The 1st Meeting of Indonesian Community in Florence

It was Wednesday, December 19^th, 2012. Finally I met Yawa, it was also the second time I met Erna again.  Erna's husband, Joni, was contacted by Yawa through InterNations in Florence, a global community of expatriates.  From Joni, Yawa who was seeking for other Indonesian fellows in Florence, was informed about me and finally got in touch with me through Facebook. She has been living in Florence for more than a year with her husband, Cyril, when we met for the first time. We decided to have lunch together at Mario an Italian restaurant near Mercato Centrale.

I got there at 11.35 by bike. I saw both of them chat in front of Mario’s, I hurried to lock-up my bike to a pole nearby. Waved at one of them but they didn’t seem to notice. I walked toward them and greeted them. Erna, who I met about two months earlier greeted me first then I introduced myself to Yawa who was standing next to her.

Mario looked empty. The waiter opened the restaurant door and told us to come in. I did not know they open and start to serve at exactly 12.00 noon. But the waiter allowed the three of us to enter and waiting inside. It was much pleasant to be able to sit inside, better than stood outside in the chill winter wind. It was 11:53, we still had to wait for another 7 minutes before we could order our food. Good chance for further chit chat with my two new Indonesian friends, felt so good to be able to speak with them in our own language. We talked a lot during meal, about food, whether, hobbies, our background, photography, works, and language course, about travel, also last but not least about pets (they both have dogs), except for me for I have no pet at home. To my surprised more people came for lunch and at 12:00 all seats were occupied except one at our table. It’s a table for four and there were only the three of us, soon one guy showed up, hanged his coats and took this empty seat too. Such a weird situation, as I did not expect this at all. Yawa told me, Mario is similar to some food stalls inside the Mercato where people could sit on any non occupied seat next to strangers. It’s just a strange feeling for me to suddenly had a complete stranger joined in our table. Poor guy, for we did not talk to him until we finished our meals and kept our conversation in a mixture of English-Indonesia which completely foreign to this Italian guy.

Anyway, the food was great and affordable though quite hearty for a lunch, so we decided to continue with coffee for a digestion boost, in the way, we are trying to be like Italian, doing what Italian normally do. Only we preferred to have coffee while sitting for comfort. The real Italian have their coffees while standing around the table bar, but we had our table with three seats in the small café located between the Dome and the Mercato. A perfecto for further chat completed with good coffee and good friends to be. This was a start of our new born community and I looked forward to meet up more Indonesians, to join and be part of the Indonesian Community in Florence.