First Couple of Days

Andrew and I at the airport

Leaving the house for the last time until May

View from our second flight

After a 7.5 hour flight, 1.5 hour layover in Frankfurt (where I got frisked by a German woman, had my bag looked through, and had to get my boots scanned twice... so much fun), and 1.25 hour flight I finally(!) made it to Florence. I was pretty excited but also extremely extremely exhausted. I hadn't slept at all on either of my flights and hadn't really eaten either because they served us disgusting airplane dinner around 5pm and disgusting airplane breakfast at 10:30 pm (New York time). Luckily I was at the hyper-tired phase when we landed because I had to lug my bags off the luggage carousel (without Dad and Andrew to do it for me) and get on a bus for the NYU campus. We were all pretty much zombies but when we saw the campus we perked up a little. It was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous. I should have taken a picture but my brain wasn't really functioning.

Our little bit of optimism soon faded as we were told the check-in process would take HOURS. We had to go through immigration at the campus as well as a mini-orientation, get our paperwork in order, and call home. I did get to see Emily (my roommate) when I was finishing this process though...she had taken a later flight. After all of that we got our room keys and were shuttled to our apartments. I met two of my roommates at that point. They both go to Bucknell... apparently of the 15% of non-NYU students around 45 are from Bucknell. Our street is TINY so the driver couldn't find it forever and then we had to walk a block down cobblestone with our bags. When we finally found the apartment we lugged our stuff 2 flights up (a challenge) and got to look around.

Emily has a little bit of unpacking to do

The apartment is really really cute but also really really Italian. There are four 2 person bedrooms and 3 full (but tiny) bathrooms. The beds are tiny and the washing machine is outside on a patio (and we really have to hang our clothes out on lines to dry them!) but there are also gorgeous high ceilings and pretty shutter windows. Our room is really cute with 2 big windows (that unfortunately only lead to little courtyards with other peoples windows) and these huuuuuge wardrobes. We also have 2 tiny little desks to do work on. Maybe I'll upload a video touring the apartment but I'm too lazy and cold to move right now. I definitely really like the apartment though and apparently it's one of the nicer ones NYU has!

The internet is AWFUL here. We have wireless which is really nice but it's super slow and only works about half of the time. NYU is sending somebody to look at it but think that might just be how it is here. Another thing to get used to is how COLD they keep the buildings. NYU warned us about this but they really do only keep the heat on 8-10 hours a day and we have to open windows every time we shower. Luckily for me my mom likes to keep the house like an igloo at home so I think I'll adapt well. The other two sets of girls arrived later in the day. They all go to NYU, 2 of them are sophomores (most of the NYU students are sophomores) and 2 are juniors. Emily and I got dinner at a restaurant around the corner (there a lot nearby) and went back to the apartment to sleeeeeep.

After sleeping a full 12 hours I woke up this morning feeling somewhat less tired. We got breakfast across the street from my apartment at an American style Diner that I'd heard about from friends who have studied in Florence before. I think it's really popular with students... it might be dangerous for my $$$ that it's so close and convenient. But they do give a 10% discount to students! After breakfast the 8 of us struggled around trying to find the meeting place for orientation. After a really long and boring talk on the program we split up by neighborhoods to get tours of where we live. Emily and I had walked around a little bit the first day to find a grocery store (with no luck) but today was a much nicer day.

The temperature was in the mid 40s and the sun was out so the whole city looked so pretty. Everything here is SO gorgeous, it makes a city like New York look gross and dingy in comparison. We passed a lot of old public buildings and churches (we even saw the Duomo for a second) but I definitely want to do more sightseeing asap. We also passed a ton of leather shops and I have a bad feeling that a lot of my money will be spent on boots and bags because I've already seen about 23423 things I want to buy.  Our guide also showed us places to get  groceries, supplies, and anything else we could want for the apartment which was information we definitely needed. A couple of us went to the grocery store but we couldn't buy that much because it's a walk from our apartment and you need to carry everything. The biggest problem with that is that the tap water here smells really funky and bottled water is heavy. At least it's good exercise though. We have orientation the next few days (including getting a trip to Ikea- the apartment has nooo storage- and a trip to a cell phone store) and then classes start Monday. I can't wait for them to start, mostly because I just want to get started with living here rather than stumbling around feeling like a complete tourist.

Ciao!