B-O-L-O-G-N-A

This last week has finally started to feel more "normal". It is impossible to say that anything I've been experiencing here in Italy is normal for me, or will ever become normal for me, (I mean, come on, I walk by world-famous buildings and paintings and local street markets everyday) but a routine has finally started to form. I wake up at around 7:45 am, I hope in the shower (sometimes I have to wait 10 minutes for the water to warm up...), I throw multiple layers of clothing back on, I make myself an egg and toast (not very Italian at all, but I need this little piece of home in the morning! The only thing missing is avocado), and I just get ready for class! We are lucky because we literally get to leave our apartment 5 minutes before class starts, while other people have to leave a whole half an hour early! Anyways, we have our language class Monday through Thursday from 9:00am- 12:30pm with a 20 minute break in between. I then have my Renaissance History class Monday and Wednesday from 2-3:30pm! All of my classes are great and don't ever feel THAT long.

So overall, this week hasn't been so bad! I had my first quiz in Italian on Thursday and I think it went okay! Other than that, the week was spent just coming back from class and getting things done! I went grocery shopping and finally have lots of good things to cook. I even attempted making my mom's Spanish rice and some beans...it turned out surprisingly similar to back home (even though the ingredients were completely different). Only downside to that experience was spilling 90% of the tomato sauce on my clothes, the floor, and the surrounding walls of the kitchen. We had a good laugh about it, though, so now it's just a memory to laugh at!

Another exciting thing happened this week, I met with my language exchange partner! Her name is Martina and she studies here in Florence during the week and goes home on the weekends, about an hour and a half away. She is 21 and we had a lot in common. I didn't speak much Italian with her (you can only get so far with "My name is...I am from...I like...I have brown hair..") but we were able to find another time to meet! and GUESS WHAT! She actually lives on a vineyard in the hills of Tuscany and her family owns a wine and oil store! The even better news is that I am invited to visit! This is my dream come true. I'm finally starting to become more immersed in the Italian culture and I just want more and more. More to come on this experience :)

Yesterday, Friday, my housemates and I made our first outing on our own to the city of Bologna, north of Florence! The entire experience was amazing and it definitely added fuel to the fire that is my growing need to travel.

We got to the train station, Santa Maria Novella, at 8am and found it quite easy to navigate the station and the platforms and validating our tickets. I was extremely excited to be there and just being surrounded by tons of people traveling, with the sounds and the smells so similar to airports and anything that comes along with going on trips, was thrilling! Our train was slightly delayed but we made it on with no problem whatsoever. I was bummed to not get a window seat but I the views were still spectacular no matter where I sat and the hour and a half train ride went by in the blink of an eye! It was much too easy to pretend I was in Harry Potter and heading off to Hogwarts, though. A guy with a cart selling snacks and drinks even came by! I think I am going to love taking trains around Europe :)

We arrived in Bologna at around 10:30am and the first thing we noticed, it was impossible not to notice, was, of course, the cold! It was a good 10 degrees colder than the weather we had left in Florence! Luckily, we started walking right away and before long the cold was a distant memory. I had talked with Alessandro the night before, he has lived in Bologna his entire life and attends University there when not in California, and he gave me a whole list of places to eat and things to see. It was SO helpful and once I had a map in my hand, we were off! When I have a plan and a map I get slightly controlling, one of my flaws, and I was fast-walking us from one corner of the city to the other. We first stopped at the LARGEST street market I had ever seen! It literally had anything you could ever want and the prices were amazing. I don't think I ever saw something for more than like 15 euro (except for the one hat I absolutely loved that was 17 euro and just much too expensive for what it was, of course) and it had my bargain mind on overdrive. The girls stopped for some coffee and then we made our way over to the University of Bologna, the first University in the entire world!

Side note about the architecture of Bologna: The sidewalks are covered by portico's (I think that is the name), which are large arches that create a covering as you walk but have buildings above it. I believe they were made because Bologna needed more room so they decided to build out from the buildings, over the sidewalks, which created those beautiful archways. They are great for bad weather!

