The Start of the Journey (Florence Week 1)

Monday, January 29th and Tuesday, January 30th

I arose at the crack of dawn early Monday morning (9 am) to begin my long trek to the beautiful city of Florence, Italy where I will be spending the next 3.67 months.

Flight itinerary:

• Orange County to San Francisco

• San Francisco to Munich

• Munich to Florence

All seemed well until my first flight got delayed for some mysterious reasons related to issues with the San Francisco airport, cutting my 1-hour layover dangerously short. The 1.5-hour initial flight was filled with internal anxiety as I contemplated the devastating chain of events that would occur if I missed my 11-hour flight to Germany. As the plane pulled up to the gate, I jumped out of my seat, determined not to miss my flight. My mind ran rampant as I stood there waiting for the slowpokes ahead of me to hurry up and get off the plane. As soon as I had open space in front of me, I began to sprint across the airport with my backpack and giant duffel bag jostling around. I'm quite sure that I resembled something like a frantic gorilla with a limp in this moment as I half-staggered-half-ran along. I had only 10 minutes to get across the airport before boarding closed (as my trusty United app informed me), and after all of my disastrous airport tales of the past, not getting on that plane was NOT an option. So, even as my mouth began to dry and my head began to feel faint (probably having something to do with the lack of any sort of nutrition or liquids in my body at the time), I kept running. Despite my shaky legs and the pain coursing throughout my entire being, one thought kept me going. I WILL be flying to Europe today. I saw my gate in the distance, and 2 minutes before I would have been doomed, I staggered, embarrassingly out of breath, around the corner to the gate. Only to find that there was about 30 people still waiting in line to get on the plane. So much for my heroic endurance. On the bright side, I was still going to Europe! 

11 hours ahead of me, I settled into my cozy seat on the gigantinormous international plane. By the luck of the Irish that I must have acquired somewhere in the Emerald Isle, I got the window seat and an empty middle seat next to me! Cozy nap space to the max. The flight was filled with sessions of dramatically gazing out the window with country music blasting through my headphones (a perfect vibe match, I know), several heart-wrenching rom-coms, approximately 2 hours of sleep total, and - of course- some snackage. It flew by like a fast breeze and before I knew it, I was in Germany!

As I leisurely walked to my next gate, I thought about just how close I was to arriving in Florence. After sitting at my gate for a while and noticing the abnormally large percentage of American-looking 20-year-olds on this flight, I felt a tap on my shoulder. What luck, my LdM buddy Ginger was on the same flight! Now I had a person with which to empty my anxiety onto. Just kidding, but only sort of. Getting on our teeny tiny plane from rickety metal stairs while being screeched at by some sort of plane mechanic part was less than comforting to say the least, but I enjoyed the flight (most specially, the Tuscan views). 

Upon landing in Florence I was quite grateful for Ginger's company along with the host of LdM students as I navigated the interworkings of the Florence public transportation system. Being the broke college students we are, Ginger and I decided to take the $1.5 tram instead of a $30 taxi to get to our housing (Don't even get me started on the housing situation. To sum it up, we were told we would get an apartment together, but during our flight we were informed we would be staying in a dorm with a communal kitchen 4 floors away from our rooms which were the most grey and modern rooms you've ever seen). The tram was fine up until the point where we had to lug our giant baggage across tiny cobblestone streets for a mile (me with my 2 giant luggages, a duffel bag, backpack, and the iconic baguette pillow, and Ginger with her several luggages - one of them missing its most important wheel).

As we were trucking along, stumbling over the uneven stones and clearly struggling as everyone could see, a kind-looking old couple who was walking by asked if they could help. Now this isn't my first rodeo, I know it's not the greatest idea to let strangers "help" you in a foreign country, but something about their eyes looked honest and what were they going to do, try to sprint away with my giant 50-pound luggage across the rocky terrain? So, against our better judgment, we accepted, and the strangers turned out to be a nice Christian missionary couple. One was from Illinois and the other from New Zealand, and once they had walked us the rest of the way to our hotelish-dormish housing situation (I'm just going call it Il Santo from here on out) they gave us their contact information and told us to message them if we ever wanted them to show us around the area. What a blessing.

