Finally in Florence!

I am finally here! Long story short, my flight departed JFK at 3:50 pm on Saturday and arrived in Rome at 6:30 am Sunday, local time. I then took a 9:45 am flight to Florence and cabbed it straight to Accademia Italiana (the school) because their schedule for orientation had already started for the day. Turns out, all I missed on Saturday was a bit of introductions, a welcome dinner and everyone going out the first night:( I missed part of the info we got this morning since I arrived at the school around 11 am. We learned all about the basics of living in Italy and being a true Florentine. I also got my class schedule, which consists of "Photographing Florence" Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30-12:30, and "Michelangelo and His Works" Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30-12:30. No class on Fridays (woot woot!), which is especially good for taking trips outside of the city. We also have a day trip to Siena and San Gimignano next friday, and a weekend trip to Rome in a few weeks, which I am incredibly excited for! Then we ate a (delicious) lunch and while everyone else went on a walking tour, I had to take my luggage back to my apartment with one of my roommates since I hadn't been there yet. This picture is of the front entrance to our apartments.

Our apartment is AMAZING!! It is a five person apartment, but there are only four of us. We are on the second (but actually the third since the floor one is considered one floor up from the ground) floor, and on the first floor there is an apartment of 8 girls, an apartment of 2 guys and another apartment of 4 girls. It's awesome that we all live in the same apartment because we can all go out together and go to class together. Right when you walk in, we have these huge wooden doors and a hallway leading into the apartment. Our kitchen is first on the right, then our two bathrooms (which is amazing, since we only have 4 people with 2 bathrooms, while the apartment with 8 girls only has 2 bathrooms as well.. hehe). The kitchen is nice, we have 2 fridges and all the kitchen stuff we could ever need. We also have a kitchen table and a mini laundry room with a washer in it (we dry clothes on a clothesline like REAL Italians!!) Then comes my bedroom on the left, which I have all to myself. There is a bed, an armoire, drawers, a desk and a bedside table. I also have a window that lets the breeze cool off the room, since we don't have air conditioning (most apartments in Italy don't) Our living room is huuuge with bookshelves with books from previous tenants, a tv, a glass kitchen table and a bunch of comfy chairs. Then is my roommate Kelly's room, who has the other single. From the living room, you can get out to our balcony that has a view of a courtyard. My other two roommates, Catherine and Jaime, share a huge room that is actually meant to be a triple. We have marble or wood floors everywhere, and in a nutshell this place has gone above and beyond my expectations. I expected a tiny box of an apartment with no room for anything, so I'm not complaining! My roommates seem really fun and nice, and I think were going to get along really well.

Today after I settled into the apartment, Catherine and I took a little walking tour of our own and wandered down the streets around our apartment. Fortunately, there is pretty much everything we could possibly need within a few blocks of the apartment--grocery store, coffee shops, bars, restaurants, stores. I thought I was going to faint from the sight of all the shoes and adorable purses in the windows. After that, I freshened up and we went to meet everyone for a little walking around Florence. We then took a bus about twenty minutes to have a wonderful dinner in Tuscany in a village called Settignano. We sat outside at a restaurant called La Capponcina di Set

tignano that overlooked Florence--it was beautiful. We then had a delicious 6 course dinner--yes, 6-- for the next three hours. Italians take their time while they eat, and our leaders told us that they wanted to give us as true of a Florentine experience as possible. The first course was an assortment of breads, the second a selection of meats and fried dough balls w

ith cheese spread, the third consisted of a meat pasta dish and a fresh mozzarella and tomato pasta,the fourth consisted of (way too many) pizzas, the fifth was some cabbage salad called rudicullo(?), and the sixth was dessert, which was a passionfruit mousse. Each of the dishes (with exception of the cabbage salad) was incredibly good. We went home feeling full and exhausted.

Despite my traveling chaos, my first day here was great. I can't wait to see what else Florence has in store for me!

Until next time,
Hilly Jo