The people of Florence.

It's really true what they say about the food here. It really is difficult to get a bad meal. My favorite restaurant so far is Ristorante Il Teatro . We ate there for our school's welcome dinner a few nights ago. I eat slow, even for Italian standards. So as they are bringing desert plates out to everyone, I still have a full plate of vegetables in front of me. The waitress Mariella comes up to me and asks me in Italian why I'm not eating. I say "I am! I'm just slow!" She says "no no no," grabs my fork and starts shoveling food into my mouth- Choo Choo Train style. I can't eat the food as fast as it's coming. Everyone applauds her after my plate is picked clean. She takes a bow and walks off.

I go back the next day to eat lunch by myself. My other friend Karmen is working, but Mariella seats me. When she takes my order, she pinches my cheeks and tells me how good I am at speaking Italian. A little bit later, she pulls on my hair as she makes her way into the kitchen. I give a bit of a jump, and the Italians eating at the table next to me give me a strange look. I tell them she is my friend, and they give me an even stranger look between "Why is this American speaking Italian?" and "Why is he speaking Italian to us?" I just smiled and continued to eat.

I like all the people here. I think they are all brilliant. I was buying a pannini from Roberto today, when an old gentleman started talking to me in English. With a thick British accent, he said, "Why is it that not many Americans speak another language?" I was caught off guard to hear him speak English, as he had ordered his sandwich in Italian. I regained my composure, switched to English and said, "I don't know, but I'm trying to fix that." His name was Alan and he talked to me for two hours about everything from teaching at Oxford to how America needs to switch from privatized to public health care. He had a lot to say and I just stood and listened. If you had recorded our conversation and made a time lapse of it, you would have seen us dancing in an elliptical motion around Roberto's cart, me taking the lead as I would try to put some distance between us. I wasn't trying to avoid the conversation, just the spit coming from his mouth. But I wouldn't have traded those two hours for anything. I hope I run into him again.

Last night I went out to a restaurant to eat with my two friends from school. As we are sitting at the table, I hear our waiter singing as he enters the room. I tell him "Signor, canti bello!" He laughs and sets me straight saying he's not a good singer. Then I start to sing in Italian. Basic sentences that are by no means poetic to someone who speaks the language. Things like "I love to eat! I would like to eat right now!" He laughs. I tell him I like to sing, but I am not very good. He begins to talk to us. We listen attentively.

He talks about how it is the responsibility of the men in this world to take care of the women. He says it's instinctive and is necessary for the survival of our race. Nothing serious here. He's just speaking his mind to Christine, Chiro and me in the empty restaurant as he twirls an empty wine bottle through his fingers. Nowhere to be, no one to serve. Plenty of time to talk to some Americans. He scolds me for calling him signore and tells me we are friends and to call him Nicola. So I do.

I ask him if he has ever been to the States. He says if he goes, he is afraid he will never come back. I ask him how he could possibly leave this country, and he says "Niente Speciale." It's nothing special. He then asks me how I like Florence so far. I tell him I like it so much better than San Diego. I say "I've lived there for so long so San Diego is nothing special for me. It's beautiful, but it's nothing special."

It's weird to think that someone can live in this city and walk around everyday and not be mystified at where they are. I want to run around and shake everyone and say "why aren't you more excited? Look at where you are!!" It's hard to imagine the surreal effects of walking around here ever wearing off. But then in the same minute I have this thought, I think about the paradise I came from and how people must react to me when I say "oh I live in San Diego, it's nothing special." I don't think I can ever fully appreciate how lucky I was to grow up there. But sometimes you don't realize how cool the place you come from is until you've left it. I think traveling is great in that way, where you get to discover new awesome places but at the same time rediscover where you came from. It's exciting, I kind of like being the guy from California.

As we leave the Trattoria Anita another waiter, Maurizio, comes up to me and asks me how long I will be living in Florence for. I tell him about three months. He responds with "now that you live here, the only restaurant you eat at is Trattoria Anita." It was less of a request and more of a statement. I laugh and I tell him he will be seeing a lot of me from now on.

The sights and art of Florence are amazing. But next to coming here and seeing it yourself, it doesn't do a lot of good if I try and describe it. You can read an art history book for that. And don't get me wrong, it's tied for first place for my favorite part of living here. But it's competition is the people. It's the people that you can't see or read about if you pick up an art book on Italy. They are truly works of art in their own.

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Tonight I am going to eat at an Italian restaurant with the Florence Couch Surfing group. I haven't met these people before, but I am really excited to. There will be Florence Couch Surfers there and people from all over the world. I can't wait.

Remy