After getting over the state of my room being the complete opposite of the little historic Italian apartment I'd been expecting, I read through the description of the place and my heart leapt for joy when I read that it was indeed permissible to hang things on the wall as long as it wasn't damaging. There was hope yet for me! Also, our newly renovated modern room had a beautiful view and was quite clean unlike some others' apartments I'd been hearing about.

I immediately took a shower to wash my 20-hour travel day off of me, and once the rest of the crew arrived, we headed out to explore the city and grab some nourishing, delicious, and most importantly NOT-packaged-plane-food dinner. Along the way, Ginger and Kinley had found a stray LdM student named Noah (a fashion student from New York) and brought him along for our outing. Our time at the restaurant was filled with stories, laughter, and all the pasta you could imagine. From our gracious waiter we learned some essential Italian phrases such as "posso avere la conferma, per favore?", meaning "can I have the check, please?". Though it was by far one of the most expensive meals I would be eating (at almost $19), I was quite pleased with my delicious truffle potato ravioli. And what with that, I conclude my long-winded tale describing my arrival to Italy (I promise the following tales will be much more succinct).

Wednesday, January 31st

The first day of orientation! Today's was held in this super duper cool old cinema the topic was health and safety. It included some helpful tips, but the main gist was: don't do anything stupid or you will end up in jail (and that would not be a desirable outcome for you). They separated us into sections based on where we are from, so I found myself surrounded by hundreds of American students. I was given the delightful treat of overhearing the story that the girl next to me was telling her friend about how she got stopped half-way through security because there was $50,000 cash that apparently her grandma had snuck in her bag for her birthday the other day. And she just mentioned the $50,000 casually like it was every other day that she happened upon $50,000. Ugh, rich people*.

As our stomachs grumbled with insatiable hunger, our little troupe searched high and low for a not-$19 lunch. We stumbled upon (I subtly guided the group while following google maps) a unique little sandwich place called Sandwichic (how clever is that!) where the guy taking our orders was super helpful as we attempted to decipher the menu items. Despite the frequent awkward eye contact I kept making with the sandwich-maker-guy through the window, it was a pleasant experience and resulted in some tasty panini (yes panini is the plural form of the word and it literally just means sandwiches. I'm sorry that you've been lied to your whole life). We wandered around until we found some nice steps to sit on while eating our panini and spent a lovely 30 minutes basking in the afternoon sunshine as Kinley formed an attachment to the tiny birds nearby by feeding them bits of her panino (no, that's not a typo, that is in fact the singular form of the word).

Once we had eaten those sandwiches for all they were worth, we headed to the Duomo (the single most touristy place in all of Florence - and for good reason). The Duomo was absolutely stunning in all of its domeish glory (if you ignore the awkward giant construction material that they unfortunately failed at painting to match the pattern of the cathedral). We got in line to enter despite its terrifyingly long looking nature but by that same luck of the Irish it moved quickly and we got in in under 10 minutes. The inside was absolutely gorgeous and we even partook in adding a flame to the tiny tea candle trees. We ventured into the underground section and found a little gift shop with the most adorable little watercolor-looking postcards you have ever seen in your life, so I bought like 8 of them to put up on the wall in an attempt to combat the life-draining death colors of our room.

The next item on our agenda was.... PASTA MAKING!!!  A few Italian cooking professors showed us how to make pasta from scratch (the Italian way of course) and then fed it to us and it was quite delicious. They even gave us the recipe, which I held hopes of making sometime in the future for about 20 minutes. I even made friends with the two girls next to me (are you proud I actually talked to strangers? I am. Hannah: 1, Social Anxiety: 0), one was from Mexico, and the other was an art student from New York. Look at me stepping out of my comfort zone and making friends with people that I totally still remember the name of. We shall see if this kind of bold behavior continues past the first week.

