After my first night with my host family

Buona sera!! Much has happened in the last few days. I had a great weekend in San Francisco with my family before taking off for my flight. Saturday's dinner at 'La Barca' was fun and it was great to see some friends before I left, in addition to the total surprise of my dad just showing up at the dinner. I was under the impressiont that he was not coming up to SF for the weekend, so he totally surpised me by showing up on Saturday night. It was actually warm in SF on Saturday! I've never experienced warmer weather in SF! Sunday was low key- we went to church, made breakfast and watched the Little League world series championship game. We went out for a very nice dinner at the Boulevard in the financial district...then the traveling began on Monday!



I flew from SF to Paris on Air France..we were an hour late taking off, and the flight was pretty long but there were a lot of other Syracuse students on the flight. I met girls from Santa Clara that I didn't even know were going to Florence in addition to feeling at ease knowing other girls from SAnta Clara. We all bonded through the traveling experience I feel. I was seated next to a girl on the plane named Maddy from Whitman and we definitely got to chatting and she is the person who I have spent the most time with so far. Once we got to Paris, it was actually raining and it was good that there was a big group of us to find our connection because it was pretty far away, and included getting on a shuttle to the other side of the airport. Buses took us and all our luggage to the hotel we stayed at for the first two nights. The hotel was really nice and was called "The Mediterranean" and was pretty close to the center of Florence. We were a block away from being able to walk adjacent to the Arno. That afternoon, I went on a brief walking tour with a student who had studied in Florence before and she took us to her favorite gelato stand and gave us advice about what phone service to buy, that you buy bus tickets at the Tobacco shops and other miscellaneous info. The streets of Florence are small and pretty. The first few days, and even now I just smile and laugh at all the motorcycles. They are so common and are found everywhere since the streets are smaller and there are a lot of one way streets. The cars in general are a lot smaller and Vespas and scooters are everywhere. The motocicletas have huge windows in the front and do not look like motorcyles do back home.

One of our first nights out in FLorence after we got to the hotel we just wandered around the streets walking near the Arno and we admired the piazzas and streets. The second day was very busy with orientation and going to school to sign up for things. We had a large dinner at the hotel and a safety meeting and meetings about the host families as we were to get our host family the next day. Alex, Julie, Maggie and I decided to go out that night too and check out a bar. First we walked on the other side of the Arno and we found an outdoor area with literally thousands of young Italians. I felt like we stuck out like sore thumbs as there were no Americans in sight and we clearly did not fit in, but we walked around and observed people. I tried twice to talk to some Italians and ask "pala inglese?" but no one spoke English. So we found a bench and just watched the hundreds of young italians socialize at this summer night scene where there are outdoor bars. We noticed that they all seemed very jovial and social, not drunk, but happy to see friends and just hang out. Mannnnny of them smoke though. Cigarette smokers are found everywhere in Italy. Just when we were about to leave we ran into 2 girls from Syracuse and they were headed to a bar so we decided to join them. We went to 'The Red Garter' in Santa Croce where we enjoyed a Carona and danced a little. It was very fun.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel, did a lot of busy and annoying but necessary things at school, and finally at 5pm I met my roomate, Kiera, and around 6pm we met our host mom, Vittoria, who we love!!

Friday we registered for classes and today was my first day of classes but we had a good weekend with the host family. Vittoria and Alessio, are our host parents and they both speak English. Vittoria is actually an Italian professor at school. She is so welcoming and nice. She is very informative and helpful, not to mention the meals have been great so far. I don't usually like tomatoes, but the way they eat them with vinagrette and salt, they are so good! Maybe food is just better in Italy. The bread here is unsalted mostly and every meal starts off with pasta or some sort of rice dish then u may have a meat and vegatables. I have had lots of gelato of co urse too at different gelaterias. We met out host sister on Friday night. Her name is Ludovica and she is 13! She is so sweet and helpful. She is very loving and easy to get along with.

Friday night we went to the Duomo, and had wine on the steps. We socialized and walked very far to a dischotech called "central Park' where I have never seen so many greasy and dressed up Italian men in all my life. We took a taxi home as the Duomo is about 45 min walk from our apartment. We are only 20 minutes from school though. We have been doing a lot of walking here!

I have to go now, but I will write more tomorrow about my weekend with my family and my first couple days of classes!

Love and miss you all.

Ciao ciao