First day of class and I’m halfway done for the week!

I’m also already exhausted.  Or maybe I just have yet to become unexhausted.  Sunday we spent catching up on rest and a short trip to IKEA.  A new pillow was necessary… mine was literally flat as a pancake.  We also bought some candles and a drying rack for our dishes.  Then, we finally went for our first run in Firenze!!  We ran about 3.5 down to the Arno River and over the bridges crossing it.  It was getting dark and the lit city

over the river was gorgeous!

Okay so I didn’t exactly take this picture.  But this was exactly what it looked like!!!

When we got back our roommates had invited Romanian Italians? over to cook dinner for us.  Nine of us crowded around our tiny kitchen table and had a feast.  They made bruschetta, tomatoes and mozzarella, gorgonzola cheese and another kind with jam and nuts, chicken liver?, cold cuts of the most delicious ham and salami… and that was just the appetizer.  Then came the pasta in a white sauce with sausage, and we didn’t even have room for the chicken.  Dessert consisted of fruit salad with melted nutella drizzled over it.  Yum. 

Today, I woke up at 8 and headed to my first class: Organized Crime (aka the Mafia) from 9:00-11:30.  I can tell it is going to be a fun and interesting class.  Some of us went to buy our book after class for only 10 euro.  I’m liking these textbook prices wayyyy better than the ones back home!  Then I stopped in the market and bought a huge slab of pork ham.  Case and I figured we should just try something new every day.  My Italian class came next around 1:30 and my roommate Gina is in it with me!  I’m so anxious to learn more of the language and be able to interact with the locals a little bit more.  Our Italian class is perfect because there are only 8 people in every class so we will have plenty of time to practice.  After Italian, I have World Religions from 3:00-5:30 and after such a long day it was all I could do to keep my  eyes open for the last 30 minutes of class.  

At dinner!

  Casey and I took off for a little 4 miler around the Arno again which felt refreshing.  Then we headed to a dinner provided by Lorenzo di Medici, the school we are attending here in Florence.  It was delicious, and the building the dinner was held in was so elegant and elaborately decorated! 

The ceiling!

Buona Sera!

buongiorno?

I guess the jet lag caught up with me today.  Casey and I found ourselves waking up at, drumroll…. 15:00.  Yes, 3 in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, I also have a little cold so the Nyquil I took last night did its job and hopefully I’ll feel better soon! 

  

Mercato Centrale

Orientation yesterday was miserable!  Not to mention we probably stayed up a little too late the night before.  After orientation, we set out to find Billa- the supermarket of all supermarkets.  It’s the closest thing to Walmart in Italy except still only the size of Walgreens.  Italians shop everyday for fresh foods.  We don’t even have a pantry to keep all of our food in.  Luckily we are so close to the Mercato Centrale which has numerous stands full of fresh produce, meat (including whole pig heads, chickens, etc.), cheese, and wines/ olive oil! 

We went to the cutest café inside of the market where the barista was so friendly!  She even garnished my ciccolate with a heart!  Case and I made our first homemade meal last night- zucchini, onions, and sausage! Molto buono!  We then spent the night in our friends’ apartment looking up cheap flights and planning trips 

After finally rolling ourselves out of bed today, we went to Zara and H&M to do a little shopping.  Thousands of miles away and I still find myself running to the orange dresses for game day!  I bought a cream lacy dress and an orange slip to wear under to support the vols as well as a blank one for everyday purposes.  I also found a fur scarf the reminded me of Emma!

Our second trip to Grom!  We forgot to document the first time because the gelato was so delicious we couldn't stop eating it!

Buono sera! 

Tutti Bella!

And finally the blogging begins.  I’ve had some technical difficulties this week beginning with turning on my computer after the flight and finding half of the screen had become permanently black.  But when you’re living in a city with so much beautiful history, who needs a fully functioning computer anyway?  It’s probably safer this way because I may or may not have already blown up my electricity converter already…

Florence has been a huge eye opener so far.  For instance, it took Casey and I literally 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the lights on in our hotel, while relaxing in couches in the lobby waiting to go to dinner we had our feet up on the coffee table which upsets the Italians, even the intricate details on all of the buildings.  You have seen everything in books and in pictures but when you turn a corner and see the Duomo your jaw drops.  So I guess I’ll share the sparknotes version of the past, wow already 6 days. 

The Duomo

After saying completely tearless goodbyes to James and the fam in Nashville and not crying all the way to the terminal and flight to Atlanta, I met up with Casey and we immediately began wander lusting.  We hopped on the plane to Rome where Casey conks out.  I, on the other hand, tossed and turned every 15 minutes when my butt went numb for the entire 10 hour plane ride.  Then we had a lovely 5 hour layover in Rome where Casey and I curled up under my blanket and slept on our backpacks.  Finally, the dreading day of traveling came to an end at our Hotel Bagglioni.  We had a little orientation and dinner before rallying to the Fish Pub where Casey and I met a fellow Southerner (everyone in our program is from the northeast, and we don’t go a day without someone commenting on how we say ya’ll).   

The next day Casey and I went exploring.  Our goal was to find a little café that Florentines frequent outside of the touristy part of the city.  Due cappuccino per favore!  Our venture turned out to be a 2.5 hour ordeal plus a 2 hour walking tour with API staff in when we returned.  Needless to say, our legs were sore later on in the week.  After resting for a bit, we met up with 2 girls from Washington State in our program that we met on the flight from Rome to Florence and their 4 friends for an eccentric dinner at a trattoria (cheaper that a restaurant but still amazing food!).  The cook kept exclaiming, “Tutti bella” (everyone’s beautiful), and when he brought food out he would belt Italian opera.  I had gnocchi- delicious, and the eight of us split 4 liters of wine for 3 euro per person.   We headed to a bar in the Piazza del Duomo caller Astor where they were promoting Bus2Alps.  Drinks were 2 for 1, so I ordered a mojito for Casey and I, but the barista gave me the “sigh, another mojito” look so I asked him what he wanted to make me.  We’re not really sure what his concoction was… He named it the “Jessica Drink” and gave them both to us for free!

We moved into our apartment the next morning!  After lugging our suitcases (and by the way, one of my suitcases weighed exactly 50 pounds- anything over costs $150 extra) up 2 massive flights of stairs, we found the climb was worth it!  We have a spiral staircase up to a terrace!!  Can you say wine and sunset?!  The apartment is so nice and spacious but very, very cold.  Heat is only turned on for certain hours in the morning and evening so we have to bundle!  Lunch with our Washington State friends took us to a yummy pizzeria.  In the afternoon, Casey and I had a cooking class where we made stuffed zucchini, crepes, and tiramisu!! Everything was delicious and trying to flip the crepes was epic.  

Our terrace!

Survival tour the yesterday morning was incredibly helpful!  We went to the train station and buses, learned how to buy tickets and where to get them activated, our guides favorite trattoria, quick snack, chocolate shop, cheap groceries, market, banks, etc.  We bought some groceries and visited the leather market, where I bought a coin purse and black leather gloves with cashmere on the inside!  We made our first trip to Grom- yummy gelato!!!  And had a fun night out in the city!

Now that you are caught up, I’ll be keeping the blogs way shorter!!!

Ciao!