January 6-7, 2009

My journey to Florence took 29 hours. Dad and I left the house 10:00, January 6, 2009. We drove to Rahway, NJ to change some cash to euros and pay a quick visit to Christy at her school. Then we drove to JFK for my first flight. The airport was super confusing and disorganized, but I eventually got through the luggage and security process. Five other girls from my architecture program were also flying out of JFK so I met up with them in the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave a little after 7 but we was delayed for a little while due to poor weather in Paris. The flight to Paris too fooooorever but we got two meals :-). The first was a whole little dinner which included ravioli with shrimp. I never would have thought to put those together but it was really good. We also got a little snack later. The French really love their chocolate, though. Almost everything included chocolate. When we landed in Paris, we had to walk through miles of airport hallways and security and customs and baggage checks and who knows what else, but we finally reached our gate only about 10 to 20 minutes before it was scheduled to take off. Two flights of RWU students came from Boston, and one met up with us for the flight to Rome. The plane taxied to the runway before the crew realized that we had baggage on the plane for passengers on a different flight so we had to go all the way back. It turned into this big fiasco where they decided to put the passengers on the plane instead of trying to take their luggage off but then there were no seats for those passengers and bla bla bla. By the time we finally took off, we had been sitting there for over 2 hours. The flight from Paris to Rome was another long one. Apparently there was food on this flight, too, but I missed it cuz I was sleeping. We landed in Rome, collected our luggage and all the students from RWU, and had a 3 to 4 hour bus ride to Florence. Once in Florence, we were put in taxis to our individual apartments. My apartment has 7 people. My other roommates are Carolyn, Margaret, Liz, Ash, Emily, and Nadia. In the same building are 2 other rooms (10 kids) of RWU architecture students. The only other people who live in the apartment are the landlord and his family. The 8 other RWU architecture students live together in an apartment a little ways away. We arrived at our apartment about 9 pm Florence time, 3 pm home time. We got there before the other Boston flight, so we all went out to dinner together.



January 8, 2009

orientation all day at a really nice house/mansion/villa up in the mountains
explored the city
had "family dinner" with all the students in our building
went out to the disco with other Roger Williams kids



January 9, 2009

orientation in the morning: learned some speed Italian, tour of the school and some surrounding streets
went to the phone store to get a phone (learned my way around a lot better)
went to see the apartment where the other archies live
had another "family dinner" with most of the archies
explored the city in search of gelato.... apparently only restaurants, discos, and bars stay open at night



January 10, 2009

went up to school to buy books and sign up for some field trips like a soccer match and climbing the Dome
tried (and was only somewhat successful) to go running with Ash and Pat. We explored the city, trying to find a way out to the country. We wandered up into the hills, but all the roads are walled in so we weren't able to find a way into the meadows and groves. There were amazing views of the city. We ran a little bit up some hills (almost getting run over by the crazy Italian drivers) and explored an abandoned house.
went to get gelatto with Pat, Nikul, Ash, Mike, and Dan. We stopped by an awesome wood shop straight of Pinocchio. While we were eating our gelatto, a Palestinian protest came through. Nikul, Ash, and I joined it for a few minutes until we got distracted by the market. Ash and I each bought a new scarf from one of the little carts.
no "family dinner" tonight. had dinner with just the roommates
went out to The Gate pub with a small group. I ordered using all Italian for the very first time. On our way back we went into the bookstore pub (this really cool bookstore where they have live music... super popular with the local Italians) to check it out for a few minutes before they closed.