American Brunch!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=646171346&ref=ss#/pages/Florence-Italy/Brunch-in-Florence-Italy/425957450135?ref=ss



The above link is where we ate breakfast this morning. It is a placed called Angels where they serve an All American Brunch every sunday morning from 12 to 3pm. The restaurant is very sleek and elegant but offers a relaxing, comfortable Sunday brunch type atmosphere full of and catering to mostly Americans. I had #11- The bacon, egg, and bagel and it was very American but very good and reminded me of home. :) The restaurant only serves brunch on Sundays but is open all other days as a restaurant and bar.



It is once again cold in Florence but after sleeping for about 14 hours, I felt a lot better today. Although, I still feel a big jet lagged, all we want to do is sleep. I am also considering buying/renting a bike. We live on the outskirts of central Florence so everything is at least a fifteen minute walk from our apartment. I know that I would still walk a lot of places but I am thinking it would be nice to have a bike to go further our into the city and if needing to get to my destination quickly.



Classes start tomorrow and we are are all looking forward to them. Wish me luck!

First Day of Rain!

Well we awoke to rain this morning so this called for the use of our umbrellas on the twenty minute walk to school where we had to sit in a room and wait for over an hour to complete our immigration process, we had to sign three pieces of paper and then they had a lady from the Post Office from Immigrations there to match our filled out information to our passports. We had to file a Permit of Stay because we will be studying here and because a tourist visa is only good for 90 days and we will be here for about 120 days. After this we proceeded to the Mercato Centrale where we purchased our grocceries for the week which included sausages, peppers, onions, cheese, meat, bread, pineapple, nuts & dried fruit. We were exhausted so everyone in the whole apartment came back to nap and I guess we were more tired than we thought because we ended up napping from 2-6pm. I need the rest though because my throat is on fire. Emily cooked dinner for us, we had sausage, onions, and peppers and it was amazing. At the market, everything is so fresh so it makes the taste that much better. After dinner, we were on a mission to find gelato but after walking for awhile around our apartment, we discovered that there were no gelato places close around so I went to the mini-market and bought a quart of gelato and seriously just sat here and ate half of it! It was sooo good but I was also hoping the gelato would soothe my throat. Tomorrow is our first day off from orientation and then classes start on Monday, when I have Tuscany and Its Wines and then Mediterranean Diet. I am very excited for all my classes. the others include Everything Chocolate: From Therapy to Pleasure, The Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion, and Cultural Introduction to Italy where we take field trips to various locations throughout Italy. :)

Still Freezing in Florence

I know that you all are freezing back on the east coast but at least you have warmth inside of your house or apartment. It is not like that in Florence, we are seriously always cold from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed. It is winter inside of our apartment. :( Oh, well.. just something we have to get used to. This morning.. we woke up extra early because we had to find a copy store to make copies of every single page of our passport... we wandered for an hour and Emily kept telling me to get back on to the route to school and follow the map but I insisted we just keep walking aimlessly and I knew eventually we would find a copy store and sure enough we did after two miles of walking. We then had to go to school for our first Immigration meeting where we had to fill out like a five page form with precise information for our permit of stay. The process was very complicated and we had to photocopy all our acceptance letters, insurance information, and all of our passport. I had the passport completed but I did not have all the other information so I had to walk a block to an Internet Train (which is an Internet Cafe where you just basically pay to use the Internet for a set amount of time) but they also had photocopy machines. I walked back to the school but come to find out I still did not have all of the papers, so I had to walk back to the Internet Train to photocopy more pages. It is all so complicated and a long process but I know it's probably not as long as what it would be like immigrating into the United States. For lunch we went to Caffe Verdi which just a small panino shop (or panini in the U.S.) but it's different than a panini in the sandwich because a panino is basically just a sandwich shop. It was so delicious, well actually all the food in Italy is so yummy. We then went to an Electronic store to buy a hair dryer because American hair dryers do just not get along well with European electricity. However, the store will buy back the hair dryer at the end of our stay for about 40-50% of what we paid. The store was really neat and had a lot of different lights. Emily says it's her new favorite store. After this, we went back to rest for a few minutes but then proceeded on a walking tour around and to see all our different schools and where other important information is located. Proceeding the walking tour we went to Space Club (Discoteque) where they had free drinks, appetizers, and dinner for our Welcome Party for all the students attending FUA and Apicius. It was pretty fun but everyone is still starting to get to know each other so still really cliquey. We had earlier received a Facebook invitation to Twenty One, another club in town but so did all the other 4,000 American students studying in Florence so the club was so packed and overcrowded, we mingled for awhile but could just not handle the claustrophobia after awhile. We made the mile walk back to our apartment in the rain :(... and our feet are dying.. Emily had a pedometer on today and it said they we walked 14 miles!!! Florence is an amazing city though so it's totally worth it.

