Well, I'm officially writing to you from my bedroom of my apartment in Firenze, Italy. Before I delve into the details of the past 2 days, let me give you the few highlights from my journey across the pond. Highlight 1: Both of my suitcases were under weight!! Ended up having to take a few extra things out before leaving home, but at least now I have some extra weight to bring things back to the states! Highlight 2: After arriving in Paris, we only had about an hour and 15 minutes to make it to our terminal and catch our last flight to Florence. Once we got our passports stamped, we started following the French signs to get to terminal 2G. We turn to enter the terminal and there are about 5 news cameras set up on the doors of right where we exited! We were a combination of confused and excited and since we couldn't figure out what was going on, we decided to ask a man working at a kiosk. Us: Excuse me sir, what is going on?? Man: Nicholas Sarzkozy is arriving Us: confused looks. Man: The French President...'scoff'. SO, we got to see the French president, even though none of us knew who he was [that's embarrassing]. Highlight 3: Well, this is technically the only lowlight. After arriving in Florence, we headed straight to the baggage claim area, anxious to claim our incredibly large bags. We had been told that it was very common for not all of the bags to make it, so of course I was a basket case. Luckily my mom is genius and packed exactly half of my clothes in each suitcase, just as a precautionary measure. Anyways, the bags start coming out and naturally Devon's [my roommate here in Italy as well as fellow Wahoo] bags are literally the first ones on the belt! I breathe a huge size of relief as I see one of my two suitcases finally emerge. But, as the bag frequency starts to dwindle and I notice that there are only a few other people standing around, I start to get really nervous. I hear a loud beep and then the belt shuts off, no more bags to be unloaded. I take a deep breath and try not to freak out as I head to the 'lost and found' [aka italian claims] counter to report my missing bag. Unfortunately we were the last to get in line and were stuck behind a Chinese family [who didn't get ANY of their luggage] who didn't speak English or Italian. Needless to say, 45 minutes later I was starting to get antsy. A few moments later, we hear this really loud beep and a light begins to flash. Defeated, I turn around and see a flash of red on the far belt. I run over and wait for the bag to reemerge and low and behold a lone bag came out and...IT WAS MINE! It was literally a miracle and from that moment on, I've been having a blast.
Okay so I'll stop being so wordy and start being more interesting. Our apartment is gorgeous - it's a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom authentic Italian-style place. We live on the same street as Ponte Vecchio [sorry if that spelling is butchered] and one street over from the famous bridge that is in all of the pictures of Firenze (florence-italy.jpg). We live a few minutes away from Santa Croce [apparently that's where a lot of the nightlife is] and about 20 minutes away from our school. It's a gorgeous city and I can't wait to explore it even more. Yesterday, Devon and I went out for our first Italian meal...Pizza! 5 Euros gets you a deliciously huge personal pizza. A few things I learned in just that one experience: water is not free [3 euros just for water...we're spoiled in america], you don't tip the waiters [devon and I tipped cause we didn't know this, oh well] and if you are brought bread, you eat it with your 2nd course because it is a carbohydrate! It's definite culture shock and it's so crazy walking around in this foreign country but I absolutely love it. The jet lag was a bit rough yesterday but after a 2 hour nap and a very solid 9 hours of sleep at night, I'm basically over it now! We have orientation today through Saturday and then classes start Monday, so I should have some more exciting updates for over the weekend. Devon and I went to a grocery store today and stocked up on a few essentials, ie: bread, vino and nutella. So far we haven't been able to find out any information on a gym, so it's probably a good thing that the school is a pretty decent walk. Anyways, hope all is well with everyone back in the States!
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| this is the neighborhood i live in! if you cross that bridge and go to the left, you'll find my apartment :) |
the view from the bridge at sunset!
sorry for the crappy picture quality - i forgot my camera so my [non-functioning] blackberry was all i had!
CIAO
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