Back at Il Santo, I watched the sunset from my window and gazed in awe at the thousands of birds (no, I'm not exaggerating. There were literally thousands) flocking through the sky. I felt so blessed to experience this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime turn-of-events until I found out about 24 hours later that this happened every single night when the sun was about to set. Despite its common occurrence, I still found the phenomenon fascinating and beautiful. From a quick google search I found that the phenomenon is referred to as starling murmurations, which occur in several places throughout Europe just before dusk. They sometimes create dancing and swirling patterns, and Italy is especially known for them at this time of year. Apparently, during the day they go out to rural areas for food, then all return to the city for the night. So, there you go, you are now slightly more informed on starling murmurations than most people you know. You're welcome.

Suddenly, we received an email from LdM. "APERITIVO IN ONE HOUR. It's a 30 minute walk but don't be late!!" (this is paraphrased, but you get the idea). As soon as we read the words free food we were out the door. It was a beautiful walk across the Arno river, and when we checked in with the LdM ladies outside we learned some new Italian lingo. One of them had messed up by calling a student who was already inside and telling them to come over. She said "amo noi" which means "love us", a way of saying "oops we messed up, but you love us with our goofy mistakes anyway". Once inside, I did some actual socializing. Twice in one day! Go me. They gave us each a drink card so we could order alcohol from the bar (at a school event?? what a concept), and thankfully some pizza appetizers came along about an hour in. I bet you can't guess what I ordered with my drink card (see image below).

After I had finished my second glass of milk of the night, the fantastic four (Kinley, Ginger, Morgan, and I) as well as Noah and Josh (a new friend we made) decided to head back and stop for gelato on the way. We headed out with the full thought-out plan of "let's just wander around and hope we stumble upon a good gelato shop", and after stumbling in and out of a few gelato places (which I was not very happy about since entering an establishment where you buy things and leaving without buying anything is considered quite rude in Italy), we arrived at a cute little gelato place right next to the Duomo. While it was very aesthetically pleasing to be chowing on gelato in the presence of the great and powerful Duomo, it was a rookie mistake, which you may already have noticed (kudos to you if you did). Lesson for the future: never get food / gelato right next to the very most touristy spot in the entirety of Florence or else your wallet will run dry quite quickly. Now, an extra $3 for a gelato isn't going to kill you in of itself but I am very much a stickler for the principle of the matter. I did not do hours of research on e-sims and travel money cards just to blow my money on gelato that was more expensive just because it was in close proximity to a tourist attraction. So now you've not only got some free entertainment, but also some handy dandy traveling advice! You're welcome. That should be the theme of this blog. "Mostly for entertainment purposes, but here and there you might find something actually helpful".

Thursday, February 1st

The first somewhat interesting item on the agenda for today was the Find it Tour orientation activity which was almost completely useless. The purpose was getting familiar with how things worked in Florence, but we already figured out most of the stuff they told us the few days before. It was not a huge waste of time though because we made some friends which we got coffee with after. I of course, being the non-coffee drinker that I am, did not partake in the coffee drinking but it was a beautiful little cafe. They had delightful-looking chocolates too, although we had to stand at the bar with the coffee because it was like twice the price if you wanted to sit. Apparently, they charge for the seat and the view everywhere here. What a bunch of swindlers*.

Taking advantage of the free food opportunities, I also signed up for the pizza making demonstration which also ended up being utterly delectable (how could I have even thought for a second that it would be anything else??). Another recipe that I will most definitely make in our communal kitchen!

Next was our student services orientation where they told us about all the activities available in the coming weeks as well as excursion opportunities. They have SO MANY cool things happening. There were like 20 different things (100% free!) you could sign up for during the next 2 weeks from palace tours, chocolate tastings, and jewelry making demonstrations to ghost tours and best study spot tours. And the best part is that these activities continue throughout the semester! What a treat. The excursions aren't free as you might have guessed but the prices aren't bad. They have a few day trips to places like Rome, Cinque Terre, and the Ferrari Factory, and overnight trips to the Alps and Monaco. My roommate Morgan and I successfully signed up for the Cinque Terre trip which will be a few weeks from now (but unsuccessfully signed up for the Alps trip) and I'm so excited because I've heard it is so quaint and adorable.

