Firenze!

Greetings from Firenze!! Been in Florence for two days now and I love it sooo much! It definitely makes up for the horribleness of getting here. After we checked in(finally)on Sunday, Paige and I were FINALLY able to unpack our stuff which was really nice because I feel like I've been living out of a suitcase for two weeks now. We have three other roommates, but they weren't home when we arrived. After unpacking, we tried (unsuccessfully) to start the weird euro washing machine for about 20 minutes, but eventually gave up after hitting every single button without anything happening. We were suuuuper hungry at this point and in desperate need of a VERY large drink, some walked down the street towards the grocery store (Conad) and stopped at a suuuuuper cute pizzeria called Mr. Pizza. We got a margharita (I know this is spelled wrong) pizza and big glasses o wine. Paige's came out of a tap, which was cool/I had never seen before. We both felt sooo much better after eating and headed over to the grocery. It's by far the biggest one I've seen yet in Europe. And is right down the street, which is nice. It was about 8 when we got back and we were so tired that we both just showered and pretty much passed out when we got back. Oh yeah, we both had to throw away all of towels when we left Paris, so I had to use my one hand towel and Paige had to rely on paper towels. It was great.... Woke up in the morning and went out of he room to walk to the bathroom and I see two girls asleep on the like loves seat couches in the common room area. I thought they were friends of our roommates or something, but when they woke up I found out they were 2 of our roomies. They just sleep I there be try say their rooms are too it. Tehe. It does not look comfy at all. But, it's not like our beds are really that much better. Think camp bunk beds without the top bunk, plus lots of springs and wires in the inside. Or roommates are really cool! We def lucked out! They have already been in Florence for 9 weeks, so they know what's up and all the cook places to go, so that's great. They (Becca, Kelly and Jordan) told me that they had been in Croatia all weekend and got back in the middle of the night. Jelly. We had orientation at noon. Thankfully it didn't last too, long, but did make me upper nervous about clogging the shower drain, breaking my key off in the door, looking my keys in the apt, having overnight guests (not that I was planning on having any- I am a lady after all), or messing up the washing machine because apparently it is crazy expensive to fix those things. It costs 259€ just to CALL the locks smith! Need,ess to say, we are both now very scared every time we use a key. Also, there is some Italian las that says you have to register overnight guests with the police. Not really sure why, but if you have someone stay at all you immediately get kicked out of the program. After orientation, we walked around a bunch- went to this really cool leather school, where you can get purses made (I only wish I had enough money for that) and walked over ponte vecchio. We were walking pastfabric store and staring in the inside when an old man waved at us and told us to come in. It was such a beautiful store- make suits and sell like Chanel and Valentino fabric. We were talking to the one old man when another started talking to us. We got to talking and he ended up sitting us Dow. And giving us a lesson about why Florence is the most important city in Europe- it was. The seat of the renaissance, the home of the medici's and the origin of perfume and all the high fashions that became popular in Paris after catherine de Medici moved there to marry. He also took our map and marked all the important city center we need to go to- the political, religious and art centers. He was soooo nice and it was a crazy/awesome/completely unexpected experience. Before we left he showed us pictures of all the royal families they have made clothing for and some celebs like Venus williams, Cher and Sophia Loren while we signed their guest book. Mehhhh, kind of getting tired of writing on this iPad and I need to go read- will continue tomorrow!! xo, Olivia