Settling In

Let me get you updated on my life IN Florence. I know it seems like I don't really live here, I have travel plans every weekend for the next few weeks! And well into the semester.

My weekend plans for February

But, contrary to popular belief, I do in fact live in Florence. And I do a lot of awesome stuff here too!

Orientation.

Ya. Not that awesome. But I still had a lot of fun getting to know my roommates.

To everyone who ever prayed for my roommates this semester, thank you.

My roommate Katie, and another one of my flatmates, Jenn, are both Christians!! What are the odds? Our God is so so good!

The three of us stayed in the same hotel room during orientation. Which was so fun! We have a lot of fun together. Its just fun! Fun.. (Duck Dynasty anyone?)

We sat through numerous boring lectures together, and went on many a walking tour through Florence.

And at some point during it all we moved into our apartment!

ITS HUGE!

3 bedrooms. 3 bathrooms. The kitchen is ginormous! And we have plenty of storage space!

That's right, all of my luggage is unpacked and fits in my room! Praise Him!

The first day in our apartment we decided to go to the biggest market chain in Italy, called Coop.

So, we followed the directions and took bus 23.

Katie creeping from the back of the bus

Caitlin riding up front. Giving up her seat to precious old Italian ladies

We rode and rode and rode and rode on that bus. Until we got back to the main bus station.

oops.

So we got on bus 14.

Try again. God gives us all second chances, right?

Finally we found our stop, after asking our bus driver and a couple of locals how to get to the market we found it!

And everything was in Italian.

Yay.

I still dont know what some of the stuff I bought is. But I am slowing finding out as I eat.

I found my cheese section. And I'm obviously a little overwhelmed and out of my element

Did I mention there are 6 of us living in my apartment? I'm sure the market hated us when all 6 of us Americans rolled in. Having no clue what we were doing.

Katie and Caitlin. Pro status. 

Celia and me, and the coolest carts ever. You can hold them or roll them. Thanks Europe.

As you may have noticed. We are holding quite a few bags. Celia even brought a duffel! We had two full carts plus two of those basket buggies full of stuff. True American style.

Check out was insane. and I've never loaded groceries into a backpack before, but there is a first for everything.

Taking a huge load back to the apartment we all found ourselves holding the toilet paper that wouldn't fit into our bags. I even had a kitty litter tub (you don't want to know).

We caught the correct bus back home. Which was really exciting since we hadn't eaten anything all day and it took us all afternoon to go to the market.

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One thing I have learned during my whole 2ish weeks in Italy, is that I know quite a bit of Spanish! It's really exciting and makes me more comfortable with the little I know. It also has occurred to me that I know absolutely zero Italian.

Great.

But, I started classes this week and I'm in Italian I! And I'm trying to pick up words here and there. Its fun trying to pronounce store names while meandering through Florence.

Going to France this past weekend allowed me to appreciate italian even more! I can at least pick out a few things here and there that resemble some form of Spanish.

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First week of classes. My classes rock.

Aside from having 6 hour studio art classes that take up the WHOLE ENTIRE day, I am enjoying school.

Who knew I would ever actually enjoy school? I think I finally found my place. 5 Universities and 6 transcripts later, I am finally enjoying college.

My Palaces of Florence class is taking a field trip next class to a Palazzo! I can hardly wait. Second class and we are already taking tours!

In my Historical Painting class we are making a copy of a master from the Renaissance. We are starting from scratch making our own wood panels and egg tempura paints. We also get to guild with gold and make our own pigments!!! The master I picked is Botticelli. I will be attempting to copy this image.

She will also have a gilded halo around her head. Im really pumped!

I went to my sculpture class. I'm dropping it.

Ancient Rome will be an interesting class. I can hardly understand the professor due to his thick accent. And his lecturing style is all over the place. But, I'm interested in the material! So hopefully it'll be awesome! I have no doubts.

Instead of sculpture, I am taking Museology. I've toyed around with idea of museum curation and hopefully this class will give me some idea of whether or not I want to pursue that. Yay for more school!

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I attended an opera this week! Don Giovani. It was great!! Except it was really long and I had no idea what was going on. During intermission we asked someone to explain it to us. The second half was more enjoyable once we knew what was going on!

the roommates at the opera! 

No complaints. I went to an opera in Florence and got to dress up all fancy for it!

We also might have gone to McDonalds at 1am after the opera. It was kind of sketchy. Don't worry mom. I'm still alive and still have my wallet!

Salt. IS SO GOOD!!!

Other cultural experiences from this week include finding some art stores!

I died in here.

Getting lost to and from picking up a new set of keys. YAY! New keys! And just to make sure I don't lose them again I bought a key chain from a street vendor! And maybe picked up some other things. They are really nice if you don't go to the scary ones.

I also bought my school books today. Got really really really lost. I couldn't find where I was on the blow up city center map so I had to look at the entire city view. I was way north. Praise the Lord for protecting me. I have no idea if I was in a good or bad part of town.

Duomo.

But, when in doubt, if I can find this guy. I can get home. He's great, and such a creeper. I think I will devote an entire post to him someday soon!

I GOT MAIL THIS WEEK! 

Thank mom for sending me mail! It was the highlight of my week. 

For those of you that don't know. I absolutely LOVE mail!

Mail. Happy Heart.

There is my address ^^^^ (in the picture) ^^^^ so now you have no excuse not to write me! It costs $1.10 to mail an international letter. In case anyone wants to know! Just throwing out some random facts!

Biggest news of the week. I made it to class today without a map. Although I got super turned around I ended up finding it! I'm getting there, slowly but surely I'll know my way around Firenze!

hoping to not look like an American tourist soon... and just an American. I feel like its a little higher status... then again, maybe not

We have a self defense class tomorrow and I am on a quest for a new pair of boots first thing in the morning!

And with the promise of Venice on the horizon, it has been an incredible week!

Masks I picked up at a street vendor today for the carnivale in Venice. Shhh!! Don't tell Will. He said I had to get him a mask, so I got us matching ones. Sorry I'm not sorry. His is the kitty cat!