Our next adventure was taking part in the photo scavenger hunt which was a contest where we all split up into groups and then had to follow clues to find specific things around the city and take pictures. Whoever got the most points won and guess who won out of like 15 groups??? US! Well not technically, cause there was this other guy who won but it was because he studied here last semester so he already knew everything. He decided to give us the prize since we were runner up so yayy free ugly t-shirts! It was such a fun time though, we learned a lot of cool history about the city and also explored some new places.

To wrap up the day, Ginger made some tortellini for everyone, and I had a mental breakdown (just kidding but also not really) after finding out that my tiny fridge cube was half the size of everyone else's (since it was at the bottom and the cooling machine thing was taking up half of it), and I couldn't fit my tiny half liter bottle of milk inside. It didn't help that when I tried to explain the situation to the front desk lady she just kept repeating "...they are all the same size" (which they clearly are not). Morgan and Kinley even took pictures with a giant water bottle in each of them to show the difference, but to no avail. I've since accepted the situation and sweet Morgan has offered to let me store my milk in her fridge compartment, so now all is right in the world.

There have been a number of stressors throughout the week which I think culminated to this point. Issues with my money card, accessing my bank, working with my e-sim, and drama back at home to name a few**. After this point though, things began to look up as I started becoming more familiar with my surroundings, got settled in and things working right, and the jet-lag began to dissipate.

Friday, February 2nd

Today was filled with all of the most boring things. We got our class schedule, yay. We got a lecture on how we can't miss ANY classes or else we will fail, yay. We went and filled out paperwork, yay. And Morgan made gnocchi, YAY, although it was a little overcooked, but good meal for a few euros.

Saturday, February 3rd

While Ginger and Kinley went on an antiquing adventure in some unknown location outside of Florence, Morgan and I decided to take a chill day and instead of training out to some exotic location, we did a little self-guided photography tour of Florence. I had been longing to whip out my nice camera and get some good photos of everywhere we had been going, but orientations and tours were just not the right time to be stopping and taking photos every 10 seconds.

We wandered around and stopped at many of the famous places in Florence such as the Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, and Palazzo Vecchio, and I may or may not have taken over 300 pictures, but it's ok because I brought 1TB of external storage for this very purpose.

Along the way, we stumbled upon some street musicians playing the violin and bass, and had quite a lovely time listening to the beautiful music and people-watching. When we reached Palazzo Vecchio, we grabbed a cannolo (yes I'm sorry to break your heart again, but any Italian word you've heard that ends with an "i" is in fact the plural form of the word) and had a nice little munch break. I'm ashamed to say that I apparently have no concept of learning from my mistakes, as we made the same error as that time we bought gelato right next to the Duomo. The tiny cannoli we purchased were 3 euro each, and I noticed as we walked back to Il Santo that the cannoli in the shops on the a nearby street were only 1 euro for a much bigger cannolo. Maybe next time will be the time I actually learn from my mistakes.

Enjoy this selection of some of my favorite photos from our photography tour:

That's all for now folks. Usually, I would say check in next week for my next post but since this one was about a week late, I will try to post Week 2 in a few days.

Arrivederci!

*Please keep in mind for all posts on this blog that any and all seemingly rude comments or insults directed at friends, strangers, or institutions are made in jest and purely for entertainment purposes. They are not meant to be taken seriously, and I promise I harbor no resentments against anyone. Please don't come for me.

** Yes, I am including some of my hardships in this blog, so if you were expecting a blog about how "everything is wonderful and perfect all the time", I'm sorry but you have come to the wrong place. We're running an authentic documentation experience here, and I refuse to give in to the pressures of social media's fake "everything-is-great" nonsense. Ok, maybe I'm being a little intense, but you get the point. Don't go expecting anything fake from me :).

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