Here's to Horrible Nights...

So last night was pretty crummy. I wanted to get to sleep early because we have classes today, but I wasn't really that tired. At about 1:10 my friend called me because she was across the street and I decided to go down and say hi so I wouldn't have to yell from the window. I was outside for about 5 minutes and when I came back up, my key wouldn't work in the apartment door. I called my roommate because she was still awake and she came to open it and her key wouldn't unlock the door from the inside! Neither key was working so I was locked out and my other three roommates were locked in! Basically to make a long story short, I called the emergency # and they sent one person over to get the door open and nothing happened, then they sent another person over and nothing happened and finally at about 3:10 or so they decided to take me to campus to sleep for the 'night' and they would deal with it in the morning. Two of my roommates missed their first class and we all got so little sleep. Let's just say I was not a happy camper through the whole experience.
So...moral of the story is, don't get locked out of your house in Italy because no one will help you. It's 10:30am now and I have 3 hours till class. I wanted to wake up early and get some stuff done and now i'm exhausted. I guess I'll try and stay awake for the rest of the day. I hope I don't fall asleep in class...

LINK FOR PHOTOS: http://picasaweb.google.com/spg261/Florence#

La Bellezza di Firenze (The Beauty of Florence)

I never thought I would eat mexican food in Italy but last night I did! We decided to try out this mexican place last night that was right around the corner and it was actually pretty good! We were the only people there aside from a couple and it was a pretty large restaurant (bigger than any italian one we've been in, interestingly enough). Instead of water, which you can't find anywhere for free, they gave us sangria's for drinks! Then we tried to order some cocktails (mojitos and margherita's) but apparently the place had just reopened and the bartender was at a wedding so they couldn't make some of them. To apologize for that, they gave us more sangria...can't complain. I got chicken quesadillas and they were good! It was a lot of fun. After getting dinner we walked to this random place on the opposite side of the Duomo to try a canoli that our friends claimed was 'the best'. We went back to our apartamento and drank some cheap wine. We decided earlier that we wanted to find the cheapest wine at the grocery and see if was any good...we found one that was 1.80 Euros and I guess it wasn't too bad. Nothing compared to the cheap wine in the U.S. though. My friends and I were planning on going to this club called Central Park that apparently a lot of International students go to. We didn't realize, when we decided to walk, that it would take almost an hour to get there. We kept asking for directions and would continue to get more and more lost. Eventually a few of my friends and I decided to jump in a taxi and get back to the city center. I ended up grabbing a beer with my friend Joci in a Piazza and then I went home. A pretty bust night in the end.

Today, was great! I woke up at 10:15 (BELLISSIMO!) My friends and I signed up for a red bus tour around Firenze and it was really nice to see everything from a different angle. The best part by far was the 5 min stop at Piazzale Michelangelo across the Arno. It was one of the most incredible views I've ever seen. (Refer to the photos to check out the view). Following the bus tour we wandered around for a bit to find a cheap place to grab a panino for lunch, which ended up being a harder feat than we had imagined. Everything in Italy is SO expensive and we keep ending up in touristy areas which doesn't help the situation. We gave into a 4 Euro panino and a 1.50 bottle of water...about 8 dollars...so I guess not too bad.
Following lunch we checked out H&M (not good) and then starting wandering everywhere! We finally walked across the Ponte Vecchio and ventured across the Arno. It seems like it's a bit cheaper over there so we might walk over for meals occaisionally. It was such a nice day today which made wandering around so nice. It was sunny and beautiful but there was such a nice breeze. My roommate Shelly and I decided to finally get our butts running and while it was a bit challenging to get going since we were so tired, I'm so glad we did.
It was amazing. Running in a foreign country is incredible. Not only do you get to explore the area but you notice a lot of stuff you otherwise wouldn't notice by walking. Usually when we've been walking we've also been talking. When I went running I was really able to listen to everyone and everything around me. Plus, the view running on the Arno was breathtaking. Then sun was getting low and beginning to set (we ran around 7) and it seemed like the city was covered in this red glow. It was beautiful. So far, one of my highlights.
Dinner tonight was quite the experimentation. I had no idea what I was doing and just freestyled my way. I decided to try and cook farro (a type of grain native to Italy). The package I got from the supermercato had a picture of farro with vegetables, but when I opened it I realized that there were no vegetables. So I improved and took out a bent out of shape pan, lit the gas stove and cooked the farro. I added garlic salt, oregano and parmesan cheese and it wasn't too bad...until I sat down and realized I was eating a bowl of grains and that was it. It took me about 3 mins to realize that I had bought some frozen vegetables yesterday I could put in the farro! A little olive oil and reheating later and voila! a perfect little meal that actually wasn't that bad. We have a stove in our kitchen but no microwave or oven, so cooking might get a little tricky. We might try and get a toaster oven...
So...tomorrow classes begin! I have to be up at La Pietra at 1:30 for Italian and then at 3:00 I have my History of Italian Jews course. I have all morning to dilly dally and I'm not sure what I'll do...maybe sleep...
Sorry the freakishly long posts. I'm thinking that once classes start I'll have less to talk about. We'll see though. This is basically my travel journal so I'm going to document everything! Until next time...

