I have an hour to make the twenty minute walk from my internship by Santa Maria Novella to class by Santa Croce. Wednesdays are always crazy for me and lunch tends to be a luxury I don’t always have time for.

Today, however, I find myself with no last minute homework and a warm Spring day. A bright red tomato inside an overflowing sandwich catches my eye from inside an equally overflowing paninoteca window. I’ll fast forward two minutes (to spare you my poor attempts at broken Italian); I am sitting at a small metal table enjoying my free time, my panino, and the sounds of the street.

It is at this moment that it occurs to me I would never do this at home. Sit alone at a café, especially without homework or a book in front of me! So why in this thoroughly intimidating experience that is study abroad do I not even think twice about it? Perhaps it’s because here I can’t understand any mocking comments people passing might be making, or perhaps it’s that this is one of the perks of being in a foreign atmosphere, the rules from home don’t always apply.

I have found that I can rarely establish any sort of regular routine here, so now that I have had to take each day at a time perhaps I am losing some of the inhibitions imposed by daily life at home. For example, I would hesitate to negotiate over a bag in Boston , but I haggle with the best of them in the San Lorenzo market on any and everything down to a keychain! I would struggle to summon the audacity to get on an 8 A.M. train to a town an hour or more away with no plan or sightseeing guide back home, but here in Florence that has become a weekly occurrence. And I would NEVER sit outside at a local outdoor café advertising my solo status.

I have not gained any great, conclusive insight about my bold new self, as I nibble on the last few bites of my lunch, except that this is just another mysterious little gift that Firenze has given me.