We were all in complete awe as we walked around the city. The streets were adorable, the porticos were just unbelievable, the University was grand and provided a college feeling to this town (a feeling I had been apparently missing), and it felt like every corner we came upon offered more for our eyes to gobble up. After the University, we came the the two towers the Bologna is famous for. They were SO tall and I was eager to climb up them, but they were closed, unfortunately. Next we came to the huge square of Piazza Maggiore. Here we saw the amazing fountain of Neptune, the government building and one of the oldest libraries (I found out that's what it was AFTER we had left. I will go in next time I visit!). These buildings are just massive and the magnitude is so hard to capture with a camera! From here we wandered around looking for a lunch spot and eventually had to settle for a little place that was cheap, yes, but honestly not very good. I could tell it wouldn't be great from the outside and inside of the "restaurant" I guess you could call it, but we were starving and just needed to sit down. I had ragu, which Alessandro has made me before and which Bologna is famous for, and it didn't compare one bit! Yuck!

We finished our food and headed back to this little hole in the wall area we had stumbled upon moments before. I don't think it even has a name, but it was this huge room with pictures all over the walls of famous people who had visited before. There were huge wooden tables and chairs and the atmosphere was amazing! Everyone in there was a local on their lunch break and the unique thing about this place is that everyone brings their lunch from elsewhere and comes here to eat it together! You just buy a glass of wine or another drink from the bar and go find a seat. It was very informal but so relaxing and the perfect place to drink a glass of wine and just walk. I was soaking up the Italian culture and I never wanted to leave!

After this we searched for a gelato place Alessandro had told us about, but it was unfortunately closed until the next DAY! How annoying! It didnt take us long to find some other tasty treats instead, and then we were all very happy. We made our way to the first church of the day, Santo Agosto, and I was beyond impressed with how old everything was! The great thing about going into churches is that you are able to see some amazing works of art and very famous statues and buildings for free, without the rush of a museum. The works of art are normally in their original locations as well, which makes the whole experience that much more authentic. We perused for a while and then crossed the city to see another amazing and extremely tall church, San Francesco. By this point, we were all feeling all of the steps we had walked since early in the morning and we needed a place to rest. We headed over to a famous pizza place, PizzAltero, and melted while eating this delicious, and so cheap (1.30 euro) pizza. I want to go back already.

We slowly made our way back to the train station, and since our return tickets didn't specify a time or train, walked into a packed train station full of people just getting off of work and tried to figure out our next move. After 20 minutes of waiting in a line, we found out we'd have to take a train to Prato and then to Florence unless we wanted to wait another 3 hours for a direct train. We were all a bit nervous to change trains in an unfamiliar place, but we had to do it. After running back and forth across the station a few times, we finally found our train and hopped on! With the help of some local Italians going back to their own small towns, we made it to Prato and only had to wait 20 minutes for the train to Florence. On the small trip from Prato to Florence we "accidently" boarded a first-class car that had no one in it. We had a lot of fun with that, and since no one ever came around to check our tickets, we were safe!

We arrived back in Florence, slightly sadly for me because Bologna was just so wonderful and not so crowded or touristy, and climbed the mountain up to our apartment. It felt so good to have a place to call "home".

Today we are going to go to some museums here in Florence and explore our own city a little bit more. I still love Florence, don't get me wrong, but it's wonderful to see what each new city has to offer.

Ciao for now!

Lucca, Pisa, and Beyond

Friday was only 2 days ago, are you kidding me?? It feels one day here is an entire week long and like yesterday was two weeks ago. I don't know if that even makes any sense, but in my mind it's what I feel!

