Signs

There are some really cool art things on the street signs and I thought I would take some pictures of them: 

Before the 1st class

So today we have our first classes and it starts off at 10 with our class called Italy and China. The class is supposedly about the connections between the two countries starting with Marco Polo, then large Chonese immigration into Italy, and finishing with Chinese gangs fighting against Italian Mobsters. I feel like it should be pretty interesting. Earlier today I woke up at 7, went on a nice run back to Piazza Michelangelo, showered, had eggs, Salami, prosciutto, and toast for breakfast. Then we headed back to the bakery for the third morning in a row and this time we got caffe lattes. Now I'm sitting waiting for class to begin and typing this. This class ends at 11:15, so it should be good. 

After 3 days

Ok, so it's been a lapse since my last blog and I'll see of I can fit everything into this single blog post. I ended the last blog with us going to dinner on the first day. Well, everyone from our school (that's in the program of course) except two girls, showed up to the dinner which was at Il teatro on Via Ghibillina. It's safe to say that the pasta I had as the first course was easily the best pasta I've ever had in my life. I got the 4 cheese macaroni and it was amazing. Actually I would probably say it was maybe the best good I've ever had in my life. I was just blown away. I did get a picture of it though: 

After that the second dish was chicken and that was still really good but not even close to the pasta. After that I went to John-Paul and Matthias' apartment and saw their rooms. Then we went out for Gelato, which was really good. I got striatchitella, and I have no idea of I spelled that correctly. We walked across the pointe vecchio, met my roommate Paul and then walked to a couple of the girls' apartment, got lost on the way home and then found our way back. I slept as soon as I got to bed. The next morning I woke up at 7 (thanks to my alarm, unfortunately I think I woke up Paul as well...), went for a great run, where I saw a lot of the Arno, and it was just really sick. Afterwards, I tried to get to a Supermarket but everything stays closed around here until 9 A.M. which is such a bummer for me because we had to meet at 9:30. But I got to shower and then Paul and I followed our noses to a bakery that is literally on the corner of our building, and it was pretty good.i got a cappuccino and a croissant and so did Paul but he got Nutella on his, which I thought was awesome. We had to stand at the bar to eat or pay extra. It was pretty good. 

We met at the Santa Croce which was 2 blocks away from us (it's awesome) turn we walked to school (it's like 3 mins from Santa Croce walking) and had a quick lecture. After that everyone went to a sandwich shop for lunch but I went grocery shopping and then I stopped at a small sandwich shop for a salami sandwich and cook. It was really good and then I met back with everyone at Santa Croce for a walking tour:

The walking tour was pretty sick, and I learned a ton about Florence and how to navigate through it, which honestly isn't too hard, so I shouldn't complain. These are some of the two tallest towers in Florence: 

After the tour I went to back to the grocery store to get all the things I forgot the first time. I also opened the birthday card from my parents. My mom wrote "don't drink too much", which I though lt was a little funny. And then walked around Florence a little bit. I went to the soccer team's official store and bought a scarf. Here were two jerseys I saw at the store, they were 70 Euros:

My scarf go Fiorentina!: 

After that Paul and I went to Subway did my birthday dinner. Subway is kind of the same, except they sell beer and their 30 cm subs were 7 Euros and not 5 dollars. It was very sad :(. After that we went for Geato and I got Tiramasu this time and it was just delightful. Then we went out for my birthday. We tried to go to a club the guy at Subway recommended but we didn't even go in because we thought it looked so bad. Instead we went to the Irish Pub "The Lion's Fountain." Living in London I went to a lot of pubs last year and that definitely wasn't a pub. It was an Anerica college kid bar that just happened to be in Florence. I'm not gonna lie it was pretty sick place for your 21st birthday though. My friends bought me jäger bombs and shots. I got a wrist band that gives me a free shit every tie I buy a beer it cocktail and I thought that was pretty cool. Don't worry Mom I didn't drink too much:

The place was packed with American college students, including a bunch of sorority girls from UMD and one of them had turned 21 that day as well and so that was pretty cool. They got a picture with me because I was wearing a UMD shirt by chance and it was my birthday, felt like the celebrity I secretly think I am. The bar also had some Germans I met, the subway dude, and skme Italians. The bar was cool though. It had writing from the students and shirts for a lot Anerican colleges on the ceiling and when those students would come in, they would sign the shirt. It was a good time ad we stayed until it closed at 2. 