Centro Mercale e Supermercato

It might be the lack of sleep (been staying up far too late for my reputation), but today has been a tad on the frustrating side. Atleast the morning. We had to be up at the campus at 9am for immigration. My roommates and I were going to try and get up there early so we could be in and out quickly. We were super slow this morning (too many late nights)so we got to the bus stop at about 8:20 and at 8:55 the bus finally came and about 60 NYU students squeezed onto it. Of course, NYU decided to have all 400+ of us come up at once just so we could wait for two hours for our number to be called. Then when our number was called we had to wait until it was called again. Then the actual immigration process took less than one minute. VERY frustrating. It all just seemed very illogical. Following that ordeal we had to wait for the bus for 40 minutes to pick us back up and bring us downtown. It's going to be very interesting to figure out the bus schedule for classes...
Everything picked up when we finally got some food (mozzerella e pomodoro panino)and then we walked to the Mercato Centrale to check out the food! It was so cool to see all the fresh formaggi, carni, verdure, frutte, paste...the colors were vibrant and the smells strong. I loved seeing all of it but then I was quickly intimidated with the prospect of learning how to cook with all of it. I didn't buy anything and decided that I should stick to a typical supermercato for food shopping. I went to one right down the street from my apartment and found some food that I might be able to cook with: pasta, frozen veggies and pasta sauce. I also bought a bottle of vino rosso for 1.81 euros. I have a feeling it's not going to be too bad...I'm in Italy right?
When I went to pay the women at the cash register accidently charged me 198 euro instead of 19.80 euros on my credit card! She only spoke italian so I didn't understand what was going on at first, but she showed me the credit card receipt and I finally got it. Of course I don't know how to say refund in Italian so the manager came over and apologized saying she would give me the difference in cash. She said it in Italian and I'm so glad I understood it! The two women felt really bad and kept saying: mi dispiace! (i'm sorry!).
Now I'm back in my apartamento, updating my blog and trying to mentally prepare myself for taking another cold shower...they can't fix anything on weekends so I have a few more days of this...tonight will be another meal out, last one until classes start on monday!

Wandering the Streets

Today was a great day. We had to go up to school to do some more orientation stuff but we decided to leave a bit early because we wanted to explore. I've decided that it's too hard to do things that I need to do right now. I have yet to buy groceries, trash bags, books, basically everything that I need. I've been exploring and doing all the things that I want. I know I'm going to be here for almost 4 months but I can't help but embrace it all as soon as I can. We did so much exploring and walking. We found the cutest streets, with quaint cafes, gelaterias and ristorantes. We ended up wandering into the Palazzo Signorina where David and the Palazzo Vecchio are. It was beautiful. I'll never get tired of wandering.

For dinner we went to this place, which is aparently really popular, called Aqua del Due. It was great! Maybe a bit expensive but we had such a good time. Then we wandered back to the Lion's Fountain across the street and stayed there for a bit. It's such a small world...I ran into two people from Colgate in different programs that were at the pub. It was so nice to see familiar faces! There are so many students here and it's nice to know that we can all co-mingle.

Tomorrow we have to be up at the campus at 9am for immigrationi and then we decided to work on getting groceries and all the necessities. We need to start living in a real apartment. I'm going to continue to update my photo album, so keep referring back to the link I posted. As many of you know, I love to take photos, and I have an amazing camera to do so...bedtime for sophie...I've been staying up far too late...

Link for Photos

Here they are:

Florence

Enjoy!