Let's skip to the good stuff: my first trip out of Florence and into Lucca and Pisa! The trip was beyond amazing and I feel so privileged I had even the opportunity to go. Everyday I still think to myself, "Is this just some amazing dream? Am I actually living in an apartment, in Florence, eating gelato and pizza and panini's and pasta everyday"? I'm going to get bruises from pinching myself so often. At 8am we boarded the nicest airbus I've ever been on for the hour long trip to Lucca. I am so glad we got to take this bus because it was my first time ever leaving my little oasis of Florence and there was much more to see once we emerged from the city center. First of all, the outer layers of Florence are definitely not as glamorous as the middle. There are rundown houses, jenky apartments, graffiti-ridden buildings, and images that look much too similar to many places in the U.S. I'm not going to lie, seeing this side of Florence slightly dimmed the extremely bright light that is Florence in my mind. Once we passed through this muck, we reached the freeway and the rolling hills of Tuscany! I couldn't take my eyes off of the surrounding scenery and I was constantly amazed to see castles in the distance, old ruins a few feet away, or beautiful vineyards zooming past. I had to quickly alter my very jaded view of Italy and greatly expand it to include so much more wonderful scenery.

Our whole program piled off our bus and onto the streets right outside the massive walls of Lucca. Lucca is the most amazing city. It is a place I have only dreamed of before and a place I will travel back to time and time again. A unique thing about Lucca is that it's original city walls that are a few hundred feet tall are completely intact, giving it a very regal and important feeling. Another nice thing about Lucca is that there are few cars within the city walls so, unlike Florence, you can walk peacefully in the middle of the street without worrying about a miniature car or speeding motorcycle appearing out of nowhere and almost running you over. We never once had to yell, "Motto, motto!" to one another. The streets of Lucca were much wider and you were constantly coming upon the most adorable courtyards that just screamed "ITALY!", with the colorful buildings, flowers hanging from the windows, bikes leaning against the walls, clothes lines connecting windows, and a great big fountain in the middle to tie it all together. We visited many churches in Lucca and they blew my mind! Being in Italy has made me realize just how important and influential religion once was. It's incredible to think how much times have changed. My favorite thing about Lucca was that it was small enough to walk around the entire perimeter in maybe two hours. The walls of lucca are very thick so you are able to walk on top of the walls where you find huge grassy areas with playgrounds and restaurants and tree-lined paths and spectacular views of both the inside Lucca and outside Lucca.

Side note: People in Italy are OBSESSED with their dogs! They are everywhere. But at least in Lucca they have grass to do their business on. In Florence, they just go wherever they please and more often than not, it ends up on the bottom of your shoe.

The four hours we were allotted in Lucca went much too quickly, and after searching around town for literally an hour for gelato (they were all closed until Feb/March!), we ate a quick lunch and hopped back on the bus.

The next hour to Pisa was spent gazing out at the amazing views, once again, and fighting the sleep that would cause my eyes to close and thus not see every second of the ride. Our bus let us off at the most random location, a huge empty parking lot surrounded by a neighborhood that looked...scary to say the least. We were literally ambushed by men trying to sell us Pisa souvenirs but were previously advised to not make eye contact and keep walking. After a very odd 10 minute walk across train tracks and through small neighborhoods, we made it to the entrance of the Pisa city walls. And of course, the first thing we saw, was....drum roll please...the leaning tower of Pisa!! Despite how touristy this trip was, it was quite amazing to see this huge monument that I have heard about and seen pictures of my entire life. Here I was, standing right before the ACTUAL tower!! We had 30 minutes to take the classic "holding up the tower" picture and it was the most hilarious thing to see people lined up and down the walkway holding their hand out, or kicking their foot into the air, or leaning back, you name it! Someone needs to film it and put it on a funny show, because it's classic. Not to say I wasn't right there with them :)

We finished up with our pictures (I was dubbed picture taker of every person on our trip, I just have a talent with angles I guess) and then had a one and a half hour tour of Pisa. This tour required staying in a small area, but we got to go into the Baptistry and hear a lady sing beautifully and we entered the huge cathedral and leaned all the history. Pisa is one cool place, that's for sure! It had so much more to offer, rather than just the leaning tower, and our guides made sure to leave us with that impression. We had amazing gelato on the way out and soon our day in Pisa had come to an end. We boarded our buses and I finally slept a little. Walking zombies exited the buses at around 8pm and everyone crawled back to their apartments and into bed. It had been a very long day of a lot of walking, a lot of information, a lot of memories, and a lot of excitement. It was a wonderful trip that I would make again and again!

