First night in Florence

Who knew that American pop music was an international language? In the States, you hear it on the radio and don’t think much of it; occasionally a song with catchy lyrics gets stuck in your head and you’re humming it for days. When a group of us students decided to head out to a bar or club the first night in Florence, we didn’t really know what to expect. Our arrival in Florence had been extremely anticlimactic. It was drizzling, we were loaded with luggage, and upon arrival at the hotel, we found the layout and accommodations to be disappointing after being spoiled at the Padina Archangelo agritourisima. Personally, I was frustrated because I had expected this hotel to be just as nice if not nicer than our other stays since we are here for the longest time. Instead, we found out that we wouldn’t have access to free internet, I didn’t have a bathtub to do laundry, and our room was extremely hot with a thermostat that didn’t work (since our arrival, everything but the bathtub laundry has been figured out, luckily).

There were two birthdays in the group and of course these two individuals were very set on going out to celebrate. I was hesitant to join: I was tired and knew I had a lot of homework to do (story of my life). Not to mention the bar they had chosen seemed sketchy: someone had been solicited with a flyer advertising Thursday night as International Student night while walking around Florence. The deals seemed too good to be true: free champagne for Internationals, 5 shots for 5 euros, and 5 euro mixed drinks all night long (oh, and the advertisement included a picture of a scantily clad school girl which isn’t really my cup of tea). I was skeptical.
Needless to say, forty-five minutes later I was headed out with ten other Furman students to the Fish Pub. The map showed the pub as being about five blocks away, across the Santa Maria Novella plaza. As we walked alongside the church, we kept hearing all these screechy chirping noises. We looked up to see thousands of bats flying to and from the trees in the courtyard of the church, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. It was eerie, but very cool (and not surprisingly, there were no mosquitoes to be found).

We saw the pub sign lit up from across the street with two big bouncers, arms crossed and smoking, out front. It was a little intimidating, since no one else was waiting to get in. Luckily one of the gentleman in our group became the fearless leader; a knight on the quest for a cheap beer. We walked in and essentially had the pub to ourselves. Although there was some debate on whether to stay or go, we ultimately decided to stay. We congregated at the bar in order to have our promised free champagne and toast to the two birthday girls. A DJ in the back seemed thrilled to have such a big group of students, and he came over, asking for song requests and promising to make birthday announcements later in the night. We pushed together tables and sat down to chat and enjoy our drinks.
About thirty minutes later, another large group of students filed in and apparently brought the party with them. The next thing I know, a cheer ripples through the restaurant as a song with a good beat starts to play. Somehow, despite the bar being small and having no dance floor, a big group of students start dancing. It wasn’t my romanticized idea of a European discotecha, but it was dancing which was enough for me. I had energy to burn and International students to meet.
At first, I couldn’t tell whether the group of students spoke English or not, so we wordlessly joined them in dance. Then the song Black and Yellow (why is it ALWAYS this song? It came on at our first restaurant in Milan, too!) came on and the other students knew all the lyrics, so I figured they either spoke English or were really good at moving their mouths in the shape of the syllables.

We found out that it was a group of college students from Belgium here on a weekend trip for school. It made me a little jealous that just about the coolest weekend trip possible at Furman is to Charleston, but that’s beside the point. The one girl, Olivia spoke really good English and was basically the person who brought the two groups together. In case anyone is planning on travelling to Belgium anytime soon-get your best animal print ready! Four of the girls were all wearing animal print, so apparently it is in fashion there. I had an absolute blast and the DJ kept up a really good mix of songs. The Belgian group went crazy when the DJ played Black Eyed Peas “The Time (Dirty Bit)” and it was probably my favorite song of the whole night. The guys in general really cracked me up last night—to me, stereotypical European guy, white jeans, nice top, that kind of a thing. By the time I was ready to leave (I called it a night fairly early since we started touring at 9 am this morning) the whole bar was hopping with kids of every nationality and ethnic background. I heard at least 4 or 5 different languages last night and no one seemed phased by the language barrier at all because every one was just having a fun time and dancing to good old American pop music. Overall, I had a really good time, and Florence redeemed itself in terms of first impressions :-)