Firenze! =)

Okay, so I've figured out that if I don't update this multiple times a day, I am totally going to forget everything I've done. There is just so much going on in Florence!

After the last post, I didn't quite get to pass out. My roommates Jessica and Sarah and I met Kate, a girl who is staying at our homestay from Kentucky, and walked with her to meet her group at "Il Duomo", which is a straight shot down the road that we all live on... maybe a 10 minute walk. It is beautiful, and about half of the pictures that I've taken so far are of that building.

Afterward, we walked around Florence and attempted to find where our school, CLIDA (Centro Linguistico Italiano Dante Alighieri) is. We knew it was in the Piazza della Repubblica, but we had no luck finding it. Addresses on i piazzi are a little confusing.

We ended up coming home after that, where I passed out for a few hours (unintentionally) until dinner time right around 9 PM. And oh was dinner interesting. We knew that this was a big apartment, but little did we know that we have a miniature world represented here. I feel so much more cultured having met all of these people.

Our dinner crew: our "parents" Gianna and Paolo; their daughters (who don't eat at the big table with us, because there isn't enough room) Martina, and... I'll get back to you with the other two. Too many names; a guy named Matt, who goes to Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and who has been studying here since August; Matt's friend Alex, who is from Germany and attends law school there, but who went to high school in the United States; Matt's friend Amanda, who has been studying in Florence since August but will be leaving next week; Rachel, a girl who used to live here who is from Jersey (a small island which is sort of part of England but has its own currency and government); Anna, a lady from Russia; a woman from Thailand who apparently doesn't speak a word of Italian; a girl Paige who showed up later who used to live here; the two girls from KU who are also staying here, Kate and Kayla; and finally myself, Jessica, and Sarah.

It is exhausting just reading that. Now imagine trying to have a conversation with all these people... in Italian. Ridiculous! My skills are definitely not up to par. It is my goal to be able to at least follow what we are talking about at diner by the end of this trip, and maybe even to contribute by the end of everything.

Those people who speak English were very helpful, so I mostly know what we talked about. And I can tell that everybody is hilarious and nice and that all of us are going to get along very well. Dinner lasted almost 3 hours with talking, eating (SO much food, although I felt like I inconvenienced them with my vegetarianism), wine, after dinner jelly beans, and more talking. It was a great first night. :)

Now on to yesterday... I'll try to be somewhat more concise.

Sara, Jessica, and I woke up to eat breakfast. We weren't too rushed because we didn't have to be at school until 10:30 AM for our placement tests (other days we will have to be there at 9 AM... whooo). We found our school (thank goodness), took our tests, watched them graded, and were told to come back Wednesday. (Today, Tuesday, is a national holiday of some sort). We don't know what level we tested into, so I guess we will all see on Wednesday.

We cam back to our appartment for a few minutes to put up our school supplies and then went back out in Florence. We ended up eating at a pizzeria on the Piazza della Signoria. We were sitting outside, but then it started raining and got cold (the one time I decided against bringing my jacket, of course), so we moved inside. Lunch was good, although we didn't exactly know the customs and how to go about asking for the check and tipping.

After lunch we ran into a few people from our group (Ashley, Chauncey, and Kirk) and talked with them in the freezing rain (well, it felt like it) for a while. Then we walked down to the river and crossed the bridge into the jewelry district, where we admired store windows for a few hours. :) We went to a postcard shop Sara had read about and went to a book store before walking back to our appartamento. It really is great how we can walk everywhere in Florence! I didn't know everything would be so close, although there is still a lot of walking.

We came back to our homestay, got ready for dinner, and returned to CLIDA for orientation and dinner with our group. One of the school's directors, a sweet old Italian man whose name has escaped me, oriented us for a while. He seems nice and eager to help. He also had a great quote (talking about alcohol, but which could be applied to most things) about how things are best enjoyed in moderation. I will get that from Jessica and write it in here eventually.

Then we went to dinner at I Quattro Amici. It was amazingly nice and so much fun. I sat at the vegetarian and fish meal table which included me, Sara, Lauren, Dr. Picone, Betsy, and Dr. Picone's son Benjamin. Again, HUGE meal with 5 courses. Paolo told us later that we need at least 4 stomachs to eat in Italy. And I believe him!

We came back to our apartment, talked to our family, gave them our gifts, and then Sara and I ended up going out with Matt, Alex, Kate, Kayla, and a huge group of Kansas girls. We didn't stay out too late but ended up coming back and talking with Jessica forever.

We eventually went to bed, slept too late (although my body needed it), woke up, and are now about to head out into Florence for the day. Here we go again... :).