Finally in Florence!

My School, the Villa Rosa

I finally got to Florence Tuesday night after an hour and a half delay, an 11 hour plane ride, a four and a half layover in Frankfurt, an hour and a half plane ride to Florence and then a half hour bus ride! After that long trip I ate dinner with many of the girls on my flight, the dinner was a free buffet. As we sat down a man came up to the table and asked us if we prefer red or white wine. Half the table preferred white, and half red so we asked if we could get both. He brought the bottles to our table opened them and poured the wine for all of us. When we were about to finish our meal he comes up to our table to tell him we owe him 25 euro. We had thought the wine, like everything else with the dinner was free, but in fact it was not. This is when I realized I am going to have to figure out the Italian ways.

When I woke up Wednesday morning I was able to see this gorgeous city and headed on the bus to the school for meetings. Our school, the Villa Rosa is GORGEOUS! When we got a break, my friends and I went to explore the city. Since this was the first time I was really out on the streets of Europe I experienced some culture shock. Italy is nothing like I have seen before. The buildings are all so beautiful. We went on a walk to go see the Duomo. I can’t get over how detailed the whole entire building is. We also saw the Arno, which is way different than I imagined from the pictures than I have seen.

Standing in front of the Duomo

While wandering around, it was very clear I am an American. First of all, I think I know a total of 5 words in Italian (hopefully that will change when I start my Italian class on Monday.) Second, I am carrying a camera everywhere because I everything is just so unreal to me and I need to capture it all. Third, I have blonde, hair and blue eyes and it is pretty obvious I am not an Italian woman. Everywhere I go there are men saying remarks to me and every other American I am with. Right after we got out of a safety meeting was when we went for a walk. The first Italian man we see looks at us and says Hey ladies! I of course look right at him and say hi back. All of the girls I am with look at me and go “Katie, that is exactly what they told us not to do.” Well whoops, they had told us just to look ahead and walk without mingling with the flirtatious Italian men, like the Italian women do. For right now I am paranoid about my bag because everyone keeps telling me repeatedly that I need to hold on to my bag everywhere I go and be extremely cautious. I guess these will just be things I have to adapt to in the next 3 and a half months.

My new friend Angela at the Arno

Last night my friends and I went to a pizza place later at night and ordered the best cheese ever and drank delicious wine! I got to be the taster for the wine when the waiter opened it and I felt so old. I swirled it and sniffed it just like you Dad, be proud! Today I find out my host family and roommate so I will send updates as soon as possible!