Orientation and move in!

Sooo...
Wednesday morning, I walked to try to find an atm and a place to rent a cell phone and OF COURSE I got lost.... I tried to ask people in Italian how to get around, but the directions in italian didn't help too much....anyway after that I walked my bags to the orientation hotel (Hotel Grand Baglioni) and I met up with a few people. We decided to walk around the city because the rest of the people on my program weren't supposed to arrive till later...so we walked around and around, got lost of course, and really got to see a lot of the city.

Once everyone arrived, we all had a mini orientation where the staff told us the rules, safety precautions, etc. and then we had dinner on the roof top terrace of the hotel...the view was mind blowing!!

I was really shocked though that we didn't have a single ice breaker. I thought for sure we were going to have several... We didn't even have name tags!! Everyone seems nice, but it's kind of hard right now because people are really sticking together with other people they go to school with...once classes start it will be better though and everyone will get into a routine...

On the first night, a bunch of people went out, but I decided since I'm going to be here for so long, i might as well just get over my jet lag, sleep and then go out the next night... that 11 hour night sleep was incredible!

Yesterday, Thursday, we were split into groups and took a walking tour of the city with a guide...it was really pretty interesting....The weather was so funny though...it was really bright, humid and sunny in the morning and then all of a sudden it started to drizzle and then buckets of rain came down and within 10 minutes, it was all sunny again. The funniest part of all of that is right before it started to rain I was thinking to myself "wow it is super hot...some water would be so wonderful about now..." hey universe, I wasn't talking about THAT kind of water....

Last night for dinner, we all ate at this really nice pizza place right next to the Ponte Vecchio. After that, I went out with a group of people and first went to a liquor shop....I bought the best wine. It was sweet, white and wonderful. Needless to say, I definitely felt that alcohol...We then went to a pub and just hung out for a bit and then proceeded to a club where there were basically only Americans, which kinda sucked, but that's ok....the drinks were sooo pricey, but the dancing was fun!!

And then today was move-in day. I am living in an 8 person flat right on the Arno River. It is so stunning. You look outside our eating area and living room and you see the Arno River, the Ponte Vecchio and the other apartments on the other side of the river...so gorgeous! And the flat is huge!! There are 4 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, an eating area, a ton of linen closets and really long hallways...I'll post pictures when I get internet in my apartment...

For the time being, I am just using a computer at school...and it is air conditioned here...SO wonderful! Air conditioned rooms are amazing to say the least in this humid weather...

Anyway that's all for now, hope everyone is doing well in the states!!