Arrival in Florence

I made it safely to Florence! I arrived insanely early for my JFK to Frankfurt flight and spent the time relaxing, talking on the phone, and meeting some of my new classmates. I had a bulk head seat on my flight so I had about three feet of leg room! I finished my book and then slept for seven hours. My flight from Florence to Frankfurt was nice and short and I met one of my fellow whitties there. My luggage was the first to come out (yay) so I was the first to meet the representatives from Syracuse outside of the gates. The weirdest part about flying was that I didn’t go through customs. When I got off my flight in Frankfurt, I handed my passport to someone and he stamped it—that was the most of customs as far as I could tell. Because when I got to Florence, I went through the “nothing to declare line” which was actually just an exit. Guess it was silly worrying that my name was misspelled as “Srah” on my visa….

One thing I noticed by sitting by Europeans on the planes, watching the airport news, and looking at international periodicals i: they report on the same thing! This German woman was sitting by me on the flight to Frankfurt reading an article on Michelle Obama in German! I read an article on Michelle Obama in Ebony on my flight to JFK. Everything on the news was either about the U.S. presidential campaign (especially Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter), the U.S. open, or Hurricane Gustav.

We had a packed bus (probably 60 students) to the hotel. I checked in, met my quiet roommate (from Santa Clara), and then took a two hour nap until dinner. My first dinner in Italy was… dreadful. I guess we are at a hotel buffet or maybe I’m used to fabulous New York food? I had some chicken and pesto pasta, but at least the tiramisu dessert was excellent. I sat with a bunch of architecture students from Syracuse who all knew each other but were nice, humourous, and entertaining.

After dinner, I walked around a little by myself and found a small Internet café. Then I met up with like six other random students from Gettysburg, Providence, Colgate, Northwestern and some other schools. We walked along the river to a bridge and heard some music. Then we walked to the Duomo and Santa Croce. Florence is so beautiful—it was nice to see the city in the dark. I am used to just seeing pictures of the Duomo and Santa Croce and its funny just how much more beautiful and massive it is in person. On the way back, we stopped for some gelato (I just had too). I had a small melon cup which was amazing and tasted just like cantaloupe—almost too much as I couldn’t even finish it (and you know how I love my food)! Now, I am sitting in my hotel room (who knows where the roommate is) watching CNN which is one of the only channels in English and listening to the story for like the 100th time about Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter. I am really sick of this story.

Wi-Fi in the hotel is “broken” but I am kind of under the impression that it broken all the time—so don’t know when I’m going to have a time to check my e-mail. That is also why I am uploading all my blog entries all at once.