The weekend following this trip was spent in our little town of Florence, exploring, visiting museums, eating food (I had MEXICAN food in ITALY, no mom it wasn't half as good as yours, but the margaritas were yummy:) ), and having a good time with friends.

Time to sleep, class in the morning! School is starting to get slightly harder, by the way. It really doesn't fit into my current "vacation".

Ciao!

Scuola + Biboli

I am officially finished with my first week of class in Florence! Everything has gone very smoothly and I am surprisingly loving all of my classes and am excited every morning I wake up. Well, correction, I am excited for class and seeing people, but I am not excited about the fact that my nose is frozen and I can barely feel my face. If my foot happens to be sticking out of the covers, all hell will break lose.

I actually have an update on the cold room. I have officially packed up my stuff and lugged my mattress into our "living/extra" room next door. I can't even begin to explain how much warmer I was last night. It was a little slice of Heaven, I tell ya. My roommate Anna and I now use our old, dungeon of a room as a rather large walk in closet. We open the door, sprint in, grab the outfits we have already planned out in our heads, sprint back out, close the door to seal the cold air in, and sigh with relief. Thank you room, for being on a corner, and having no protection to keep the heat in. Too bad I won't be here during summer when our room will probably become a refuge.

In my Renaissance History class we are reading Dante's "Inferno", a book I had never given much thought to. My class is full of history majors and literature majors and people who really know their background for this course, so I feel a tiny bit behind. But I am enjoying reading this book and learning from my professor SO MUCH. It's honestly taking me be surprise. A funny thing happened the other day in class when our professor was reading some of "Inferno" aloud. If you know me, you know I absolutely despise participating in class but in this class of only 10 people, I was bound to be called on sooner or later. So my professor pauses in the book when Dante is standing at the gates of Hell. There is a plaque over the gates that warns about Hell and horrible things, so she of course wants a student to read the inscription in their most dangerous, loud, and scary voice. Who does she pick? Little sweet and innocent Michelle, of course. I took a deep breathe and spoke as loudly as I could. At the end of the much-too-long passage I was red in the face, could barely look up, and my professor responded with, "Well that sounded a little more like we were entering Heaven, but good try"! Ahhh so embarassing for me, but at least the class got a kick out of it. I just can't do a mean voice on command.

I have my language class every morning until 12:30pm and a routine is really starting to form. I know have good groceries (we finally found an actual grocery store and I went a little crazy), so I usually come home for lunch and have a couple hours to just relax. Many people go out almost every night and come to class looking horrible the next day. I have decided to opt out of late nights on the nights before class, and I'll save the fun for the weekend instead. I did have my first pub experience and it was a lot more fun than I thought! It's pretty much just a place to hang out and actually talk with people. Luckily people don't go too crazy and the vibe is always calm and friendly. I've gone only once with my new group of friends and I wish so badly I lived closer to them all!!

Exciting news: I am going to Paris the first weekend of February!! Our little group of 7 all booked our flights with Ryanair and will be leaving Thursday after our class! The flight was extremely cheap (60 euros round trip to be exact) and I used a very valuable connection to get us a FREE place to stay all 3 nights! Nannying for billionaire's who own hotels as their hobby really pays off :)

Today after class, Anna and I took a trip to the Boboli Gardens which are literally a 2 minute walk from our apartment. They were INCREDIBLE! Pictures are on facebook if you want to see the beauty of it. I was in awe as we passed through random passageways and tunnels of trees and ornate fountains and 30 foot statues and spectacular views of both the city of Florence and the countryside of Florence. I will be going there a lot since it is FREE for me.

