My first few days in Firenze!

Ciao! I haven't been able to write in forever because guess what? We have nooo wireless internet. Zip, nada, nine, NOTHING! Haha it may not seem like a big deal but when they have promised us internet, I expect it. I guess they are finalizing the contract papers that deal with getting internet in the pensiones and apparently it may not work for another ten days. *sigh*. At least I can get internet on the GIF campus which is what I'm doing now.

So I am absoloutely stoked to be in Florence and somewhat settled in with a rountine, but I must take some time to complain about my pensione. I am living in the pensione "Il Palagio" which means the "Palace" in Italiano. This is an ironic name for this location, because it is anything but a palace. I had these expectations of my room and sadly, most of those expectations were shattered upon my first entrance. First off, there are two double doors as shown in one of the pictures below. The left hand side works, but my roommate Lillian found out the hard way that the left door is seperated from the wall and it hanging by a few bolts on the hinges. (see picture below of her struggles with the door) One word: Ghetto! Also, our bathroom door does not close all the way which basically means we have NO privacy when using the bathroom. Today, one of the Gonzaga coordinators Shelley, came into our room to investigate the scene, and she was able to close the door ONLY if you pull up on the handle at such an angle, and then force it shut. To open the door back up, you simply have to tug at the latch for about a good five seconds and use all your might to bust open the door. Not exactly what i'd call luxury. The next thing to mention is the toliet. It is not an American toliet by any means. It is powered by a motor, which is almost like a garbage disposal, in that you have to press the button several times before it starts to "hum" and from there it reves up and after about ten seconds it creates a god awful noise that sounds like a fog horn. Me and Lillian named him Oscar the Grouch, because he does NOT seem happy at all. For your viewing pleasure, I included a video that demonstrates the noise that occurs every time we want to flush the toliet. Please note that the shaking of the camera is done for emphasis. Haha, doesn't it seem like there is an earthquake that is happening?! When the toliet first went off, me and Lillian screamed and booked it to the door to evacuate. We thought it was blowing up!!

As if that couldn't be enough to complain about, I must add that the shower LEAKS every time after use. But it doesnt leak right next to the shower where you might think; instead, it leaks next to the toliet. The owner of the pensione says he is worried about this because that might mean that there is a damaged or broken pipe that is causing the leakage. Joy! Also, there is only one dresser that consists of 5 pull-out drawers. I have no idea where we are going to fit all our stuff. Luckily we are all going to IKEA this weekend so we can get more storage supplies. Lastly, one more thing to note is that there is only one desk in our room. How can we both study with ONE desk? Needless to say, me and my roommate definitely complained to both Dean Burke and the owner of the pensione.We are about to get our requests in order! Haha I hope you enjoy the pictures that are below.

Enough complaining already! Haha I just had to get some steam off about that, because I am completely bummed about the living conditions. I guess its just culture shock, but I think they realize that things to need to be shaped up because I think we have a right to doors that work, and a toliet that doesnt leak... Today was the first day of classes! I had Ethics 301, Principles of Marketing, and Italian 102. All three of them went well, so I am thinking that I have pretty good professors so far. I have more classes that will start next week so I will keep you guys informed about those. I was pretty nervous coming into Italian 102 because even though I took 101 just this past semester, I found myself already forgetting the basics and I was worried that I would have a hard time picking up the language again. Well, it looks like the rest of this month is dedicated to just review, so thats really nice. She actually asked us questions in Italian like what sports do we play, where we are from, our names, what we liked to listen to, etc. I was surprised I was able to answer them and it made sense! Ha ha. I am glad that I have a whole weekend free to explore Florence now. After this weekend, the next 6 weekends are taken up by various trips around Italia. I am so happy we have no classes on Fridays! It will be great just to dedicate long weekends to trips around Europe.

What else is new?? I got into Florence around 11:30 two nights ago after a loongg 5 hour journey from Milan. I guess we flew in there because it was cheaper than flying into the Florence airport. Yesterday we had the day off to get situated around Florence, and we had our meeting about sending our visas into the consulate so we can be approved for our residence for 9 months. Also, me and my roomie went to the 99 cent Euro store where we got cheap school supplies. Who knew that the paper has 4 hole punches?! Craziness..and we got our first gelato! Me and Lillian had chocolate. It was super yummy! Also, we went to the supermarket to get snacks, and we walked towards the duomo, which is shown below. I cant wait to actual go inside the duomo!! After we walked past it, me and Lillian went to the little open air market and we got some great scarves (which are super popular around here). I also got a ciao bella shirt, and I actually bargained with a guy off the streets for a knock off LV bag! It looks legit to me.. haha what do you guys think? (the picture is below as well). After our little exploration, we went back to our pensione where dinner was served. We had yummy balsamic vingarette salad and garlic tomato pasta. It was so good! At least the food here is somewhat decent in comparison to the rest of the living conditions. Anyways... after dinner me and Lillian were feeling a little down about the room so we went out and found a couple guy friends and from there we had a beer at this local Irish Pub where sports are often played. It was a pretty chill night, and because it was a school night we went to bed at a reasonable hour at 11:30!

Well thats all I have for now. I hope that wasnt too much! Call me on skype or email me if you want to talk further. Love you all!




See our door? Its detached at the hinges as demonstrated by my lovely room-mate Lillian.




My new LV bag-- you like? I was able to bargain with the guy from 135 euro down to 40 euro! Now thats what I call a steal! :)



Behold OSCAR our angry toliet!