Welcome to Florence

September 3, 2008

Arriving

Well, I made it. Even during the plane ride I was enthralled. As I walked onto my flight from Chicago to Zurich, I saw what I'd been hoping for, TV monitors at every seat! The coolest part was the camera on the front and bottom of the plane, so at any moment during the flight you could turn the camera on your screen and see what was going on. Also, there was a wealth of movies and TV shows to watch. So my flight over, actually went well. And most importantly--no puking. When I arrived in Zurich I couldn't for the life of me find what number gate I was supposed to be at. Only to discover Florence would not be on the list, but Firenze--haha.

I found my gate no problem after that and headed to Firenze. The next few hours are a little blurry. After I debarked the plane, had my passport stamped, I went to luggage, where my bags came out quickly. I hooked them together, just how Kim showed me and it worked perfectly. So many people looked dumb trying to wheel their huge bags (I had two of the very smallest) by themselves. A lot of people brought more than they could carry, which astounded me, I didn't know who they thought would be there to help them.

After I lugged my bags outside and down the airport, there was a huge coach bus waiting for us. We drove for about 30 minutes, being in a bus here was almost traumatizing. I saw a mini cooper on the street and it looked big for the street and compared to most of the other cars, so I thought we were going to hit the sides of buildings the whole ride. The bus dropped us off in a square, where a man greeted us and told us to leave our bags in the middle of the square. We all trusted him and did. We went, received our keys, cell phones an did some paperwork. We moved back outside where a drive took us to our different apartments. My driver had to drop me off at a busy intersection, so he pulled my bags out and drove off. But alas, I found my apartment door, despite struggling to carry all my bags.

Apartment

My first roommate Taya greeted me. We were the only two, so we both settled in a bit and went for a walk.

After our walk to school and around our street, we just went back to our enormous apartment. I'll download photos later, but it is huge and we have a great courtyard, which all of the bedrooms have access to. Fatigue and hunger began to catch up with me after our walk and I came close to having a slight panic attack, but good news, the other four girls began to arrive and I was distracted again.

Orientation

Today, was another laid back day. We slept in, which we all needed. Then we had orientation at 1 pm where they gave us the orientation book in speech form. The advisers added in some personal stories to frighten us from getting drunk and leaving our apartments gross or damaged.

Night out with the Roommates

The fun continues. My roommates and I spent the late afternoon walking around, different markets, a department store and searching for the Internet. It is so strange how every corner offers something so different, yet so many of the buildings looking the same. Just today on our way home from dinner, on a street we've already walked 15 times, we found an internet cafe, just what we'd been so desperately searching for a few hours earlier.

In our hunt to access to our worlds back home, we ended up in a new place, finally the Internet Cafe we'd searched for (and missed on our way down the street). When my other roommate Erin asked to join us later, I said no problem I'll come meet you. well, I went a few different places to find her with no luck. Go figure, my first 10 minuets alone in Florence, and I don't know where I am. Nothing even looked a little familiar, despite the fact we'd spent so much time walking around earlier. Then I realized it was getting dark. So I grabbed my cell phone to call and find out where I was, only to hit the wrong button and turn it off. Well Stace, turning it back on right? Crisis averted...nope. we need a code to turn our phones on and off since they are rental and I didn't have mine ;)... alone, lost, dark, can't read the signs and no phone. Again, I came close to a slight panic attack, but it was fine I just kept walking in what I thought was the right direction until I found the church, St. Croce, which is right near our apartment. It is huge and hard to miss, a very good reference point. So I found my roommies and we trucked across the bridge over to have a nice dinner and our first bottle of wine.

After a nice long dinner we headed home and slowed down to enjoy the things around us. The streets that were once busy with the hustle and bustle of the day seemed deserted with a solemn car or mo-ped every few minutes. Not having to worry about walking into people or being run down by cares, bikes or mopeds gave us all a chance to look around a little more. The houses are not all the same, the shutters are different, each room has a little something different hanging from the windows and then a Madonna and child Statue appeared from walls in a building. usually we are worried about finding something, anything familiar, it was nice to let down our guard and find a few of the so many unusual things that will continue to pop out of nooks and crannies for the duration of our stay.

Sorry this post is so long. The rest will be shorter because I'll have more Internet access and less time :)! Have a great weekend everyone.