Then I woke up this morning, showered, and went to the same cafe for breakfast. I got a kind of pastry sandwich that had some meat in the middle. I wanted to try a coffee latte today but when I ordered it I  only said "latte" and failed to say "caffe latte". Latte is Italian for milk so I was given just a glass of milk with some really weird looks at the cafe :l. I rolled through it though and Paul and I only showed up like 4 mins late for the cultural differences lecture. We then went to lunch which was pretty good. Here's what we had. The girl in the picture is from the Mount and her name is Darcy: 

I also was able to get a shot of espresso after the meal like a normal Italian.

We then had a travel in Europe lecture. Afterwards we went to the one Euro shop and got notebooks for our first class tomorrow morning. These are the three notebooks I got so I can try and be more wild:

The paper in these notebooks is so weird too, but we couldn't find normal paper anywhere. Here's what the inside of these odd notebooks have inside:

Well after all that Vicky, Lauren, Kathleen and I took the long walk to Piazza Michelangelo for the view and the pictures. I would say it was worth it: 

Some say I remind them of David:

And of course I got a picture in front of the ponte vecchio, how do you not?: 

Then I went back to my room, sliced some fresh bread,and used some cheese and mortadella to make a fantastic sandwich with doe nice red wine. The thing that looks like a martini glass is actually a candle (calm down mom):

Movements

So I know I'm posting a lot in my blog in a short amount of time but there is a lot to say in this small amount of time. I decided to walk around Florence for a little bit after I settled in my apartment. I searched for a grocery store although I was only able to find a mini mart that sold a ton of wine. I just got the cheap kind and it was 10 Euros for 4 bottles of wine (I was hyped). So that was pretty good and then I stopped at the Bus 2 Alps office which I didn't know existed and planned out my Budapest and Barcelona trip, I just have to pay for them, so I feel like that's pretty exciting. Now I'm back in the apartment drinking this really cheap Italian wine (it tastes just like Church wine) think in about what I will do for the rest of the night.  My roommate Paul, went to mass at Santa Croce, with his girlfriend (Gina) who also happens to be in our program. I will be meeting them and others in our program at a restarting tonight for some fine, and traditional Italian food. Luckily I have a meal voucher for this restaurant, so dinner is already paid for tonight. Tomorrow I turn 21, so I'm pretty excited for that, we'll see how it goes. Ciao kids. 

The cheap wine I got early today^

The first flight

Sorry this is so long, I started it on the flight after my third movie:

Well the first part of my journey wasn't as bad as expected. I had to ride 2 hours in a car to get to Dulles airport (and it's safe to say that wasn't the most exciting thing one can do in the world). Then I was in the airport for two hours, which also wasn't very exciting. This was all followed by my least favorite part of the trip, which was the 8 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany where I have to wait a few hours for my transfer to Florence. 

All together it was 12 hours of travel and it wasn't even that bad. The car ride wasn't that bad because my parents talked to me the whole time. The airport thing wasn't too bad either because I never just sat around and did nothing. I have a huge fear of missing my flight but I got to the airport the standard of two hours early (because it was an international flight) and managed to get to my gate in only 45 minutes. So there is where someone that knows me would believe this to be torture for me. I have an  hour and fifteen minutes before my plane takes off and nothing to do. I didn't want to use my cell phone because I wanted to save the battery for the flight (eight hours is a long time), and I had no desire to sit and read the books I had because I was going to be sitting and keeping to myself for the next eight hours. Luckily, another Mount St. Mary's student was at the gate when I got there; even better than were three of us on the same flight! So I sat and talked to John-Paul for almost the whole time. For anyone who doesn't know John-Paul (and I'm certainly no expert) he is a rather extrodinary guy. He went to college when he was 16 (he was homeschooled) and he has a strong desire to be a priest. He is from Harrisburg, and he taught himself Italian and is nearly fluent in it (hopefully he can help me). I learned from John-Paul that he has never actually been on a plane which completely blew my mind at the time, but now I see that that isn't quite as crazy as I originally thought. I also spoke to Kathleen who is another Mount student who will be traveling in Florence with John-Paul and I. It turns out John-Paul sat in the row right behind me, and Kathleen didn't sit to far behind either.

John-Paul can apparently can sleep in cars and planned on sleeping the whole time on the plane. I like to pride myself on being able to sleep anywhere; however, I'm gonna be honest I can't sleep in cars and I can't sleep in planes. I don't know what it is but I just can't sleep  sitting up, and I really hate sleeping when I know other people are awake around me, especially when it's people I don't know , which happens on a plane (I feel like this makes me sound paranoid but I'm not too worried about it). I knew those going into the flight that I wasn't going to sleep and I tried to prepare myself. It's a red eye flight so I left at 5:50 p.m. Eastern time and arrive in Germany at like 8 A.M. German time. Which isn't too great. So it's kind of like 8 A.M. and I haven't really slept at all but it's whateves. 

