First Day

The first day at work. A bit anxious, I left the apartment at around 9 am and walked to the train station (I still needed to get a bus ticket). I had been warned by my roommates that getting to the Polo Scientifico, where LENS, the place I work, is located, would take a long time. So I waited at the train station for about 40 minutes until the bus I needed showed up. I guess it's supposed to come every 20 or 30 minutes, but one failed to show up. Since the bus only goes directly to the Polo Scientifico between 7 to 9 am and 5 to 7 pm, I had to change in between and wait for a different bus. In the end, it took me about 2 hours to get from the apartment to work, which is not a good thing.
In the end, it didn't matter too much that I came so late, since the Professor that'll I'll be working for had an exam that he was administering. Even later in the day, he was pretty busy with meetings and paper writing, though we did manage to plan my first task: to apply for a Marie Curie fellowship that is due in one week. This would fund my second year here in Florence, and seems ideally suited to my situation: a European citizen returning there after a long stay in another country. We'll see how it goes.
On the way back from work, I stopped by a Coop (a supermarket chain) to get some milk and cereal and other necessities. Here, as with most other things, prices are pretty reasonable if you convert 1 Euro into 1 Dollar. If you try to use the real exchange rate, you will not want to buy anything. But I'm going to be earning Euros soon, so it's good. At the apartment, Claudio had invited a friend over and prepared duck with potatoes and red cabbage, which was pretty good. Also good was the fact that I didn't have to cook - the kitchen is pretty tiny!