Our apartment is great, the location is amazing, there are shops all around us and markets and it seems that everything is within a few blocks. Our walk to school is like 15 minutes and we have 8 other girls in our program living the floor below us. We also have wireless internet-YAY!-that we will hopefully be getting set up tonight.
The first day, after lugging our bags into our apartment, we went in search for groceries, which definitely put it into perspective at how much italian I don't know. There isn't much of a grid system with the streets so its kind of hard to figure out directions, even with me, who has always been so good with them! (I still am the one the other girls follow tho!) The best thing is that we are literally like two blocks away from the duomo which is a large church with the largest dome (duomo means dome in italian) in the city and a huge tourist attraction and it stands out well, so we always know if we can get back to the duomo we can find our way home. After not finding groceries, (it turned out to be like two blocks in the OTHER direction) we went back and my jet lag resulted in a three-hour nap. A very cold nap too, since our heat is only turned on from 6 at night to 10 in the morning. (Electricity is super expensive here and the government regulates the heat. All natural resources are imported into italy, they have none of their own.) That night, we met at Piazza della Repubblica as a group (all Arcadia students) and we went out for supper at La Lampara which is a pizza place and was really good. Then we went home and crashed (more jet lag i guess!). We had to be at school for orientation at 10:00am where we got a tour of the Accademia, which only has around 400 students. 35% of them are italian students, about 20% american students, and the rest are from other parts of the world, but everyone is suppose to be able to speak english (lets hope!). So my classes will be very integrated. The Accademia is on the other side of the river from our apartment, we cross the Ponte Vecchio to get there (the famous bridge with lots of shops on it) and the school's right across from the Pitti Palace (I'm not really sure what that is yet). The school also has another building they use for design studios. Its on our side of the river, and is the top floor of the building and got to go to the rooftop terrace and see Florence from high up with was beautiful.We were served lunch (lots of pasta-tortellini, penne, ravioli, etc.) and then got a lot more information thrown at us. We then split into two groups and our group took a coach up into the hills surrounding Florence and saw Florence lit up at night and then ate at a mom&pa style winebar up in a hill called Settignano. We had homemade wine, homemade gnocchi, and steak! yay! I was going to miss steak. But I guess its pretty popular so thats exciting. We got back about 10 and I was asleep by 11:30. I'm hoping this jet lag wears off soon...
So now we're on today. We got up and got to the school and had a lot more information thrown at us, lots about traveling which is really exciting. With the Accademia we get two day trips and two overnight trips that are included, we only pay for food. So it'll be interesting picking and choosing. This afternoon we have a few things to get done as far as paperwork goes and then we're on the hunt for the cheapest cell phone plan. (I swear I will let you all know what it is ASAP) and get groceries and whatnot. Its kind of rainy here so hopefully it stays clear enough to get all of our things done. We're supposedly going to get our internet hooked up tonight (our landlord has to come) so hopefully that happens! But anyways, I gotta run for now so I'll add more later and as soon as we get internet at the apartment I'll add pictures! Miss you all!
Ciao!
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