italian windows, patience and mosquitoes!

oh my goodness! italy! wow! i'm in florence... and have been for a few days now. i moved into my apartment two days ago. when i last updated, i was sitting and waiting for the housing coordinator to arrive. i got here at 9:30 am and did not get to my apartment until 2 pm. the whole check in process was relatively easy. however, they were using a giant van to take all of us to our apartments, so that we would not wander aimlessly around the streets of florence looking for our apartments. so i had to wait for the second group to go, along with about 6 other people. so while the first group was gone, i sat around and drank water and talked to random people from milwaukee and new york city and random other places. so then we finally go to get into the van and the driver is this tiny old man, and he picked up my huge heavy suitcase to put it in the van and i felt bad. whoops. and then we get in and start dropping people off. well. the people who got dropped off before me lived on like this little side street... it was pretty much a really shady alley. i was super stressed. i knew andrea wasnt going to be at our apartment until much later that night and i didnt know about the other two girls and i was like ohhhh great, this will be fun. and that alley... the huge van went down it. and now i understand why people who park on roads like that bend in their side-view mirrors. seriously.. everyone does that here so they dont get hit. now i completely understand. because of that crazy tiny old man who drove the giant van down a tiiiiiny road. anywho.

so i get to my apartment. liz is the assistant for the school and she speaks italian and english fluently and is from the US and its way cool. she goes with me to my apartment, after the tiny old man asked if i packed the entire country of america in my suitcase. again.. whoops! but we go up to the door.. mom, it was one of those huge awesome doors with the doorknobs high up and in the middle of the door.. im super excited! so liz is like "ok youre on the third floor, which means the fourth in italy and there are probably two sets of stairs between each floor." great. tons more stairs. i cant wait. so i leave my suitcase at the bottom to go up and make sure the key works, and it does. and there are so many stairs... liz told me my butt was gonna look good at the end of the summer from all the stairs.. haha. but we get all the way up there and open the door and HOLY CRAP. my apartment is FREAKING AMAZING!! it is so darn cute, i cannot even tell you! there are 3 bedrooms for 4 people, a bathroom that is teal, and cute little kitchen with a clothesline outside the window, a washer (yay!), a living room with an orange polka-dotted couch and a really old wooden table.. and awesome windows. i love the windows! there are shutters on the outside that open out, and then glass door things that open in and wooden things over the glass that open in, so its like 3 sets of closet doors pretty much, and there are all sorts of ways you can open or close them for light and/or air.. its superb.

so after i freak out about how awesome my apartment is, and run around opening drawers and cabinets and windows and everything, i go back down to get my suitcase and lug it up all those stairs by myself. it was heavy and a lot of stairs and i was sweating a lot, but it wasnt too awful. i think i was so excited about my apartment that i didnt even think about it too much. so i got that upstairs and then realized i was starving because i hadnt eaten anything all day. so i left my apartment and there is a little snack bar place across the street and i went and got bruschette and pasta and ate it for lunch at my cute table in my cute italian apartment facing my open window which looks out into florence. heck yes.

so after i unpacked, i layed on my bed for a while and read some and dozed off a little. then there was knocking at the door, and it was my other roommates!! they're names are erin and stephanie and they're from wisconsin. they're 20 and 21 and are really cool. we walked around town a little and shopped a bit and then came down to campus to get online and went and had dinner and then met up with andrea when she got here. we all went to bed early that first night cause we were tired and had to be up early on saturday. saturday was orientation and a "safety meeting." they had an italian police officer come and try to freak us out, pretty much. i'll spare you the gory details. so me and andrea had lunch together that day and then at 4 we had a meeting on campus with pam and craig and the rest of the gsu crew. oh, and by the way... the campus we're at (there are 2 nearby for our school) is 30 minutes from our apartment. the other campus that we're not at... its 5. good planning, right? haha. but its not a bad walk, and we pass by the duomo, which is HUGE and super cool. (mom, thats the big thing we drove by in the taxi that we were like "woahhhh") its awesome. so me and andrea had come back and taken a nap after lunch and then got gelato to eat on the way to our meeting. it was delicious.

after the meeting, we went to a little mini store, and bough fruit and pasta from an old guy named roberto. he spoke to us in italian and both me and andrea were able to understand him and talk back to him! it was super fun! then we went to our friends' apartment who live right near the school and made dinner with everyone. we had bruschette and pasta with tomato sauce and a bunch of vegetables in it. it was delicious. everyone was drinking wine and beer, and i mixed white wine with peace juice and it was quite tasty. so pretty much we all just hung out and had a good time. everyone in the georgia state group drinks and smokes and parties a lot more than i do, but its totally cool. they're all really cool and fun to hang out with, so im not worried. and andrea seems to be on the same page as me in that, so its definitely a good thing.

