An Average Day in Lucca

I have not yet got settled into being at home and I am finding myself in the mornings wondering what I am going to do with the day!

When I was in Lucca, I knew exactly what my day was going to be like. I got up at 7 am, had breakfast with Milena at 8, at 8:30 walked to school {about a five minute walk} and climbed the 42 steps to get to school. Then I went into the classroom, took out my Mac Book and logged onto the school’s network and looked for email from Fred. I sent him the letter I had written the night before.

 Classes started at 9 am and at 11 am we had a 30 minute break–"la pausa." Everyone dashed out but I didn’t want to tackle the stairs again, so I ate an apple and read a favorite or two on OD. Class began at 11:30 and went until 1 pm. I then went out to get something to eat after first going back to Via Diversi where I was staying to put my backpack up and get my purse. In Italy shops close for two hours in the middle of the day so after eating a pretty big meal–my main meal of the day– I wandered around for a while looking at churches. My ambition was a church a day but I didn’t succeed because many churches required more than one visit.

After the first week, I had my favorite places to eat and the main one was Piazza San Frediano. It had two eating places with chairs and tables outside, the painted facade of the Church of San Frediano to look at, several shops and was the destination of many tourist groups which were a great source for people-watching. There were also four benches, two in the sun and two in the shade, to sit on.

At 2:30 or there abouts, I very often walked down Via Fillungo which was the main shopping street. By 3:30. most shops were open again so if I was not going to walk on the walls, I walked in and out of shops looking for things that were "made in Italy." The leather shops, the Italian knits shops and a really nice scarf and tie shop I found on Via Napoleon saw me a lot. I did buy myself a leather bag and a nice stole/scarf but I also bought some cheap gloves and a knitted hat made in China!

I did a lot of people-watching. Italian women are either fashionably dressed or dowdy. This, of course is "in generale", as our instructors said about many things, but it seemed that the older women, like Milena–the lady I was living with–were deliberately dowdy. Milena {and the women I observed} dressed in greys and neutral colors. Their shoes were flat and they always wore skirts and cardigans, and seldom wore makeup. I mentally called this the "nonna" {grandmother} look. Other Italian women wore short skirts, high heels and a lot of makeup, applied very skillfully. They did wear jeans, but they were tight jeans and often worn with boots. That would be high-heeled boots. Very high heeled boots.

One thing I saw that amused me was this very elegant young woman opening the door to where she lived, taking out a pair of flip-flops from her elegant handbag and putting her three-inch-heeled glittery shoes in their place. She was obviously not planning on walking up the stairs in those shoes! A few women I saw absolutely missed the mark as far as I was concerned. Capris and high heels do NOT look good together!

After I had walked, shopped, and people-watched, I usually stopped by a bar and got a sandwich of some kind to eat later. On the way back to the apartment, I also walked by a fresh fruit and vegetable market and got a banana or a couple of apples, or some plums. These, with the sandwich, were my evening meal. I then did homework, read for a while, and ate in my room at about 6 pm. I wrote a long email to Fred every evening telling him about my day, took a shower and washed my hair and went to bed early worn out by all the walking I had done!

QUOTATIONS:

"Step by step. I can’t think of any other way of accomplishing anything."

Michael Jordan

If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.

— David Viscott