jackets are softer and will shape to your figure the more you wear them.  Both Valentino and his father prefer lambs skin, “it doesn’t get scratched and over time it will end up looking vintage.”  There is also calf skin which is much more rigid and becomes lighter and lighter over time but is a more heavy jacket.

                Anyway, back to our jackets…The other reason I love all of our jackets is because they are all completely different styles.  We each have unique stitching, cuts and details to our own jackets.  I like this because I think each jacket goes with our different personalities. 

So our adventure in the leather market I would say was a success.  We went into it not intending to spend 120 euro (originally 300, have to love the sale season) but each of us came out with our first true Italian leather jackets.