Well I feel like I am starting to get a feel for Italian life in Florence. We have only spent 2 full days here but from the second I started walking around the city, I was in love. Florence is about half the size of Rome and much quieter! A lot of people are built for the crazy "New York lifestyle" but I am not one of them so believe me when I say, Florence is the place to be! From the cute stores to the gorgeous buildings, I could spend all day walking around by myself and exploring places of Florence that not all the tourists see!
I realized the huge difference between touring Florence and living here. I have an apartment with 6 other girls and we love it! It is a 2 minute walk from the Duomo which is an ideal place to live! Any walk around Florence would only take 10 or 15 minutes to get to.
Our typical day consists of going to a cafe, getting on the internet and having coffee by the Duomo, doing laundry, going to the store, and then in the afternoon we head to class! By the time class is over, we are all starved and we either go find a semi cheap restaurant or we attempt to cook dinner at home! Trying to figure out the appliances is a task but after multiple times of failure, I think we are all starting to get the hang of it.
Today we got to take a walking tour of Florence and we learned about the Medici family who were the most powerful and wealthy family of the city. We also learned about the major flood of Florence that happened in the 1960's and our tour guide showed us places around Florence where you can still see the water lines on the walls and how many buildings and works of art were destroyed. There is so much history in this city and I realized that it is hard to fall in love with a city that you don't know very much about. But after today, I'm making it a priority to learn as much as I can about it! By the end of these 4 weeks, I hope I will know my way around here pretty well!
Tomorrow we are going on a tour of a photography museum so that will be neat! And it is official, my friends and I are going to visit Cinque Terra this weekend! I cannot wait!