FIRENZE

I am finally to Florence!!! It has been quite overwhelming the past couple of days so lets see what I can remember.  Leaving Lido was harder than I thought it would be.  After taking some pictures and giving my teacher a gift that we got her, she started to cry, which of course made me cry! Then we went to the sandwhich place that we had been going to for the past two weeks and the owner looked so sad to see us go.   Later that day we hopped on a bus, which took us to a side street of taxis.  My roommate Megan and I got in the taxi and gave the man our new address.    We got dropped off with our huge suitcases, at some random Italian woman’s doorstep…. The rest is history!   We couldn’t figure out how to even open the door and all of the sudden I heard a voice.  I look up and there was an older woman with pink hair saying something in Italian, and there she was, Mama Tosca.  She welcomed us with open arms and not a word of English, I wish I could have seen our faces.  We were pretty worn out from dragging our suitcases up 4 flights of stairs but she was ready to do business.  She gave us the house tour, I showed her a picture of my family

(she thought I had a fiancé for like 10 minutes because I couldn’t figure out how to say sisters fiancé) and took us out on the town and even bought us our first gelato in Florence!  I am centered right in the heart of Florence! 5 minutes walk from the Duomo, 2 minutes from the fake Statue of David, and about 10 from the Ponte Vecchio.   I had my first day of school today and it was longggg!!!  Tosca walked me to school, even though I knew where it was haha. I had three classes: Modern Italy: a Social Anaylsis, Italian Literature in Translation, and Italian 2.  We jumped right into the material in all the classes.  Italian Literature is going to be a challenge, A. because there is a ton of reading and B. I know pretty much nothing about the authors we are studying. I signed up to do various activities over the next couple weeks: cooking class, soccer games, visit to a vineyard, tour around Florence, dinner with Italian student, etc.  I am excited and overwhelmed.  It feels nice to be completely unpacked and I am looking forward to getting in the swing of things. I dont have internet in my house, only at school.  With a 9 hour time difference its been hard to talk to people, but hopefully i will have it soon!