Florence, Finally!

I am in Italia at last! After nearly twenty-four hours of traveling, I’m sitting in the hotel room in Florence, trying to relax before the program meeting. It’s been a couple of busy days. Being organized and thinking ahead has saved me a lot of time especially when the airlines didn’t help much. My traveling partner and I flew out to Rome because it was cheaper, but we had a layover in London Heathrow where they misplaced our checked bags. Once we landed in Rome, we had to wait six hours at the airport to pick them up. Insane, sure, but my traveling buddy and I got to know each other better. It was very helpful having someone to travel with. We helped each other out: she read signs, I reminded her of things we had to do, she read maps and directed us, I was the time keeper, and we kept each other company when we had to travel around midnight to our hotel in Rome.

Going a day early was definitely worth it. All that trouble would have made us really late if it had all taken place the day we were supposed to be in Florence. Not only that, but I have experienced no jet lag whatsoever thanks to all that traveling. Taking an overnight flight was definitely a great idea.

It’s been much easier than I expected getting around Italy. The Italians are nice and the ones who can speak a little English try to help as much as they can. People had always told me that the native people usually tried to help out the tourists, but I had never believed them until I actually experienced it myself. When we were traveling around the Roman streets at night, a taxi driver got out of his car to direct us to our hotel via a map. He didn’t speak any English (except numbers), but thank God for hand gestures.

My friend and I took a train from Rome to Florence which wasn’t bad. I’m sure we looked lost a lot of the time, but we got on the right one; that’s really all that matters. That and we didn’t lose our luggage. All in all, it has been one stressful trip, but it has definitely helped me practice my independence. I usually don’t like asking for help direction-wise, but being in a foreign city where I don’t speak the native language forces me (ironically) to ask for help. Yes, help from those who can’t speak much English.

Anyway, I’m really glad I didn’t pack heavy. Besides the fact that I’m going to be living out of a suitcase for nearly six months, there is also so much to buy! The street vendors have everything imaginable and the scarves especially are so soft and pretty. But I need to keep my budget! It’s definitely going to be difficult to practice self-control. I’m probably going to need to organize my budget a little better and give myself some wiggle-room or I may break it…

The program meeting is in a few minutes and then dinner! I must say that the food here is fantastic. I had breakfast in Rome, which was simple, and lunch in Florence. The pizza was delicious, as I expected. Also, “caffè” actually means “espresso” in Italy. I don’t think they serve the regular black coffee we Americans expect. I’ve only have “caffè” and a cappuccino here because those are the only two Italian words I actually know concerning beverages, but I’ll pick up the language quick enough. Needing to use it to talk to the natives while I’m here is definitely going to help a lot, although, as I’ve experienced so far, it’s not totally necessary. But to act like a native, which is my goal, I’m going to need to speak like one. That’s enough motivation for me to learn Italian as quickly as possible!

The orientation really helped as well and getting dinner and walking around the city was a lot of fun. Getting group dinners is a nice way to get to know people quickly in a short amount of time. We also had to work together to find our way back to Hotel D'Aosta because we left our group coordinators, but having walked around once, it was a little easier to navigate our way through the city. Florence isn't horrendously big which makes it the perfect city to study in as well as easy to get to become familiar with it. Once I have to start depending on the public transportation, however, I may get lost again. Day 1 has proven to be awesome so far, but I'm stoked for the walking tour and meeting my host family in just a few days!