Finally settled in Firenze

Sorry that I haven't been posting regularly, it is a lot harder to keep up with than I had imagined. Today in Florence was our second day of classes. Yesterday we had our first orientation at Eurocentres, Sam and I had an interesting time trying to figure out whether to take bus 6A or 6B to get to Piazza Santo Spirito, and arrived 10 minutes late our first day. We met our professor, then prepared to take an Italian language placement test and interview. The test and interview were not very difficult and they soon told us what classes we were placed into, and whether we had to purchase Espresso I or Espresso II. After we learned a little bit about our program we had 30 minutes to go find lunch and plug converters. I being the cheapskate that I am, and aware that the best pizza is from the Forno showed the group a whole in the wall pizza place where I paid 2.40 euro for a generous portion of Potate Pizza. And boy was it DELICIOUS. I took it in hand and found Alex H to go searching for the store where we could buy converters... my computer and cameras needed to be charged BADLY. We wandered aimlessly then noticed a shop with a lot of light bulbs and entered to find it had lots of light bulbs and lots of converters...

Which converter to purchase?

We found a few different ones that appeared as though 2 prong american cords could fit into, but could not figure out which one was the right one to purchase. I asked the shop keeper and he explained the differences. Apparently there are two different sized plugs, whether it is 3 pronged or 2 pronged doesn't make a difference, because the middle prong is just a ground, and what matters is whether you know you have an outlet for smaller or bigger prongs... so they were only 2.20 euro so I bought one of each and prayed that I would be able to charge all of my electronics that night. Lucky for me we have BOTH of the outlets in our room so they both worked :)

After lunchtime we went back for Professor Benjamin's digital photography class. He gave us a course overview and then as a class we went off to purchase cell phones at Wind and then to the bus station to purchase monthly bus passes. Talk about stressful... 20 americans trying to figure out if the phone plan is actually legit and what everything actually means... I couldn't help but wish that it was only Vishnu, Anna, Sam and I roaming Rome all by ourselves. Smaller groups = WAY MORE FUNCTIONAL. But somehow mostly everyone managed to get a phone, and half of us managed to get bus passes, after some were told they could not get a discount because Union College and Eurocentres did not exist on the list of students. FIGURES. We then went to purchase Espresso II at the fentrinelli book store. After that was complete we were free to do whatever we wanted until class the next morning. Sam and I took off to find chapstick and return to eurocentres to use the internet and charge our things for a little, just in case for some strange reason our new converters didn't work.

When we returned home we went online for a while and then sat down to dinner with our new family. Mamma Claudia e nostro fratello Gabbriele. They were more than nice, and more than just good at cooking and filling our tummies. We ate more than we wanted, and had delightful conversation! Kinda... minus the whole Italian-English problemo. But everything went smoothly, we ate dinner ( a pasta with creamy tomato sauce that Gabbriele made), Lui fa il sugo! A potato quiche, fagioli and an easter cake for dessert (La Colomba). Tutto e molto buono.

After dinner Sam and I got ready to go out, we left the house to meet Anna, Sarah, Phil and Vish at Santa Maria Novella train station, and then we all headed off into the night to find a bar and potentially meet up with the rest of the crew who was at "the lions fountain". We felt like we were walking forever so we decided to stop in this chic back alley bar for a drink. Inside drinks were cheap and all of the music was american... boy do they LOVE gaga. After a drink, we set out again to find the Lions Fountain, which was literally 200 yards in front of where we had stopped. I took one look at the lions fountain and was immediately disgusted. This place was PACKED with americans, girls dressed ridiculously and a ridiculous frat like atmostphere, that I feel should not be allowed in Florence, and if that can't be helped, I should enver step foot in there again. It was seriously terrible. So we immediately left after we didn't see our friends who said they would be there and we walked back toward the bar we had our first drink at. We sat down again, I ordered a glass of presecco, YUM, and everyone had another drink, then we decided it was late and walking home would take at least 30 minutes and by then we would be dead, so we better hurry cause we had class. Walk home was easy and it was warm out, the difficult part was getting into our home quietly....

GOOD THING WE HAD NO IDEA HOW TO USE THE KEY!

We felt so terrible, we tried turning the key every which way as quietly as we could, but we just couldn't make the door budge. Finally we heard Claudia get up and whisper through the door how to do it, as to not wake up Gabbriele. We felt horribly and apologized a million as we walked in the door. We did a quick facebook check, washed up and got into bed. Day 1 SUCESS.

Oggi e martedi. We woke up at 8:00, checked the facebook and email, washed up, heated up the coffee Claudia had left our for us (she had to leave for work early) and we sat down to eat a piece of bread for breakfast. We we're ready and out of the door by 8:45 to wait 15 minutes and get on the bus at 9ish. Rode the bust to S.M.N. then proceeded to walk to eurocentres to arrive at 10:00 for our first italian class. We arrived around 9:30 so we had a little time to kill and perused through the streets until it was time for class. Class went well, we spoke only italian, and I think I learned quite a bit for class number one.

At lunch break Anna and I got Paninis at GustaPanino, a place just to the side of eurocentres. I had one with mushroom spread, ham, and swiss cheese on wheat, it was delicious and only 3 euro. We then walked to find the famous Gusto Pizza that we had heard so much about from last years trip, and decided we were eating there for lunch tomorrow. We then walked across the river toward the duomo, we looked at all the high end clothing stores wishing we could afford even an arm of a shirt or a leg of a pair of pants, and continued toward the Ponte Vecchio. I stopped in a TIM store to update my phones plan... QUITE A DIFFICULT LANGUAGE BARRIER THERE, but it all worked out nicely. Texting 12 cents, calling 16 cents. Then we walked past an amazing case of gelato, Anna spent about 8 minutes deciding if and what she wanted, and ended up getting a cone with Melon and Blackberry gelato... we went to the register and were SHOCKED when told the price was 6.80 euros... cool she paid $10 for an ice cream cone. No regrets though, she enjoyed it, just reminded herself not to get ice cream so close to the duomo again!


We walked back over the pontevecchio toward eurocentres in time for our Archittetura class with eurocentres professor Mauro Mussellini. We had class, sam and I walked back to S.M.N. stopping to buy some notebooks, returned to our house to meet the Nonna of Gabbriele, who is apparently hosting Alex and Avery. We chatted for a while and then went to hide in our room and recuperate. And here I am now.. I think you're all updated of my florence experience thusfar, so I'll try and write again soon!

Oh and I just want to say Thank you to Union College for making us pay more money than we probably should, we hope that you pay for us to enter any museum that we so wish to.