I'm too cold to think of a catchy title.

It’s 1:30am and I’m sitting in my bed with my wool coat on, eating a bowl of cereal. IT’S COLD. If you don’t know, the heat in Florence is controlled by the city.  In our apartment, it’s only on for eight hours a day.  So, from 6pm to 12am and from 6am to 8am, it’s gets almost warm in here. Standing by the radiator (yes, the radiator) helps.  The rest of the time, thanks to a lot of single pane windows and tile floors, it is quite chilly. On the bright side, the store brand (Conad) of Special K with red berries really has a lot of red berries, not just strawberries. I think I see raspberries, strawberries and cherries. Yum!

Today, Alex and I were supposed to be at the school at noon to meet with a group that was going to walk to the Fuji Studio, another part of SACI’s campus.  We have class there on Monday (batik…I’m so excited!) and we were supposed to meet our professors and get familiar with the route to the studio.  Of course, Alex and I got lost on the way to Palazzo dei Cartelloni, SACI’s main building. Thanks to our bad sense of direction, we had to find the Fuji studios on our own. On the way, we ran into our new buds Kristen and Kim, who were also late, and then we got lost again.

The entire day can pretty much be summed up by saying, “we got lost.” That’s ok, though. I can’t remember being lost in a more beautiful place. 

Sometime, while we were lost and confused, we stopped at a coffee bar and I had an espresso machiatto.  I will definitely think Starbucks is gross when I get home.  Ohhh that one tiny cup of espresso was so wonderful.  It was worth getting lost.

Eventually, we went on a walking tour of Florence with Helen, SACI’s infamous art history professor.  It was like walking through my art history textbook. We had to duck out early so that we could get to the phone store before it closed (I got a tiny little phone so I can get up with people here!), and then went to dinner at ZaZa’s with our lovely new friends.  I had ravioli with a bolognese sauce and a glass of wine…it wasn’t bad for my first Italian dinner out.

So, happy Saturday to everyone back home!  I doubt that these blogs will be as frequent once classes get started (Monday!) and I get the hang of things around here…they will probably become more interesting, though.  Love to everyone who has taken the time to read this!

[Nicholas, if you’re reading this, be safe traveling to Texas tomorrow. So exciting!!]

Today's phrase: "Mi sono persa."

Well…I’m in Florence!

Somehow or another, all three of us managed to get here today.  There was crying, there was barfing (not me, surprisingly), and there was really bad airplane food – a cocktail weenie with a pickle and something that resembled potato salad…really?  My favorite plane moment was when one of the flight attendants starting going on and on to Alex in German because she, for some reason, decided to pick up a German newspaper on her way through the terminal. He was so confused when she didn’t know how to respond…love it.

So far, Florence is just beautiful.  The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Duomo are more wonderful than any picture I’ve ever seen.  San Lorenzo is just as I imagined it.  The Arno is just lovely and I can see it from our huge terrace.  Plus, there are still Christmas lights everywhere and they are way more lovely and sparkly than the tacky ones we see a lot back home. 

[I promise I will take pictures later when I’m functioning on more than two hours of sleep]

Right now, I’m feeling a little out of my element.  Not everyone here is all that nice and I thought I knew more Italian than I actually do.  I keep hearing myself say, "I'm lost," in more ways than one. For now, I’m just feeling kind of alone.  It’s better now that I’ve had some gelato (the gelato man was fantastic!) and a pretty good meal.  I am, however, really missing familiar voices.  Of course, I know I'm not alone, but this is going to take some faith and some getting used to. It’s time to put my big girl pants on.

 Toto, I feel like we’re not in Kansas anymore… 

So the trip begins!! - Not.

I should be going through security at JFK about now, but instead I’m sitting by the fire at home, drinking a cup of Russian tea (so good!) and activating my new credit card.  Fun! 

After a couple weeks of Holiday celebrations and saying goodbye to friends and family, I’m finally all packed up and ready to hit the road—ok, air—to Florence! Unfortunately, there have been a few kinks in the plan. For those of you who haven’t heard, my visa has had a hard time making its way to me.  I have been waiting patiently, along with my Italian comrades, Alex and Madison, for word from the Italian consulate in Philadelphia so that we can work out a new plan.  Right now, we know that our passports and visas are on their way to us and will be arriving at HPU tomorrow morning.  Unfortunately, our lovely travel agent, Sally (what a great name), is having trouble getting our flights changed to the times we would like and we may be delayed until Friday.  

So as it stands, this week has been rather anti-climactic.  All the buildup to this day turned out to be a rather unfortunate disappointment.  Thanks to all of the people and who are working on our problems right now (High Point University, SACI, Advantage Travel, Mom and Rob), however, we will still be making the trip across the pond very soon.  We are keeping our heads up!

On a lighter note, I finally took enough stuff out of my suitcase to make it under the weight limit!  Casualties include:  

• rain boots 
• one sweater 
• 6 nail polishes (that’s embarrassing)
• face wash
• Brita water bottle
• dress shoes
• a couple light jackets

Thanks to my step-dad, Rob, who bought me a pair of underwear that you can wear for weeks without washing, I only had to pack that one little panty!  HA. You know I’m kidding—there’s no way I’m wearing one pair of underwear for four months.   

So, for now, I’m still not sure when I’ll be leaving on that jet plane….but hey! More time to figure out how to get those shoes in my suitcase!