Well I've got to get to bed early because we are leaving no a group trip tomorrow morning at 8am!! Luca and Pisa here I come!

Arrivaderci!

1 Week Down.

The rest of this week has been crazy, to say the least. It’s honestly impossible for me to try and separate moments into days because all of my days run together as one huge jumble of memories and emotions.

I will attempt to piece together this puzzle as I go along. Last time I wrote, I had just moved into this cold, cold apartment. I feel much more settled now and can happily say I have had some good nights of sleep! Jet lag still haunts me and has me going to sleep at 4am and waking up at 1pm, but at least I am sleeping for hours at a time!

I’ve been comparing the time I’ve had here so far to the first week of freshman year of college. It’s a week some people love, some people hate, and some people just want to end. I’m the latter.

Don’t get me wrong, I am LOVING it here! I am just very used to being constantly surrounded by my best friends and family, all people I never have to try around. They know me inside and out, and there’s something very comforting in that. In Italy, nobody knows who anybody is (besides the group of frat boys that all came together and all live together…) and I often feel like I’m seeing some show where everyone is acting, not just being themselves. I’m part of that show as well, and it gets so tiring trying so hard!

Back to what I’ve been up to! I’ve gone on a guided tour around the center of Florence, which was extremely helpful. Our guide was way too knowledgeable but I now know the history of many of that statues I walk by daily, I know what most of the buildings are called, I can maneuver the crazy streets a little better, and I am starting to feel more like I actually LIVE here. I’m not just a tourist visiting for a week of vacation.

I finally have to talk about school. It is so easy to forget that we are here to actually learn. We had the whole weekend to do as we please and it was incredibly much too easy to pretend this is what the next four months would be like. Before the weekend, we had a pretty busy schedule filled with orientations and group meetings. They got me SO EXCITED! We met our director, Michelangelo (think of a hot Italian man in his 30’s and you get him) and all of the professors and just everyone in charge. They are all soooo incredibly kind and nice and also have this Italian attitude that is hard to resist. They offer insane amounts of support to us students and really want us to have the time of our lives. It feels so wonderful to have this!

Side note: I feel like I might actually LOSE weight in Italy. Never thought you’d hear me say that, huh?? The beauty of the situation is that I kind of forget to eat until I am hungry and then when I do eat its small portions and just food made good for your body. The people in Italy care so much more about their bodies and appearance than those in the U.S.. They are definitely ahead in that area. Back to losing weight, I also walk miles and miles every day! Put those all together and you get weight loss! This is just the diet I was looking for J

In our orientations we learned a ton of surprising and wonderful perks to this program. We will be going on two trips all together (Free! Sort of) (one of them is this coming Friday to Pisa and Lucca), we will be taking a cooking class taught by a well known chef, we will have monthly movie nights, we have a welcome catered dinner tonight, we get a pass with our name on it that lets us into every museum in Florence for FREE and we also get to cut in front of the line, we are offered tons of volunteer opportunities (I am going to volunteer in a school!) and can do an exchange of language program with a native, we get to go to an Opera for free and dress up, and at the end of the program we have a huge dinner that is catered at a villa in the hills of Tuscany, overlooking Florence. I almost can’t breathe thinking of all that is to come! EEEK!

