Starting to get used to my new home for the next 6 weeks

Ciao,

I am starting to feel more comfortable in Firenze and the city is not seeming as HUGE as it did when first getting here. Nicole and I are able to walk around the streets without having to keep looking at our maps trying to figure out what street we are on and which way we have to go.

So the night of my first orientation (Friday) we went to this bar that serves 3 drinks for 10 Euro, which is a deal because at the club its 10 Euro for 1 drink. So we went to this place on Friday and returned back there on Saturday and the bartender was so happy that we were back and that we brought back like 10-20 more American students which brings Italian men, that she was giving the first couple of us free drinks. So we met this club promoter Fabio who sent us off in taxis to a club where the Jersey Shore happened to be that night. (We actually did not know that they were going to be there until after we arrived)

Then on Saturday Nicole and I slept in a little later went to go pick up our schedule for classes and we both have 9 AM classes Monday-Thursday. They give us Friday off to go travel. So tomorrow we will start our first classes. Mon and Wed we have the art of Florence and that is being taught by an Italian Instructor and then Tues and Thurs we have our Management class that is being taught by Gus the Dean of the Penn State Smeal Business school. The walk to the school is getting better and much easier to understand it should only take us about 15-20 minutes to walk it maybe even shorter because we are a lot more comfortable with the streets.

So after getting our classes and books on Saturday we went back to our apartment and took a long, much needed nap. We cooked ourselves our second dinner, which was nothing fancy just pasta with sauce and some prosciutto. And then we went out to the same bar as Friday and then to a new club called Space. I had an awesome time we were just laughing and dancing the whole night with our friends.

Today Nicole and I slept in and then went to the Market to get some more food and essentials. Then we took an adventure over to the River which is on the opposite side of the city from us and we went window shopping, stopped in a church, took some beautiful pictures, and had some gelato. We then went back to our apartment because it was pretty late in the day, hung out for a little bit and then grabbed a late dinner at a pizzeria. It is the first time that I actually had a real slice of pizza. The pizza here so far has been more like focaccia bread with sauce but this was DELICIOUS. Sorry Forte! Nicole and I plan on going back there to try some pasta fagoli and an actual primo e secondo piatti. (first and second plate, which is what they call their meals)

 So heres a picture of Pauly, Vinny, and Ronnie. Dont worry I will not be on the show and I will not sign a waiver!

 Here is the church that Nicole and I went to Today (Sunday), we walked over the Ponte Vecchio and came back by this church. We were able to walk inside while they were having mass but we were not able to take any pictures =( wah although it doesn't look like much at all from the outside it was very pretty inside. So we got to make our 3 wishes for going into a new church!

 Here is a picture of the Ponte Vecchio taken from another bridge across from it.

 As Nicole and I were walking around after crossing over the bridges and going into the church we walked by this BEAUTIFUL wedding dress store and this is one of the gorgeous and unique dresses that were in the window.

This is for you Dad when we were walking around today we saw this restaurant type of a place with all of these different types of fishes in the window. They were all so scary and if you look closely at the fish with its mouth open you can see its teeth.

And this is where Nicole and I stopped after our adventure of the day to sit and enjoy some Gelato.

Cant wait to see what the professore or professoressa has to say in the syllabus tomorrow about the schedule for the semester.

I heard the weather at home hasn't been too nice, hopefully for this weekend it will be good.
It has been very hot here and all the Italian people wear pants and long sleeves I dont know how they do it. There are very few who wear shorts and mostly the short wearers are American. It is only going to get hotter here so it will be interesting to see how long these people can stand the heat until they stop wearing long sleeves and pants. But it is nice that when we get food and ask for water it is chilled we don't have to ask for ice cubes, which before coming here I was not sure was going to be a little problem. But talking in English in general isn't a big deal, I try to use Italian as much as possible and I try to especially listen to conversations so that I know what people are saying. However, the majority of the people know at least some English so that we can all communicate.

Well its getting late here now and I want to take a shower and get myself ready for class tomorrow, so I will post again soon telling all about my first day(s) of classes.

Buonanotte
Michele