must be a sign.

DAY ONE!
Today was officially day one of the Florence experience, and after a surprisingly freezing night under a single sheet all I could truly think about was how much I wanted a blanket.  I did not expect summertime in Italy to be cold!  I wound up in a borrowed hoodie, a pair of spandex with shorts over them, and a towel wrapped around my legs.  Also, Tarah woke up half Smurf with some blue feet from the sheets (haha)! You can say it was an interesting night! 

Anyway, the roommates and I started the day off right with a walk to un mercato all'aperto (open air market), where we looked longingly at every last delicious looking fruit and vegetable.  After settling on some amazing fresh strawberries (fragole), oranges (arancie), kiwi, and peppers, we went in the search of our perfect, stereotypical panino with salami and cheese! I randomly chose some cheese (formaggio) from the back that looked different and obviously amazing and waited for a bakery (panetteria) to buy some fresh bread.  It is crazy at how much less fresh foods are in Italy compared to the United States!  We walked into a bakery called Forno and instantly became friends with the shop owner who was able to handle all our broken-Italian, confusion over milk fat percentage, and loud excitement over the apple turnovers, which by the way were so good!! After returning, we made our sandwiches and headed toward our Florence University of the Arts (FUA) orientation.

Blindly attempting to find our way through Florence proved to be pretty difficult... luckily we had handy Miss Danielle Frain, who could read a map and led us to the meeting place; past "tutte 99 cente" stores, hospitals that looked like ancient churches, endless leather markets, and the famous Duomo near the center of the city.  The orientation continued on with a architectural tour of the five main piazzas throughout Florence (Piazza Duomo, Piazza Santa Novela, Piazza Della Republica, Piazza Signoria, and Piazza Santa Coroce).  We learned about the best and cheapest, but most authentic places to eat, which was on the other side of the Ponte Veccio.

When Pac Man attacks

Medieval Stock on the Block

Loving up on the line...

"I saw what you did there"

However, one of the most exciting parts of the city, at least for me, was looking at the individuality of the city.  The "do not enter" signs alone were each unique and provided some entertainment as we got lost throughout the tiny roads! In general it was a lot of fun just walking around the streets soaking in the ambiance and seeing the different people.  After the walking tour we had two hours to kill until it was time for our wine workshop, so we circled the town a few miles until returning to La Piazza Signoria, where the fake "The David" is and found some gelato (which apparently is better if the pile is below the rim of the bin) and an H&M.  Still no blanket... We eventually made our way out of H&M to find the location of the wine workshop.  The professor was hilarious and questioned the drinking society of America, deeming it "different" than Italian culture.  That is for sure!  Apparently, Italians are a "sip" culture, while we do everything in shots.  Where is the taste and the flavor in that?  We learned about the four steps in wine tasting and the correct procedure of rating a fine wine (1. See, 2. Sniff, 3. Sip, 4. Summary).  There was an extensive list of the types of words used to describe our senses of the wines, which proved to be confusing for a novice like me!  I walked out of the workshop with the knowledge that "wine is better than Facebook" because it provides far more social value.  I'd also say that it rarely lets you down! 

Spiderman found a new city

The Hulk did too

Well... at this point in the day we had probably walked for over five miles and there were still no blankets in sight.  We asked a Disney store shop keeper where a good place to buy a blanket was, and she pointed us in the direction of a department store called Coin.  On the bright side, my little Italian didn't completely fail us and there were blankets in the store; however, they were far far far beyond our price range... about 75 euro.  I guess we should have stopped at the thrift shop we passed a few miles back. Oops! On a side note though, washing machines work in hour and a half sessions and we have no dryer, so we chose to buy cheap long sleeves from H&M (again) instead of spending another cold night while our blankets dry over the radiator.

Surfboard?

We returned to our apartment for the welcome dinner, which was sub-par because there are 200 of us eating on one restaurant.  Who knew that many people could even fit in those holes in the walls? Well... we did, but the meal lasted a long time with several bland(ish) courses of different shades of starch.  By this point my eyes were beginning to droop, and all we had left to do was light Christina's twenty-first birthday tort and head to bed!

**PS: My "Viber" app is NOT working! If you have imessage, that works or the app called "Tango!" :)