Sheesh, I waited too long to write in this blog. Quick sum up of the weekend: finished an orientation, went out with my housemates and some of the friends they had made (really not my scene unfortunately. I felt like we screamed AMERICAN and I just am trying to integrate myself into this culture more than they are) for dinner but then I came back to the apartment alone and slept instead. The next day was MUCH better and after our walking tour we I shimmied away with another group of people who have very similar thoughts as me. We all want to stay in Italy most of the time and immerse ourselves completely, we don’t want to go crazy, we want to mingle with actual Italians, we want to absorb this wonderful place and not leave every chance we get, and we just want to make close relationships. This is PERFECT. Anyways, we all hung out and went to dinner (the free wine place AGAIN), then we met up with some fashion photographers at a pub! My friend Cristina followed one of their blogs and since there was a huge men’s fashion show this past week in Florence, she jumped on the chance to meet them! It was very cool to talk with them and it was a wonderful night. I ended up sleeping at Cristina’s place (I’m 30 mins away and its not safe to walk alone at night here) and then woke up at 1pm again! Sunday was a day for relaxing and regrouping. I went to bed at a decent hour and woke up ready for class!

Another quick sum up of classes: I’m loving them. I had my Italian class earlier this morning and was entirely surprised to never hear one word of English come from my professors mouth. I am in Italian level 1, so I’m just slightly worried. I was impressed, though, that I could make out almost everything she was saying and within the 3 hour class I learned a TON. She is so sweet and our class of 20 people is going to become fluent by the end. Oh, by the way, in one semester we are covering 3 quarters of Italian!!! It scares me to think of that. But we are in Italy, after all, so I am most excited to be speaking Italian in no time! My other class is called Renaissance Florence. We pretty much just went over the syllabus today but our professor is AMAZING. She used to teach at Berkeley and she just has such a passion for Florence. We will be having classes out in the city very often and I, not being a history person at all, am actually looking forward to this class. There are only about 10 people total in the class, so I really, really have to learn my stuff!

Time to get ready for our welcome dinner!

Ciao!

Move-in!

Things I need ASAP: WARMER EVERYTHING! It is beyond freezing here in Florence, especially when the sun goes down. I’m currently sitting in our dining room (farthest away from my own room) wearing 2 layers of socks, 2 pants, 2 shirts and 1 jacket, and a hat. We found blankets, thank God, and I’m wrapped in one of those as well. This California girl was definitely not prepared for this Italian cold. Okay just one more complaint about the cold, our room happens to be about 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. Why, you might ask? No one knows! We had an “apartment inspection” just now and the lady could not believe it was so cold in our room. My roommate, Anna, and I both compared last night to camping, in the winter, with a crappy sleeping bag, and no tent.

I’ll stop talking about the cold now, I just had to vent a little.

So my adventure continues! Kayla and I packed up our luggage in the hostel, took the not-so-scary-looking-anymore elevator down the building, and arrived onto a very crowded and fast paced street looking like complete idiots with huge suitcases and backpacks. We made the slow journey to the ACCENT center (where our classes will be held) and got many wonderful looks from the Italians around. Along the way we ran into fellow students and they helped with our bags (I’m forever thankful). We got all checked in and received envelopes with our keys and a map of how to get to our apartments. I think I have good luck with living situations. My apartment is literally a 1-minute walk from the center! Everyone else’s maps showed long treks across bridges and through confusing streets, but not mine!

Aye, I’m starting to blab too much! I need to learn to make things more concise (a constant problem I have with writing in general).

Okay so finally I arrived at my apartment and I was blown away!! I was picturing some really small, crappy apartment that had very little space but instead I got the opposite. We have two huge shared living spaces (sort of like a dining room and a living room but bigger and with tables and couches in them), a huge kitchen, 2 but sort of 3 bathrooms, and 3 bedrooms total. It is so charming and soooo Italian, and I couldn’t love it more!

I live with four other girls, and everyone is so nice! I first met roommates Christine and Vicky and we all went out and grabbed a panini and a beer (I can legally drink here, by the way, so no one can get mad J ). The Panini was delicious, the beer was not.

Side note about Italian men: they love women. And they love for women to know they love them.

We explored around our part of town some more, and it was of course amazing. Finally we trudged up our 10+ flights of stairs (Santa Cruz hills are nothing compared to these stairs) and then I unpacked and met our other housemates, and my roommate, who had arrived! My roommate, Anna, is so sweet! I think we will get along great.