after we left their apartment last night at like 11, we went back to our apartment and me, andrea and stephanie found a bunch of old magazines in our apartment. there was a vogue from like the 80s and a bunch of other random italian magazines and stuff. it was pretty darn cool. we ended up going to bed at like 2, and i woke up today at 10. i got up and ate breakfast (a crossiant and a banana.. i love italy!) and then layed in bed again and somehow fell back asleep at like 11. i woke up again at 1:30... haha. who knew i was that tired!? i took another cold shower... ew. we have no hot water in our apartment yet because there is apparently a switch or a knob or something that turns it on, and none of us know how to find it... haha. we really have tried, but i think we're going to get craig to come over and figure it out for us tonight. oh ps... craig and pam are my professors that are doing this whole study abroad thing. they're both georgia state art professors, and theyre married to each other. i had craig for one studio class before, but havent had pam yet. however, theyre both really cool and really good professors and i'm super excited about our classes here! i get 8 hours of credit for 10 days of class (granted, at least 5 hours a day), but some of those days are field trips, too! i cant wait... i love italy! :)

one thing i do not like about italy is the mosquitoes. they were not really an issue until i got to florence. its hotter now than it was when mom was here, but it still cool at night so we keep our windows open. after the first night i had like 3 bites on my neck, a few on my hands, and a few on my legs. after last night, i have another one on my hand, a few on my arms, and probably more on my legs. they are so obnoxious. there are things we can use to plug in to get rid of them, and we have one that was left in our apartment, but there is only one plug in our bedroom and it is by the door. and we were told the best place to put those things is by the window. and i sleep right next to the window, so it would be nice over there. oh well, patience. :)

i also got some wonnnnnderful news last night from a super awesome friend of mine... :) jonathan might be coming here to visit!! one of his roommates works for delta and can get him a buddy pass so the whole plane ticket wont be very much money at all. he would come at the end of the trip, when im done with class, and we'd just hang out and have a jolly time. in case youre wondering, no we are not together right now. however, we have both been praying a lot about our relationship and where God wants us, and i think we both feel that God is leading us back to each other. i'm pretty darn excited about him coming here. and even if it ends up that he cant, thats ok, and i'm still excited about seeing him when i get back. :)

anywho... classes start tomorrow. im excited. i have some stuff to do today before tomorrow morning. and we're all going to dinner tonight and that should be fun. i'm going to try to upload pictures now, and try and put some choice ones on here. i dont have any of my apartment yet, but i will hopefully do that sometime this week, or maybe next weekend. there are only 5 computers in the lab and they are mainly for schoolwork, so i just happen to have a lot of time today because classes havent started yet. so, please be patient.. haha. thats one huuuuuge thing im learning here is about being patient. everything in italy takes patience. people dont understand you, keys dont work, people take forever for certain things... you know. haha yay patience. anyway... hopefully some pictures will work. keep leaving comments if you can... they make me super excited! if you dont have an account on here, you can still leave them anonymously. id love to hear from you guys! i miss you all!!


Also... I have an address in case you want to send me mail. But honestly, it probably isn't worth all the trouble, and you should just email me. But, if you absolutely have to, or just really want to, you can send it to either of these addresses. Also, if you do, please let me know so I check my mail. Because, currently, I have no idea where my mailbox is or how to check it or anything.

Student's Name
Santa Reparata International School of Art
Piazza Strozzi, 2
50123 Florence, Italy

Student's Name
Santa Reparata International School of Art
Via San Gallo, 30
50129 Florence, Italy

As far as pictures go... I don't know if I will be able to get them on here. Blogspot is all in italian, and I don't know it well enough to be able to post them without breaking something.. haha. I'll try to figure it out. My portable hard drive is not being recognized when I plug it into the computer. It has worked before, but I am on a mac this time, and I am not as familiar with macs, so I'm not sure what to do to try and figure it out. I'm going to try and get it working soon. Until then, the pictures that are on my camera right now will be put into a snapfish photo album. Apparently yahoo photos is closing in September, and so they are moving all my pictures for me that are already on yahoo. So I'm going to put all my most recent pictures that are still on my camera into that album and you will be able to look at those at least. The rest of them will be on there as soon as I can find someone who knows a lot about macs and portable hard drives. :)

I am seriously computer retarded, I think. I cannot figure out how to get the web address for the pictures I uploaded. There are only 55 right now, but there will be 500 more from the beginning of the trip on there when I get home... I haven't figured out how I'm going to do this whole picture thing because my hard drive won't work and I can't sit and upload every picture one by one from my camera everytime it gets full. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. It's kind of worrying me! Anyway, this ordeal is not working right now, so again, please be patient with pictures. They will come eventually, it may just not be til I get home. Or maybe I'll try facebook later. I'm not sure. But they will come eventually. I miss all of you guys!! Ciao!!