Firenze, Italia

So four days ago, I left for a semester abroad in Florence, Italy. The plane left on Monday at 5:25pm and arrived in Rome, Italy around 8am Tuesday (Keep in mind there is a six hour time difference). My plane arrived in Rom about 45 minutes later than we had expected and my next flight started to board at 9:05. Here's the thing: I have NO clue how to get around foriegn airports, and then you have to take these stupid buses over to your plane. You would think that you could just board like in the US, right from the main building but noooooooo, you have to go to your terminal, hand in your ticket and jump onto a tram looking thing over to your plane, so that pretty much means that if you landed late, than your never getting onto that tram, which means no plane ride. Luckily, my running a lot came in handy and I booked it through the airport and made it right when they starting taking tickets. I have never sweated so much in my life. Once I got on that plane, what I saw was not what I was expecing. It looked like St. Patrick's Day threw up all over the plane. Green Green Green! Not that I don't like the color green, but I mean, this was a little too much, and it was that ugly shade of green, you know? That flight was only an hour long, and I found some more students from my school going over to Florence too. So when we got off the plane in Florence, Finally!! :) I saw Maggie, the woman in charge of international studies at Endicott and she took me over to a woman who gave us our keys to our apartment. After getting my two fifty-pound bags into this huge van with a bunch of other kids' luggage, I was driven with my friend over to my street in Florence. This apartment is BEAUTIFUL! There are two bathrooms, one huge kitchen, a living room, tv, three bedrooms, a couch, a huge hallway, and best of all, WIFI! :D After unpacking all of my stuff with my roommate, Brittany R came over so that we could go get our cell phones. This cell phone, let me tell you, looks like it was from 1980. You remember, those ugly non flip, retarded ring tones, thick gray phones? Yep, that would be mine. Omg! the best feature about this phone though? The alarm, when it goes off is a Brittish woman's voice going "Wake up! It's 7:30! Wake up! It's 7:30" and when she says 30 it sounds like thiiiiiiiiiiirty. (say it with a brittish accent, it'll make you laugh, it does for me) hahahaha. After that, I went by the river and crossed the Ponte Vecchio, sooo beautiful! Huge bridge with stores all over it; mostly jewelry stores though. Then I saw Brittany R's apartment which is so quaint and cute but i love mine still. So yesterday, I went to fill out papers at a location where i will be taking some of my classes and yeah, that walk.....thirty minutes! It's horrible! and I have a class there all four days of the week. After that Brittany D and I walked over to Via Guelfa where my cooking classes are to see the distance and locations and it takes another fifteen minutes from that lsat place but it's a lot closer to my apartment. On the way, I passed the Duomo, the huuuge Dome you see pictures of everwhere. On the way back to my apartment, we stopped at the Mercato Centrale which is this really cool fresh food market and other types of markets as well. But I just got food yesterday and I got to use the very little knowledge of italian that I had hahaha. But last night was soooo much fun. Me and some friends went on a bar crawl and what that is, is you pay 10 Euros (15 dollars) to have two guys take you around to about 4 or 5 bars and when you walk in you get free beer, sangrias, or shots. It all depended on the bar you were at. But I had a blast and didnt' bring my camera unforunately but met AMAZING people from Kentucky University who I'm going to hang out with this weekend and next week as well. I got back to my apartment around 2-2:15am and went to bed after I ate pizza with my roommate as a late night snack :). Today I had the beginning of my orientation and I took my Italian placement exam which is kinda didn't know a lot but that wasn't my fault. But I'm still placed in Italian Intermediate 1 which I really wanted so I'm happy about that. :D On the way back to my apartment, I had to walk alone, and I walked through La Piazza de Republica. I took a couple of pictures and went looking for a bank but I failed miserably. :( I'll go out maybe later today. It's almost about 3 o'clock on my third day here and already I have done so much. I love it here and can't wait to see what the next four months bring.

Ciao!