First Weekend in Firenze

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Wow, so many thoughts and emotions come to my mind when I think about this weekend. We arrived here Friday and I feel like it has a been a whirlwind ever since then. For starters, Friday I would say was probably the most nerve-wracking. We went from being on a flight for about 8 hours to making a mad dash to our gate for the Florence flight which we almost missed. Not to mention, that when we got on the plane to Florence I got sick on the plane which was unfortunate but I'm glad I did not stay sick the entire day/weekend. Then the cherry on top of my Friday was the fact that our luggage got lost in Paris. So not only was I frustrated with everything else that had happened earlier that day, but finding out I would be without luggage for at least a couple of days was annoying to think about. I tried to have a positive mentality about the situation just because I was so thankful we were finally in Italy. So Friday ended up being an okay day. Saturday, was a lot better. I just was so eager and excited to get out and explore the city. We went to this market with a food court area on the top floor of the building. For some reason it reminded me of IKEA because of the food court area. I got to try my first taste of authentic Italian pizza which was pretty good. It was fresher and lighter than American style pizza. After we ate at the market, we walked around for a little and went into the local shops in the area. I was surprised at some of the things I saw. We went into a sports store, a christian book store and a cosmetic place that sold mostly Italian products. Those were the three places that stuck out to me the most. After we checked out some shops, we went to this gelato shop by the Duomo. The gelato was pretty good, it was my first time having Italian and I definitely want to eat some more during my time here in Italy. While we were eating our gelato we met some other American study abroad students. The first two people we met were from Connecticut, and the other two people we met were from Buffalo, New York. It was nice to see and speak to other Americans and how their experiences in Florence have gone so far. After we ate some gelato we went and watched some of the parade by the Duomo. The most interesting part about the Epiphany parade to me was honestly the kids singing in the choir. The children singing in the choir sounded so good and I loved hearing "Jingle Bells" and "Oh Happy Day" in Italian. They sounded so good! The rest of it, I honestly could not understand because the person talking was of course speaking in Italian and I couldn't see the actual ceremony because I'm so short. Later on that day, we went to a place to have apertivo. Which is where we got a drink and a small buffet. The drink and the food was pretty good!! The atmosphere of the place we were at was pretty cool too. We went to this Hookah bar next to the apertivo place which was a pretty chill place to just hang out. Once we got back to our apartment I was so tired but took a while to fall asleep, I didn't fall asleep until 2 am, which made it even more worse trying to wake up the next morning.

Today was another crazy and hectic day. For starters, Breon and I got lost when we were trying to meet with the group to go on the walking tour that overlooked the city. So, that was aggravating. Then, we had to do a ton of walking and climbing up stairs to get to the top of the building to see the view of Firenze. So, after we saw the overlook of the city, which was amazing, we left and headed to Pisa. From the overlook, we had to walk another 20-30 minutes just to get to the train station. This would not have been as much of a bother to me if I had actual gym shoes on and not my UGG boots, but I had to make do with what I had. I was exciting to ride the train because I've never rode on a train before so that was pretty cool to me. When we got to Pisa, I was surprised about the environment just because it didn't look like Florence, it looked a little more run down. So we got to the the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the buildings were beautiful. It was cool to be able to a well known landmark that people travel from all around the world to see. While we were in Pisa, I was shocked to learn that we had to pay to use the bathrooms. I've never been anywhere to where you've had to pay to use a public restroom. That was crazy to me. But after we saw Pisa and took pictures we headed back to the train station where it was aggravating because none of us were sure how the train rides worked. So, long story short, we ended up having to wait an hour at the train station to get a train back to Florence. At this point I was exhausted and hungry from all of the walking we had done that day. I was so thankful when we got back to Florence because I was just ready to eat and go to bed. For dinner we ate at this Mexican style restaurant which was not bad, but it just wasn't flavorful enough to me which was the only down side. Another struggle I've had being here is trying to remember where everything is just because all the streets look so similar, it's hard to differentiate what is what at times. Landmarks have helped some but I still am not completely used to it yet. But other than the slight rough weekend, I am still so glad and thankful that I am here and experiencing such a rich and diverse culture. Italy was nothing like I have expected it to be which is a great thing. I'm so excited to finally start classes tomorrow and become more immersed in the culture! Ciao!



January 5th- 11,760 steps

January 6th- 15,218 steps

January 7th- 28,465 steps

TOTAL: 55,443 steps

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