First Few Days

---

My first day in Florence was a bit hectic for my taste but I wouldn't much of it. One of the first things that happens whenever we get off the plane in Florence is to go to baggage claim and get your luggage. Well for myself and three other lucky people, we were left wondering where ours were. We waited for the crowds of people to dwindle and we watched the belt go in circles for a few times hoping that they were just slow on getting our luggage off of the plane. We were very wrong, and we had to fill out a lost baggage claim. We were late getting to our apartments because of all of that. However, my driver was very nice and showed my roommates and I a little bit of the city and had made sure that we were going in the right direction when he dropped us off near our apartment door. Three days later and I still don't have my luggage but my roommate Lizz has been kind enough to lend me some of her clothing while I wait for it to come in.

After we found our apartment we were shown around the apartment and were given some information about the in's-and-out's of how to care for our apartment while we are living here. We have one long hallway that leads from the front of the apartment to the back. We have two bathrooms that are on either end of the hallway and four bedrooms. However, we are still two-to-a-room because the other two rooms are reserved on the off chance that there is an emergency and somebody needs to stay with us. We have a kitchen with a teeny-tiny table with four little chairs and a washing machine right beside it. My roommates got to unpack their bags to start settling in and I called my family since I had no luggage. Once they were all settled, we attempted to find our way to the carousel early so that we could find our way back to it when we needed to meet-up with everyone on the trip. We barely found it. We didn't know what street we lived on or which way was the right way to go but we did eventually make it because we found a street that looked familiar to the one we came down when we were first dropped off. To be fair, we thought that all the streets looked familiar so it wasn't that great of a hint of which way to go.

From the carousel, we as a group went to our amazing Arrival dinner with all 21 students. Antonio and Michael pointed out a few things along the way and told us the significance of those areas and that they would become important places for us to remember. I would have to say that so far, the Arrival dinner has been my favorite thing we've done because everyone had so much fun. We had amazing food and wine and we all started to relax around one another. We started to learn everyone's names around the table and if they weren't at ours we tried to see if we knew the others and at least one person new someone else at a different one. We shared stories of why we chose to come on this trip and are concerns.

The next day we met again at the carousel to go by the school and to run to the market. After we were shown the market, we were able to go and do our own thing. Well there was a group of us that wanted to go and eat so we ate there and then ventured out into the city. My roommate Lizz and I had went back to our apartment to grab her camera so that we could take some really great pictures of the Epiphany parade. However, we went to the Duomo where the parade was to be coming through and it was completely packed with people. I could hardly see anything of it because no one would move aside for the short girl to see. Every direction that I turned in to see was another tall person blocking my view. I eventually just started looking at the parade through other peoples phones since they had them out to take pictures. It wasn't the greatest way to watch the parade but it was better than absolutely nothing.

After we had saw enough of the parade, Lizz and I had set out to go find the little "supermarket" that we had seen by the school, however, it became glaringly obvious that we had no idea where we were going. We were lost for over two hours just trying to find this one store. We did however find some Chinese restaurants and a place called Sit'n'Breakfast that served brunch and you got to pick a book to read/buy. After a while we did find the supermarket called "Pam" and we felt so idiotic because we had went down one wrong street that lead to our search around the city. It was so close to were we began and we kept taking side streets/ alleyways because we thought they looked familiar.

After we went to "Pam" we headed back to our apartment to put away our groceries to get ready to go meet Madeline and the others from our class to go to aperitivo. Madeline had offered to show us what that would be like and it wasn't a planned thing but all 21 students showed up to go out. After that we went to a really great gelato. Some of us stayed out even later just walking around getting to know one another and finding places that we might want to go during the day.

Today we met again with everyone and we took a little tour around the city and then the majority of us - if not all - went to Piza. We took a lot of awkward but cute photos of us trying to hold up the tower and then we went to eat. I knew that we would probably be charged a sitting fee OR a service fee, however, a group of eight of us were charged for both so that was a little strange for us. Then on our way back we missed a train by about 3 minutes so we had to wait another hour before the next one arrived. It was a lot of fun though because I discovered that train station vending machine coffee isn't that bad and we just had a great time talking and getting to know one another.

The most challenging thing so far for me is not having all of my stuff that I had packed because it got lost. However another annoying thing is all the vendors coming up to you and trying to sell you stuff. It freaks me out and I would be terrified if I was ever alone here and they did that. Overall from Friday to today (Sunday), I have walked a total of 55,332 steps with Saturday being the most steps walked. I can't wait to see what the rest of this trip holds for us and all the new friends that I'm going to have.

---