Ciao Firenze!! (Hello Florence!!)

Ahhhh I’m in ITALIA!!!! I can’t believe that I am actually here. I have been dreaming of this day. Today is my second day in Florence and I am getting to know the city. Let me start from the beginning…

On Tuesday Aug. 30^th, I fly out of Chicago and landed in Paris. The flight was about 7.5 hours long and it went by pretty fast. I watched Water for Elephants (with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Patterson (I think I spelt their names wrong, oh well)). I had to pause the movie a couple of times because there was a fight on the airplane, right in front of me!!!!! . This man reclined his seat and there was a lady sitting behind him and the lady got mad because he reclined his seat, according to her, he was invading her privacy and her own country, “ people respect others privacy in her country”.  The lady then starting pushing his seat up and was bothering him. The guy got the flight attendant and came back to his seat. Before sitting in his seat, he was all in the lady’s business and said, “In a couple minutes, you will be in a lot of trouble (in a accent)”. So after that flight attendant talked with both of them, the fight was over and I went back to watching my movie. Then after my movie, I tried to sleep for 3 hours. I don’t think I actually went to sleep! I closed my eyes and tried though until the plane turned on their lights and they served us some food. It is hard to sleep on planes especially when your legs hurt from being scrunched up for how many hours. 

Me, Brittany and Alexis at the Chicago Airport

Airplane #1

So after flight #1, I landed in Paris and we had to wait about an hour for our next flight to Florence, Italy. Good thing me, Brittany, Alexis and Ashley traveled together because we helped each other out at the Paris airport (that place is confusing!!). We had to first go through customs (I got a stamp in my passport), then we had to take a train, then we had to go outside and take a shuttle to our terminal, then we had to go through security again and then we got to our gate 2G. Nevertheless, we got on our plane and it was a short 1.5 hours to Florence (I rested my eyes the whole day).

Once we got to Florence we got picked up by a SAI Program person (SAI is the program that helps us with anything in Florence) and they shuttled us to our apartment. When I walked outside it was about 90 degrees and it was hotttt!!! It has been around 90 degrees both days I have been here. The Florence airport was really busy and really small. Our apartment is on the opposite side of the tourist side of the river. I live on the quieter side, which is nice. The other side of the river is more of a tourist area. There are a lot of tourists that come to Florence, it is a busy place. Today I must have seen 5 walking tours throughout the city. Here are some pictures of my apartment:

Brittany and Megan's Room

Our Closet Space

Living Room

Dining Table with Alexis

Kitchen

Bathroom (room 1)

Bathroom (room 2)

View outside out shower window (yes we have a window in the shower to air out the shower whenever someone showers)

View outside another window

Clothes Line

Alexis Room

View outside bedroom window (main street)

Apartment Door in Building

Building View on Street (7 is our address number) 

After getting to our apartment, Brittany, Alexis and I walked around Florence and we explored. We must have walked at least 5 miles. The whole time I was walking, I was thinking about how much exercise I am going to do every day.  I figured out that the University’s main campus is about a 30 min. walk from our apartment, and I am going to be walking that everyday. YES!!!!! We were starving and we could not find any super markets to buy food from. We finally came across one and we got some noodles and butter and that is what we made. It was okay, not the best but oh well I was starving. I have not tried gelato yet, but I hope to soon. I need to find the perfect gelato place.

Florence!

Library

Also, my first night’s sleep in Florence was decent. I ended up going to bed around 9:30 because I was exhausted from flying and probably because of jetlag. At around midnight I woke up and I could not fall asleep. I was thinking about what time it was back in Wisconsin and it was about 5 pm (around dinner time), so I my body was probably telling me that I needed to eat by waking me up, I don’t know lol. It ended up taking me about an hour to fall back asleep and then I got up at 7:15 for orientation.

The second day of being in Florence, we had orientation. The SAI program directors told use useful information about living in Florence. For example, we figured out where a fresh market was and were a department store was. It was really useful. Later that night we had a SAI Welcome Dinner. I got to try new food items and of course there was pizza and pasta. For dessert we had tiramisu, it was delicious!! Now I am about to go to bed because I am still not used to the time different. 

Duomo

Duomo 

Streets in Florence

Me, Alexis and Brittany at our Welcome Dinner :)