Orientation Continues, Exploration Begins

It seems like every hour I'm getting more and more familiar with the city and my surroundings. We had to be up at campus at 10:30 this morning so my roommates Shelly, Jenny and I decided to try the walk up there. We weren't really sure where we were going but we had a map and about 1.5 hours to get there (we were told the walk was about 40-45 min). It was already pretty hot when we started walking but it was so nice to get familiar with everything and see parts of the city we had never seen before. On the way up we stopped at a cafe to get our first italian espresso. Shelly and I walked in and we ordered two espressos. They were good! I had never had one before and I don't think they serve iced coffee here so we decided it was a good alternate. Everything went well until we got shut down by the guy behind the cash register. Trying to be the confident Italian speaking student that I thought I was, I walked up and said, 'due espresso'. For those of you who don't speak Italian, I was basically saying, 'two espresso'. The man corrected me and then began to lecture me about masculine/feminine singular and plural nouns (I think that's what he was saying...it was in Italian). I guess I have to learn somehow...

When we finally got to campus we sat through 2 hours of Safety information, had lunch and then 2 more hours of academic information. I just dropped out a class so these are the courses I'm officially taking:

Intro to Painting
Intermediate Italian
Early Masters of the Renaissance
History of the Italian Jews

The campus, called Villa La Pietra, is beautiful! I'm in awe. There are five villas, three at the street entrance and two in the back area. To get from the three villas to the two you have to walk down into a valley and then climb up. The students here nicknamed it death valley and I'm pretty sure that's a perfect description, atleast right now when it's 95 degrees out.

Death Valley
The main Villa La Pietra

After orientation a group of us walked down from campus on a mini adventure to find the centro mercale (a huge market selling everything from clothing to fish). On the way we stopped for gelato. This time I tried the sorbetto di melone (melon sorbet). SO good. I'll definitely have to budget the number of gelato stops we make...and eating out. Europe is SO expensive. Tomorrow we're going to go to the grocery store down the street and get food so we can cook! We'll go to the mercale for fresh fruits and vegetables.

Tonight we're going on yet another exploration. We haven't been down to the Arno yet so we're going to go and explore around there and find a place to eat...a cheap place.

I'm working on getting a photo album link so I can post more photos and faster....let you know when that happens....off to the Arno!

Day One...The Adventure Begins

I call today day one because yesterday was too crazy and exhausting to consider. I got into Florence yesterday at around 2:30pm and didn't get to my apartment until 7:30. Those lovely five hours were spent sitting around doing paperwork/orientation at the campus. I guess I met tons of people during those 5 hours but it was so hard to remember names because I was so tired from tavelling.

I decided to study abroad in Florence as an Art History major. Colgate University doesn't offer a program here so, determined to find something, I decided to go through NYU's program. So far, it's been great. I'm living in a cute little apartment in historic Florence, about 2 min from the Duomo. There are two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen/living room. We're at the top floor of a three story apartment and our windows look onto the cobblestoned street below. The walls in one of the rooms and in the living room are exposed brick and stone with niches randomly placed. It's very rustic and seems very authentic.

This city is fabulous. Literally right out our doorstep is a cute little ristorante called Ristorante Natalia. My three roommates (Nami, Shelly and Jenny, all NYU girls) and I ate there for our first meal last night. It was great! Three of us had pear stuffed ravioli with gorgonzola sauce. And, of course we shared un bottiglia di vino rosso (bottle of red wine). We definitely have to come up with a game plan because we're not going to be able to afford eating out all the time...

Today we got up and wandered over to the bus stop at Piazza S. Marco. Bus #25 is the only bus that goes up to Villa La Pietra (NYU Campus) and unfortunately it has yet to prove it's realiability. There doesn't seem to be much consistency in its timing and figuring out the commute to class every morning is going to be an interesting feat. We spent from 10:30-3:30, with a lunch break, attending orientation sessions. Afterwards we attempted to get internet in our apartment. We stopped at several places and finally decided to just go for one. Our apartment had no internet so we had to pay quite a bit to get it! Finishing up the day, we realxed at the aparment for a bit and then grabbed a late dinner in the Piazza de la Republica down the street. I tried my first true Italian pizza and for dessert we got gelato! Yogurt nutella...which I think is sort of like frozen yogurt gelato. It was incredible. Tomorrow we have more orientation and who knows what else. I suppose we need to get our lives organized...but I'm really in no rush. Florence is here for four months and I'm already having an incredible time. Every hour I get more comfortable and excited about what's going to happen next...