Mmmm... Gelato!

We walked the twenty five minute walk to school this morning for some orientation information. It was veryyyy cold this morning! Well about forty degrees farenheit which is cold for Florence. We are constantly freezing in our apartment like allll the time and they told us today that we have no control over our heat, well nobody in Florence does. You are only allowed eight hours a day for the heat to be turned on which means that the heat is only on for a few hours at a time throughout the course of the day. As Lucca says, "when it is winter outside of the city, it is winter inside of your apartment too." For lunch we stopped at a local restaurant where I had Ravioli with Ricotta and Spinach which was pretty good but I think was kind of expensive. The menu was in English which I i hear is a tourist trap because they can charge you more money because they are know you are American. We then came back for "nap time" which was veryyy relaxing and refreshing. I slept for like two hours. We then woke up and had some more orientation where they gave us helpful information about taxis, trains, nightlife, and markets. We also were told about Aperitivo which is like a happy hour from 7 to 9 pm and you buy one drink for a set price and then it's like a buffet and you can eat as much as you want which is pretty cheap and saves you money on dinner! We then made a necessary stop for Gelato! I don't think I will ever want to go back to eating ice cream again. I got mint chip and nutella flavors in a waffle cone but they also put a fresh made waffle in the cone too! :) Buona Sera!

Day #2

Emily and I started the day off by eating granola bars for breakfast since we had no food in our apartment and Italians don't typically eat a big breakfast if any at all. We then wandered around the city and saw the Duomo which is absolutely amazing. I can't wait till we go up inside of it and have the chance to see all of the city. We then were in desperate need of food so we walked to the Mercato Centrale which is a huge inside market where you can find all kinds of fresh meat, pasta, wine, vegetables, fruit, and nuts. We bought quite a bit of food and we also bought orange flowers to brighten up our apartment. We even stopped for a little cup of ciccolata calda (hot chocolate) and it was homemade, very yummy! We then proceeded to stop at a normal supermarket to pick up a few other things. By this time, it was already 2 o'clock and we were starving so we stopped at a pizza restaurant just around the corner from our apartment. Not knowing how big they would be, we ordered 2 pizzas and they were huge! Unfortunately we were not able to finish them, and supposedly in Italy, it is not typical to bring home "doggy bags", it is expected that you like your food and will finish all of it. Luckily though our server asked and we were allowed to take home our pizza in a big pizza box, on the way back, we stopped and picked up a piece of tiramisu. :) Sooo amazing! Around 2pm- 4pm everyday, most of the stores close up and it is considred rest or nap time in the city, shop owners go home to sleep and the city is typically quieter during this time. Last night, we decided to embark on a Pub Crawl with our roomates, which we booked through Euro Adventure, which plans trips, etc. We bet a bunch of people from Kansas. A lot of American students study abroad in Florence so companies like Euro Adventure cater to us. The Pub Crawl was a lot of fun and we got to go to a variety of different night club scenes. I even met a famous Italian singer or so that's what he told me, haha!

The Journey to Florence

Our flight left exactly on time from New York and we were due to arrive in Rome at 7:30am which would give us only an hour and half layover but for some reason the pilot decided to go slow and we didn't arrive in Rome until 8:45am when our next plane was boarding at 9:05am and we had to go through security again and line was soooo long. Emily and I literally ran through the airport, I'm sure we looked very American in our sweatpants huffing and puffing our way through the airport which mind you is veryyyy large and our gate was the farthest possible place away in the corner. However, we did finally make it. Also, side note, we flew Alitalia (an Italian run airline) and they announce everything in Italian and then English, I just wish I knew more Italian. A shuttle van picked us up at the airport and loaded all our luggage and we then arrived at our apartment. It is soooo nice. It has a a big kitchen, living room, two bathrooms, and three large bedrooms. We unpacked everything... all 106 pounds of stuff! We then wandered through the streets of Florence and woahhh! CULTURE SHOCK! And remember to always close the door behind you because they don't automatically close and some guy yelled at me for not closing the door. I think he yelled "Do you live in a barn?" Oh, well.. now I know. It is very different here but I already love it. There are sooo many roads and we live in the western part of the city so there is a bit of walk to everything but I don't mind because then we just get to see more of the city! :) It is about a 20 minute walk to one of our schools and then about a 25 minute walk to the other school and it's about a 30 minute walk between the two schools. We had no idea what to do for dinner so we went to the mini supermarket and bought a bag of pasta and a jar of sauce... an authentic Italian meal! We survived through the jet lag and went to sleep around 7pm and slept all the way through the night till 7am. So, I have already adjusted to Italian time. Ciao!