The plane ride really wasn't that bad. There wasn't many people on it. I had an aisle seat, there was an empty middle seat next to me and then there was a guy who had a window seat. So we had plenty of room. John-Paul was the same way but he had a window seat. The guy that sat in the aisle seat in his row was from UCLA and was going to study abroad in Prague. In case anyone reading this didn't know I've been to Prague for a weekend last year and lived it. So I was really curious and even though it wasn't my business I got nosy and asked the guy a bunch of questions. He was pretty cool. The guy that sat in the window seat in my row was a Chinese guy named Patrick. I tried to pry his life story from him over dinner and I succeeded. I don't have to talk to people, in fact I like the quiet but I do like to talk to people that I think are interested in the same things as me and if you're traveling to Europe, then you probably qualify. Patrick was really nice, and very interesting. He was from Long Island but now lived in San Fran. He has a degree in Biomedical engineering and Business from Penn and he is traveling to Frankfurt to market some medical stuff at a conference. He also lived in Switzerland for nine months so he gave me some places to go to in Italy because he said he visited a lot. He was also fluent in Chinese, while knowing the basics of French and Spanish. 

Back to dinner on the flight. I was a little nervous about how dinner would be because I've never taken Lufthasen air (I can't spell it, it's way to German), so I was gonna buy some Chipotle and bring it on the plane with me but I got carried away on my conversation with John-Paul. The food was really good though, I got Chicken and mashed potatoes and I chased it down with a bailey's because I was hoping it had caffeine in it and would keep me up. I still don't know if it had caffeine in it. 

One of the best things about flying international is the great movie selection they have. I watched Red 2, Home Alone and then Runner Runner. All together it wasn't too bad of a flight. 

At the apartment 1st day

So I just got to the apartment I'll be living in for the next three months and I'm not gonna lie: it's not too shabby. 

The layover in Frankfurt was five hours of terribleness. Kathleen, John-Paul and I hung out with the kid that he sat next to on the plane, Josh. We stopped at a bar and I had a quick German beer and then got some chocolate. The beer was really good, although it instantly tired me out. I got some chocolate and then Josh set off headed to Prague. The chocolate was very potent and I couldn't eat a large amount of it. After Josh left we decided to go to our where we sat for two hours to wait for our flight to begin boarding (it was not fun). Another girl in our study abroad program that had flown from New York to Frankfurt and would flying from there, with us, to Florence. 

This was us at a German bar^

The flight from Frankfurt to Florence was honestly not as good as the other one, probably because I was so sleepy and my body was just really warn out. I had like a weird dream thing going on throughout the whole two hour flight, it was weird. 

As we got to Florence, it was raining quite a bit and our luggage got really wet, but it wasn't too bad. We actually didn't have to get our passports stamped which I felt was really weird, and then we waited for our ride to get to the airport and he was a really cool guy named Todd. He married a Florentine woman and then moved back to Florence with her and learned Italian through immersion, and now he gives tours on wine, which I feel like is pretty cool. 

My apartment is really very cool and I feel like it's pretty modern. A lot of the stuff in the apartment reminds us how expensive energy is in Italy and how as shouldn't waste it ever. We have a decent view of a typical Tuscan street:

I like the apartment a lot: 

Airport

So it's definitely been a long time since my last blog post, but now the time has come. I am in Dulles Airport preparing to fly out to Frankfurt, Germany. The flight will be around 8 hours and they will be 6 hours ahead of United States Eastern time. So that's a big difference. My flight supposedly takes off at 5:50, so I'll be boarding pretty soon. I've booked one trip for London on the weekend before I'm headed to Paris and it was about 115 Euros. Actually it has taken me so long to write this blog post, I am now on the plane. I will meet my old roommate from London (Sunshine) and his girlfriend from London (Jenny Shopper), and it's gonna be great. I'm super psyched. Still haven't found anyone to go to Paris with me, but I'm rollin still, and we'll see what happens when I meet these Cali kids. I will definitely miss all my friends at the Mount and I hope they have a great semester. 

I have found a whole bunch of deals on line and matched up my calendar for these trips with Bus2Alps. I'm hoping they all work out because if they do then I will be headed to Croatia, Budapest, Barcelona, and the French Riveria; in addition to the trips I'm already taking to Paris, and London. I also have the mandatory trips to Venice and Rome. Lastly my family is coming to visit for Easter and the weekend after Easter so I will see them then. Packing was pretty difficult because I run everyday so I had to pack running shoes and enough athletic clothing, while also packing formal clothing cause I like to look stylish. I packed all my socks and extra stuff in my shoes, so I had more room. The bags were really heavy. Well off I go, bye kids! Arrivederci America!