I'm in FLORENCE!

Hey everyone! I'm officially living in Florence, Italy and it is amazing to say the least. I got here yesterday around 8 am your time, 3 pm here. Let me describe my journey from the beginning.

Arriving to the airport, I was feeling a bundle of emotions, excited, scared, nervous, anxious, etc. My mom started crying as I went through security and I was just ready to leave. I'm so grateful to both of my parents for making this happen for me. The flight was very comferable, I watched Shrek 3D, the Joneses, Friends, and played sudoku all on the little tv included in my seat. I slept very little and it actually went a lot faster than I thought it would. We landed in Zurich, and switzerland was beautiful. The plane to Florence was tiny and we even walked down the stairs out of the plane, yelling "we're in Italy!". We got our luggage and got in a taxi with no problem. Driving from the airport to Lorenzo de Medici was indescrible, but I'll try. It was sunny and perfect outside, the buildings are just beautiful and so artsy. The streets are all cobblestone and everyone drives mopeds. We then took a taxi to our apartment and were thrilled when we saw a beautiful and large door with only one flight of stairs to climb. I was amazed when I walked through the doors of the apartment, it was more than I ever thought it would be. Beautiful tiled floors, nice wood furniture, extremely comfy beds, beautiful artwork, a lovely kitchen with all the supplies, and my favorite part was walking into my room, dropping my luggage, and pushing open the two large green shutters of the windows and looking up and down my beautiful street. I look one way and see the Duomo, then look the other way and down the street is the Statue of David. It's like I'm in a dream and won't wake up. They call this the honeymoon stage I guess but I hope it never goes away. We unpacked everything and got situated, then went to eat dinner at a cute cafe down the street right next to the Duomo. I got a margherti pizza which was absolutly delicious. We then stopped and got some gelato which was to die for. As soon as we got back to the apartment I passed out around 9 pm here and slept til 11:30 am. I was sooo tired. Around midnight though I woke up because of the noise outside. I looked out my window and saw a parade of dressed up young italians walking towards the duomo. I'm guessing the night life. My roommate, Jess passed me some earplugs and we slept for hours. This morning we woke up and walked downstairs, got a huge orange from the market and made that our yummy breakfast. I was still in shock at how beautiful the apartment is. We then ate lunch at a cute little cafe just below our apartment, where we had ham and cheese sandwiches on some delicious bread. We just sat outside at a cute little table as we people watched for about 30 minutes. When we got back up to the apartment, we rearranged some things to make it just a bit more comferable and now there is nothing to complain about. Our apartment is perfect. After some rest, we then ventured out to find where our classes were. Thinking we'd only be gone for an hour or so, we were surprised to see the masses of tourists roaming around buying souveneirs, trying to get into the duomo, etc. I won't lie I was taking pictures but it was funny to see so many tourists. We found our classes with ease and then went to the market. Luckily nothing was to difficult to figure out and we got enough food for a few days. Jess and I discovered why Italians are so thin because carrying two bags of groceries the 10 minutes back to the apartment is quite the work-out. I'm in love with this city and can't wait to see more tomorrow after orientation. Missing everyone at home. Ciao!