After a little down time we met up with some other girls, Sam and Robin, and then waited at the center for 15 minutes for more people to show up (no one has phones yet so we kind of just have to hope everyone gets the memo) but no one did, and it was freezing, and our tummies were rumbling and eager for REAL Italian pasta. We then fast-walked (I’ll be doing a lot of that here because it’s so freezing) to the restaurant and had a wonderful time!! (Free wine for students…)

After a wonderful evening of laughs and getting to know each other, I was tired and ready for sleep. Unfortunately, I could not sleep. I don’t know if it was the jet lag or one to many glasses of wine (that I surprisingly loved and used to think I hated) or maybe the arctic-like conditions, but it became impossible and then the mind games started working their magic.

Side note: The heaters just turned on!!!! They take forever to warm a room, but it gives me hope!

So back to not sleeping. Long story short, I didn’t get to sleep until 5am my time and then had to wake up at 9am. I will be a walking zombie today but that’s just part of the adventure!

I am trying to blog as much as possible while I have some down time, but soon classes will start and things will get hectic. I will try my best, though! Thanks for reading!

Ciao! Prego! Grazie! Presto! Dopo! Etc. etc. etc.

(pictures to come later)

30 Hour Travel Day

I honestly don’t have very much experience with traveling far distances, but everyone’s warnings about how it drains you sure seem to be correct. This one period of 30 hours feels like a few days to me. I can’t wrap my mind around all the time changes and plane layovers and

taxicabs that have finally gotten me to this point. After being dropped off at LAX, switching planes twice in Newark and Frankfurt, taking an insanely scary taxi ride to our hotel in Florence, and exploring this new and exciting city, I can finally RELAX!

Did I mention I didn’t sleep once on the plane? I may be slightly delusional as I write this, just an fyi.

I’ll skip the plane parts (honestly nothing exciting happened, other than the fact that I am now 98% comfortable flying compared to the 40% comfort level I had before the trip) and go right to the arriving in Florence part.

I landed in Florence with about 50 other college-aged kids all doing different study abroad programs in the same city. It was cool to get to talk with everyone and hear where they were from and all that. It made me super excited and very eager for this experience.

Pause while I sway in bed. My head still thinks I’m on a plane apparently.

Anyways, I arrive in Florence with a girl on my same program named Kayla. I cannot begin to explain how thankful I am that I got to travel with her from that point on! It’s so nice having another person’s opinion and eyes to watch out for you. She was in charge of finding us a hostel/hotel for the night and she did an amazing job! The hostel itself is in a random building on the third floor. I thought we had the wrong place, but after a scary one-person-manually-close-the-door elevator ride up, we realized it was definitely where we needed to be! “Franz House” is the name and it is a very small, one-floor hotel type of thing with maybe 4 rooms total. We got the triple room which has a double bed, a single bed and it’s own bathroom! It is SO nice and did I forget to mention the view?! There is a large window that has shutters that open out to the Arno River, with the Ponte Vecchio in the background. People are constantly hustling and bustling around beneath us with the constant sound of car horns honking, people yelling, bike bells ringing, and Italian’s chatting. I could stand in this window for days.

After oo-ing and aw-ing at our room, we finally decided to freshen up and explore! It was about 3:30am U.S. time and 1:30pm (13:10 to be more accurate) our time. No sleeping until that night, I promised myself! So out we went onto the cobblestone roads and crazy drivers and gelato and pizza places lining the streets.

Italy is amazing. End of story.

I felt like I stepped into the scene of a movie. I tried my hardest to soak up every single thing around me. I loved hearing the swirling of Italian words all around me and wished so badly I knew what they meant. I will soon, I will soon. What I found most amazing was that by just walking and wondering around we stumbled upon such famous sights as the duomo, countless statues, and Michelangelo’s house. They are all so incredibly old and it is just amazing to stand before them and imagine what once used to be. It really is something.

