The Mosquito Mafia

Apologies for my slacking blog updates, I will try to fill ya'll in on what's been going on...

Well on Friday, we had orientation at this magnificent- literally there is no other word to describe it- theater, where they actually show movies in English. (Awesome.) It was pretty boring, but they did tell us some stuff we needed to do and things to do/avoid, so Ashley made fun of me in her blog saying I took copious notes. However, I would like to point out that I just like to have a "to-do" list sort of thing in front of me, so I can visually mark off things I had to do- otherwise I would just forget about them. Anyways, I wrote down what they told us. Then Ashley and I walked around Florence, I forget what we were trying to find exactly, but ended up at the leather market which was one of the coolest things ever! There are vendors literally everywhere- you can get so turned around and completely lost because everything looks the same! Also, another thing we learned upon coming to Florence-- the location of the street signs. When we were in Milan and asked the hotel some suggestions of places to eat for dinner the man gave us these roundabout directions (left, then right, the two lefts, etc.) and we could not figure out how to read the map he also had given us because there were literally no street signs. We came to the conclusion that Italians memorize their street names and locations. Come to find out, the street signs are up on the sides of the buildings. Oh, genius- what a novel idea. So, for future reference, if you're ever coming to Florence, look on the side of the buildings to see the plaque with the name of the street on it. So we're in the middle of the leather market- which is incredible and so neat. We walked around for a little bit, and tried to ask a man what his leather jackets were going for out of curiousity, and he ended up being super wierd and sketchy, and wouldn't tell us the price. Then we came home and waited around for the internet guy/land lord to get here to tell us how to use the stove and washer and set up our internet. That turned into a long 30 minutes, ending up in Ashley's keys that were on the washer accidentally getting picked up with all of their stuff following their explanation to us of how if we lost our keys it would be around 90 euro to replace the keys and change the locks for our safety. We went in the next day, and Mario had her keys, thank goodness! After that, we played around on our internet for a while and then went to the Welcome dinner at this restaurant with all of the students from LdM. The dinner was super nice and so yummy. It was 2 courses and had desert and bread- Italians eat A TON at meals. Crazy. However, we opted out and got gelato and walked around with a girl named Brittany who was here the first half of the summer and showed us around Florence. We walked down to the Duomo, the fake David, and found our way to the Ponte Vecchio bridge which is goooorgeous! and then headed back to crash in bed from exhaustion.

Yesterday, I got up and ran around the Ponte Vecchio with Anne, this sweet girl I met from Missouri, which was lovely. It is so beautiful and cool in the mornings in Florence. I just love it! I got seriously distracted during my run though, as I ended up stopping and looking around (ha!). After our run we went back and got ready to go to the Museo de Uffizi which is in the house (more like enormous stone castle) that the Medici's lived in when they were in power. It was really neat and had all this art and history in it... but it was like 7 hours long, and our legs were dying. I guess we hadn't mentally prepared our selves for a 7 hour trek through a huge museum of art and paitings. But we had gotten these passes that get you in free to a lot of the museums in Florence so we're going to go back and finish the hike another day. We came back and made lunch, baked potatoes- yum! And watched the Bachelorette on Ashley's iTunes and just hung out- which was sooo relaxing! We hung out after that, and I went with Cheryl, one of our roommates to the Pharmacy to try and find some hydrocortisone cream for her enormous, swollen bug bite and found the gluten-free food in Italy! YAY! Then we went back and hung out some more and then went to the Supermarket to get stuff for dinner and made dinner. The best part of the day yesterday is credit to my best friend ever who went and saw Eclipse with me, almost willingly, in Italy. It was sooooo good, I loved it! And it was pretty neat sitting in that magnificent theater watching the movie, complete with intermission. Haha, random? Yes, but great! Then we maneuvered our way home, we are finally figuring out the city- which is verrrry good, and then went to bed because walking seriously wears you out!

Today we have slept in and just plan on getting ready for our first day of class tomorrow. Ash and I are thinking about heading over to the Ponte Vecchio and the Rose Gardens that you climb up and can take pictures of all of Florence on! I am super excited about that! But here are some pictures of Florence and how beautiful it is!

The Duomo... sooo beautiful!

Being artisitc with the Duomo..

Again.. Duomo

Museo de Uffizi.. Where the Medici's lived... aka stone castle

Ponte Vecchio

View across the River

View from our apartment!

Duomo at night!

other view from our apartment

our bathroom and the European washer thing

Ashley and I's room

Okay, by the way, it is sooo hot here. During the night, since there is no air conditioning it is miserable because you sweat and literally wake up damp because you are sweating so much. Gross. Well, then you have to add taht you leavethe windows open but close the shutters so you have some air conditioning, but you are also inviting in the mosquito mafia. I think we all have a total of over 100 bites. Ashley has about five on her face, and one big one on her toe. I have quite a few on my face and a bunch all over my arms and legs. You can't cover up because then you're blazing hot, and so you suffer the attack of the mafia and get eaten alive at night. Maybe they'll teach me something about the mosquito mafia in my history of organized crime class. Because they are definitely organized in their attacks, as you are almost asleep and then they buzz in your ear. Annoying. Hopefully we'll figure out something or some way to combat their antics, but until then, we deal.

Oh, and happy 4th of July to America!!