A foreign world

My first full day in Florence was quite long. We had orientation to the school where we were given tours of both of the buildings and then a tour of Florence (mostly information on how useful shops and markets near where we lived) it was interesting and may I add beautiful, or Bella in Italian. I met some fun people, but at this point mostly Americans that were in my program. During the many people who spoke to us during my program it wasn't really a shock that many of them were foreigners who happened to study here fall in love with Italy and never go home. Perhaps that will be me. Being here for only a week now I have already fallen in love with this city. After the first night of orientation, me and a couple of my roommates went out to dinner, we stumbled upon this little pizzeria restaurant and decided to eat there. Once we got inside it seemed like more of a local restaurant rather than a touristy place like many in Florence, but the waiters spoke English so that was helpful. That dinner was really my first experience of feeling like a foreigner in this country, the waiters were nice, but still had a bit of a cold shoulder, and the other customers looked at us quite funny. I imagine this is how foreign people in America feel much of the time. Nonetheless the pizza was amazing, much better than anything you could find in the states.

The second day of orientation was similar to the first, nothing too exciting. That night two of my roommates and I went grocery shopping, quite and interesting experience when you can't read the labels very well, but it turned out okay. Then on Saturday, my partner program had arranged a trip to the Chianti area, just south of Florence, to two small hill towns, Castellina and Greve. We went to Castellina first and the feeling of a foreigner was much more pronounced, not only did the shopkeepers look at you a little funny, but so did the everyday people on the street. Not necessarily and unwelcoming look, but more a look of what you would give a tiger in the zoo with a little less awe. Regardless the towns were gorgeous, still similar winding streets, an amazing view, and fun little markets. The second town, Greve, was a bit bigger than Castellina, still just as beautiful. We were taken to a famous estate, Il Paliggio, for lunch and a wine tasting, because this estate makes wine and olive oil. The lunch was quite good along with the wine. After the lunch we were taken on a tour of the estate, which had part of an old castle in which part had burned down and then it was turned to a fortress, and then finally into the vineyard. The dungeon of the castle was turned into the wine cellar, which we also got to tour. That night instead of going out to a club in town, two of my roommates and I ended up sitting in our kitchen trying to plan some trips we wanted to take and having some bonding time. It was nice because in our apartment of five, I was the last to arrive and the others had already seemed to group up, two of them knew each other previously and the other two always went off and did their own thing, which they still do. But after Saturday I bonded with the other two and found many similarities.

Sunday two of my roommates and I went exploring in the city and did a little bit of shopping, getting some school supplies and what not. We also kept in mind some shops and markets that were reasonably priced, and some restaurants to try out. That night we went out to eat at a little restaurant, which was very good. The waiter could speak about 6 different languages, and he was very friendly, not minding that we were foreign. He was cute too which didn't hurt either. After dinner we went over to the apartment that some other girls in the program live that I have made friends with, and talked and then ended up discussing some trips to take over the semester.

Monday was my first day of classes, a different experience from the US. They have each class only one day a week for three hours at a time. Except I have Italian 4 days a week for two hours at a time. My first class photographing Florence seems like it will be a wonderful experience. Italian is going to be challenging, our teacher speaks to us only in Italian, but if we have a question she will try to answer in English. My third class Textile Technology, is full of foreigners, I am the only American, a girl from Australia, a girl from South Africa, 1 girl and 1 guy from Italy, A girl from Norway, a girl from Asia, and two other girls that I don't know their nationality. The course seems like it will be fun, but quite intense.

I have done so much already in the week that I have been here, it is impossible to include everything, and many things it is impossible to put the feelings into words. It interesting because in some instances I want to just be in my comfort zone, but here there really is no comfort zone. I am constantly forced to go outside my comfort level and grow and experience new things. To some that may sound frightening, but really that is exactly what I wanted this experience to do. Sometimes a person just needs something big to push them to be who they want to be, and when they always have a comfort zone, they will always retreat to it when they can. It is definitely challenging to not have that but I like it.

Ciao!