After stumbling upon such great treasures, we picked up some pizza (a little too tamato-y for my taste) and then got a quick espresso at a bar. I found my perfect combination of nearly all milk, tons of sugar, and a tiny bit of coffee and I was set to go! As we were heading back to our hotel, some Italain guys stopped us and started talking mostly to Kayla (she knows Italain, they knew no English, so I was sort of out of that equation) and then told us they would lead us to the best gelato place in the city. Unfortunately, it was closed, so they took us to the next-best one close by. Can you say YUMMY?! I got half lemon and half strawberry gelato and just thinking about it makes my mouth water all over again. The two guys that took us there were very funny and nice, though I couldn’t really communicate with them (other than using large hand gestures, making noises, or resorting to Spanish as a last ditch attempt). They then lead Kayla and I to Michelangelo’s house, which just happens to overlook all of Florence and it was breathtaking. The lighting was perfect and the sun was making the cold and nippy air loosen up. Right around this time my espresso kick started to wear off and I desperately wanted to be back in the hotel. Unfortunately, Michelangelo decided to live quite a walk from our hotel so I had to drag my feet back. After a very, very, very long day of sight seeing and plane rides and crazy emotions, I was finally back in the hotel looking at the new view now filled with lights and the same sounds.

It is now past bedtime and I am beyond exhausted. Is there a better word for that? Whatever it is, that’s me! Tomorrow I will get my apartment keys and then who knows what!

Ciao for now!

Last Day in the U.S.

Today was my last full day in Santa Barbara. I spent it with my entire extended family and the night before was spent with my best friends. I am so thankful I was able to see everyone I love before leaving, and they left me feeling so excited and calm for the months to come.

My suitcase is officially 50.5 pounds (I'm hoping the airline will let that 1/2 a pound slide...) and my carry on is currently a rather large jumble on the floor. Like Meaghan first advised me, I was able to fit everything into 1 suitcase. Can you believe that?! Everything I will need for the next 8 months amounts to only 50 pounds. I kind of like it, actually. I am notorious for overpacking, especially for little trips (I need options), but I have forced myself to bring only the necessities! How many suitcases I will need to return is an entirely different question.

For all that care, I will be leaving tomorrow at around 7pm, making a pit stop at APU to drop Jess off at school, heading over to my cousin's house to sleep for a few hours, and then being dropped off at LAX at roughly 4am. My flight leaves at 7am (I am flying United) and then I have one layover in Newark, NJ and another in Frankfurt, Germany. I will arrive in Florence on Tuesday, January 10, at roughly 10:30am.

Reminder: Italy is 9 hours ahead.

That felt good to get out in writing. That is the plan thus far (please pray for no complications) and I guess I'll just be going from there! I will post again when I am in Italy, most likely in a hostel for the night.

Thank you friends and family for caring so much about me and calming my nerves. I don't think many people are as fortunate as I am. I have so many people who care about me (and who I care about as well) and that support me, which has made me push myself that much harder.

Italy, here I come!

One week to go!

Here we are.

I leave for Florence, Italy in about 7 days or one week. I honestly do not know how the time has passed so quickly! It seems like just yesterday I was applying for studying in Florence, when in fact I was doing so a year ago! If you know me well, you know I like to push things out of my mind until it is absolutely necessary to face whatever the new and scary thing might be. This new experience of mine is no exception and it is becoming harder and harder to procrastinate on packing and actually giving some thought to this upcoming trip. I can talk about the trip for hours, that is no problem, but actually thinking, "I leave in one week for 8 months", is the thing I avoid most.

Can you tell I am nervous?

I won't ramble on much longer, but as I was setting up this blog I thought a pre-Italy entry might be useful. Here's to one more week in beautiful Santa Barbara, with amazing friends and family and hopefully little stress and worry. These 8 months will be the time of my life, I have no doubt of that, and I am beyond excited to start this adventure!! 2012 is going to be my best year yet, I just know it.

Wish me luck!