I MADE IT!

hi blog! i made it! its my first week in florence, and things are going great! i guess i will begin by a recap:

the trip here kindof sucked. it think it was about 24 hours of traveling, but that was mainly due to the worst timing of flights and all that. we flew to newark, waited a billion hours, and flew to rome on the biggest plane ever. one of those 9-seats to a row ones! anyway it was awesome because my mom gets hooked up when she flies, and i got first class bitches! and just so you know, when you fly first class they feed you constantly for approximately the first three hours. it was neverending. and it was really pretty good. i had a couple of glasses of wine, i aint gonna lie, and an ice cream sunday. whip cream and cherry. to be honest i had the wine hoping it would knock me out, butttt no. after watching TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES on the magic computer that folded out of my chair, i finally fell asleep about an hour before the plane landed in rome. it landed just when my body was ready for rest and sleep. but it was 8am and we still had two hours of traveling with 4 fifty lb suitcases. so we head for the train into rome (the major airport is just outside the city). this is when it finally hit me. i was in italy. everything was in italian I KNOW weird. so anyway, back to the story. since me and mom are PROS at traveling, we strapped the suitcases together and ran to the train station thats still inside the airport. they leave about every hour and we had about 3 minutes to catch the next one. everything that is supposed to be on time is "about" in italy. so we got our biglietti as the train was arriving, and pressed onward. now this is the part where i immediately regret packing everything i brought, and swear to never travel this heavy again in my life. there are approximately (obviously word of the day) one million people exiting the train, and one million waiting to get on. and in case you didnt know, italians are the world champions of traveling. these people pack all of their belongings into a one pound ultra skinny rolley suitcase, and manuver like bats out of hell (in stilettos and armani) without a morsel of sweat on their brows in the 90 degree heat. annnd then theres me and mom. with the suitcases. we sucked. although i will say that although our italian was a bit rusty, we knew exactly which car and line to go to, but the doors are super skinny, and five tiny sometimes winding stairs up onto the car is not the best doorway for our oversized embarrassingly american luggage. but inevitably every time we had to load or unload (four times total, twice on the next train from intercity rome to florence,) a rediculously well dressed middle aged impeccibly looking italian man would rise from his seat or crouded doorway and casually assist us in our baggage loading crisis. oh, chivalry is still alive in some parts of the world. thank god.

so we made it to florence around noon. after walking around the block aimlessly twice, we found our hotel and finally dropped the bags. i swear i will never pack like this again. and then i moved into my apartment a few blocks down the next day. the apartment is beautiful, it used to be a nunary i think. so im here and im alive and things are great. this city is pretty freaking cool. i guess i was imagining something like nyc on a smaller scale, but i really dont think theres many similarities. first thing i noticed, is that there are twice as many vespas as cars, and the weirdest most awesome thing ever, there are twice as many bicycles as vespas! they are EVERYWHERE! chained to every spare guardrail and locking area, to the point where people just lock the bike to itself and lay them against the buildings because theres not enough space! and the buildings are lined with them! but they're not trendy bikes. all old single speeds, a lot are painted but havent seen one trendy expensive fixy. its pretty cool. and i found out today i can rent them through the school! DOIN IT!

ok, other things i have noticed. oh yes: so when i first got here, didnt think twice about thinking that all of the boys i kept seeing were gay. but then i saw a gay boy, and realized my mistake. by american standards, all of the boys here dress gay, and the gay boys dress flamboyantly homosexual. and everyone is popping their collars i dont know what is goin on! AND EVERY BOY has a manpurse!!! its great.

also. the sidewalks here are about two feel wide. and every street is one way and there are NO one way signs anywhere! i just dont understand.

and then we had orientation this morning. our school is small and discrete, and all our clases are held in an old converted monestary! im completely stoked about my corseload like the little dork that i am, and i can wait to jump back into italian. the language barrier is a little overwhelming, i can understand about half of everything i hear, but i just want to be able to communicate, and its not easy. i hope i will get there.

so far my favorite part of the city is the river. heres a picture for you. the river arno runs through the middle of florence, and anywhere along it is definitely the place to be around sunset. its also where ponte vecchio is, which is the only bridge in florence that wasnt bombed durring world war two. i just tried to upload a picture and it wouldnt let me, so ill just add them to facebook or something. anyway, the city is great, everything is really close by, like maybe a 10 to twenty minute walk. you come up on little piazzas at every turn, and trattorias and pasticcerias are everywhere. i have set a strict rule for myself of two desserts a day. it will be fine. the food is amazing, the pizzas here put our pizzas to shame. they pile on everything and anything you could want. and the gelato....

finally, our orientation was this morning. luca is our nc state advisor, and he is great. hes a middle aged italian man, who always looks tired and concerned. hes already told me about several ways to get CHEAP inter-europe flights, and hes planned so many things to keep us busy this next week. OHMYGOSHFORGOTTOTELLYOU, blog, we also got a list of excursions we can decide to attend or not, obviously we have to pay, but let me just list the two i plan on attending int he next couple months: trip numero uno of a lifetime: weekend of hiking in the alps! holy shit this is going to be awesome. i think its the weekend before my birthday so that will be amazing. trip number two you ask? the french riviera! oh yeah, just a weekend in Montecarlo, Nice, Cannes and the rest of the most exclusive cities in the South of France. its going to be amazing and its the first weekend in october. i dont even deserve this.

we're also taking numerous excursions to cities within italy, like capri and CINQUE TERRE jusssst google it you will be mad jealous. jeff we're definitely going there, its going to blow the rock quarry out of the muthereffing waterrrrrrrrr.

well i think that's all i got for now. im working on the pictures.