First Few Days in Florence!

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Update on Italy!!
I arrived here on the 6th of September late at night after over 25 hours of travel!! My flight had been cancelled in Paris so I had to wait for 6 hours! Anyways I finally got here and went through a weekend of orientation, learning about the city, filling out paperwork, and getting acquainted with the people here and the city itself. Let me explain a little about Florence and Italy in general.
Florence is in the heart of Tuscany, a region of Italy in the upper middle section of the country. It is the city that was the birth of the Renaissance and therefore is home to numerous artwork and amazing architecture. The city is very very old and you can see it in the cobblestone streets and buildings. At the center of Florence is the Duomo, a big church that is the face of Florence. I am living in a villa on the outer rim of the city with about 55 other students and a couple from Pepperdine. It is about a 20 minute walk from the Duomo. We live in a great house with big bedrooms, classrooms, a library, a big kitchen area, a student center, a chapel, and even a music room! It's great! There is a big courtyard in the middle and a big game room where mostly the guys play air hockey and ping pong haha. I love it here so much though!! For our orientation for the first few days we also went to cities in Tuscany like Siena, San Gimignano, and Fiesole. The Italian countryside is so beautiful and gorgeous!

After 3 days of orientation we began our intensive Italian classes. This was very intensive. Let me explain: 2 hours of Italian class in the morning followed by 2 hours out in the city practicing Italian followed by 2 more hours in the classroom---5 days a week, for 2 weeks. That's 30 hours of Italian a week!! Let's just say that I learned it pretty fast. We would go out on these

uscitas

(outings) to different places in the city with Italian students. They took us to pharmacies, supermarkets, markets, the train station, music stores, cafes, and so much more. We had a lot of fun doing this and it was very helpful in learning the language. The first free weekend here we went to a place called cinque terre but i will talk about that in a different blog. Ciao!

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Photos

Florence!
The Duomo

Tuscany
a view from Fiesole