Ciao, Firenze!

After what felt like a million hours of flying, I have made it to Firenze! Taking off from Zurich, I had the pleasure of watching the sun set (though the colors in this picture aren't nearly as vibrant as they were in person).

When we landed, we had to take a taxi to SACI, the school I will be studying at, to get our apartment keys. Luckily, my street is less than a block from school so I was able to settle in quickly. The challenge, however, was carrying my three suitcases up three long flights of stairs. Technically, my address states that I'm the second floor. So why three flights of stairs, you ask? In Italy, the ground level is not considered floor one. So I basically live on floor three, though the Italians refer to it as floor two. Weird, huh? 

Once I got all my luggage up all the stairs, I had to fumble around with all these keys trying to figure out which key is for which lock... I still don't know what they all are for! But, at least we have emergency telephone numbers on our keychain.

I was very hungry and craving pizza after I settled in, so I left with a friend who was on my Zurich to Florence flight and walked around the city a bit. Below, is my charming street: Via Del Melarancio 3. I'm not sure if these are leftover Christmas decorations (I hope not because they're super cute!!) but it makes my street all the more charming. 

My street is in such a convenient location. I have a supermarket right next door, a sushi bar right next door, a Chinese restaurant on the corner, a bar that also serves snacks on the corner, a pizzeria right across the street, and of course a coffee shop around the corner. I am less than a 2 minute walk from my friends' apartments, less than a minute walk from school, and about a five minute walk to the Duomo, cathedral, and the leather market. After dinner, my friend, two of the girls I'm living in an apartment with, and I went on a walk around Florence. We saw a million cute restaurants we want to try, the Mercato Centrale Firenze (basically an indoors farmers market with vendors selling cheese, salami, gelato, meat, wine, chocolate, etc), the Duomo, the Cathedral, and more.

We had so much fun exploring that it is past 12am and I haven't even started unpacking yet, and orientation is in the morning!! Yikes.. 

Ciao for now!