Finally in Florence

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After the longest plane ride of my life, I finally arrived in Florence! We had a layover in Rome which was miserable because we all had to sit around for 3 hours and wait for our next plane to take off. At least I was with a big group of Uconn students though. Our flight to Florence took less than an hour, so that wasn’t bad at all. When we got off the plane in Florence it was mayhem. Our school didn’t really give us instructions on what to do when we landed; we just got an email that told us to look for them. So we walked off the plane not really knowing what to expect. One of our teachers was waiting for us with a sign saying Palazzo Rucellai (our school) and told us to go outside to the line of cabs. We went outside to a huge group of students, probably around 50 who were all with our school. One of the office managers called out our last names in groups of two and put us in cabs. It was so weird; we had all of this freedom coming into a country in which we had never been to before. I expected for us to all go to the school and have a meeting or something, but I guess its not really practical considering not everyone comes in on the same flight. So I got into my cab and got dropped off at my apartment. There was someone there to let us in, and that’s basically all the direction we got. We walked into our apartment which is HUGE and unpacked. I live with 7 others girls in a four bedroom apartment in downtown Florence. We have 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room and 2 balconies.

I didn’t even unpack my suitcase; I just dropped everything and immediately went for a walk around the city. My roommate Kristen who was in Florence last semester told me of a lunch place near the Arno that was really good, so we grabbed a map and set out for Gusto Panino. It was like a wild goose hunt at first, we have no idea where we were going and the maps are kind of hard to read. The streets here are nothing like Manhattan or any city I have ever been to. First of all they are all cobblestone, and they are not in a straight line. We made it to the Arno (a big river in Florence that separates the city into two sides) and then we crossed the Arno to find the restaurant. We found it after about 45 minutes of walking, but it was totally worth it. I got a wrap, but its made on flatbread and not as thin as the wraps at home. I got fresh mozz, pesto, tomato and turkey on it and then it was grilled. It was so so good. We sat in a Piazza and all ate sandwiches together. Then we walked back, I wondered around the city again with a girl that I met on the plane named Jenna. We stopped and had a glass of wine at a bar near the Duomo, it was really nice. Sitting there it started to hit me that I was actually here.

The events of the next day were SO typical of me. We had to meet our school at the train station to take a bus to Fiesole ( a town about 20 minutes outside of Florence where we were having our orientation) . We planned to leave about 40 minutes before we had to be at the station so we would have extra time incase we got lost. I somehow was designated to read the map, so I took mine and started to lead the way. We kept getting so confused and lost on where to go, but all of my roommates are really laid back , so we laughed it off. We walked around for 40 minutes still not able to find the train station. Finally we ran into a guy who was actually from America and was going to the train station so we just followed him. We were supposed to meet our class under a digital clock but when we got there no one was there. One of my roommates looked up at the clock and it said 9:40 (we were supposed to be there at 9:10), but my watch said it was 9:20. Then it dawned on me that when I set my watch back I must have accidentally set it 20 mintues to slow, so we were much later than we expected. We didn’t know what to do because no one had their cell phones yet to call anyone from our program, so we made a quick decision to get on the city bus and figure it out from there. We found the bus going to Fiesole and just got on it hoping we would get there.

When we were on the bus I was reading the map again trying to figure out where we went wrong, and one of my roommates started to hysterically laugh. As I was holding the map up, she was able to see the other side. The map that the school provided was double sided and there was a map to our school on one side and a map to the train station on the other. I was leading the way to the train station with the map to our school (HAHA) . We all lost it when we realized; we were the typical loud mouthed Americans on the back of the bus hysterically laughing. Luckily we got to the town we were supposed to and right as we got off the bus the hotel which held our orientation was right there. So the 7 of us strolled into our first meeting with the Institute 45 minutes late….great first impression! It was so embarrassing, our entire school was sitting facing the speaker and the stairs that we had to walk down to sit with them were directly behind the speaker, so as we were walking in our entire program saw us. I had to bite my lip the entire time to fight back laughing, I just thought the whole situation was so typical of me it was impossible not to laugh. No one in our program was mad at us, in fact the Director of Student Services said he was impressed with our resourcefulness. Orientation was so incredibly boring, but the town was beautiful. We got a break were we talked around; the town is situated on the top of a hill and we were able to see all of Florence, incredible.
That night we went to my friend Matt’s apartment (a friend from Uconn). He is living with 5 of my other friends from Uconn. We hung out there and then went out to dinner. The restaurant we went to was fantastic! I ordered a pasta dish and pizza and split it with Jenna. It was exactly what I expected of an Italian dinner. The waiter brought out bread with balsamic vinegar to dip it in. The vinegar was think and delicious. The house wine was so good, they brought it out in big pitchers. After dinner we decided to go to a bar called Michael Collins that Kristen told me to go to. We had SO MUCH FUN! The theme for the night was karaoke, and I was a singing machine. I think that I sung at least 10 songs, we had a blast.

This morning we had to meet at the school for our final day of orientation. I woke up to get ready and my face felt weird. I had a bug bite under my eye the day before, but when I looked in the mirror saw that my entire eye was swollen. It looked like I got punched in the face. Then I noticed that my elbow was swollen too (look at the pictures, its gross). I didn’t really think too much of it, because I figured it would happen to me. I have the worst luck with bug bites. When I went to Cancun for spring break I also got bug bites that were infected and made my entire leg swell. Whatever. So I went to school (thank god I was on time today) and showed my teacher. She said it was either a spider or mosquito bite and told me to go to the pharmacy after orientation. After I talked to her I got a little homesick, not that I wanted to go home but I wanted my mom to take care of me and call the doctor to fix it. It was hard that I had to be so independent in a country that I have never been to before. It was totally fine though, after orientation I walked to the pharmacy with a couple of my roommates and got some lotion for it (hopefully they will go away soon).

After getting back from the pharmacy I went on a really long walk to the top of the city with some of my roommates. The view from the top is unbelievable and it was a really awesome walk. We got back and got Chinese take out (go figure, I get Chinese when I am in Italy). We did it because we were so exhausted from the night before, and a lot of stuff closed here on Sunday.

So this is it for now, I am sitting on my bed in my apartment and I have just logged everything I have done since my arrival. I love it, Florence is an incredible city and I am so excited that I have the opportunity to be here for six weeks and just explore. I hope you guys got a little bit of my experience through this; I miss you all and love you so much!

Ciao!

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Photos

My Arm
This is my arm after being bitten by the bugs in my apartment

My Face
You can imagine my reaction when I saw my face in the mirror for the first time

Comments

[Kyle Lyddy]

hahaaa. So typical Danielle. Sounds like an interesting few days. I could just see you foolios trying to find your way around, and I guarantee I would have been the exact same way. Sounds awesome though.. and i think you should become a journalism major. I love reading this stuff so keep it coming. woot woot. ENJOY!