Primo Giorno (First Day)!

Buona Sera!

We just got back from our first dinner out and a few of us decided to come down here and blog for a bit before turning in as an attempt to beat this jet-lag. Both of my flights went very smoothly. Both left on time and one arrived early. No lost baggage (!) and a very quick and easy taxi ride from the Florence airport to our hotel. We are now staying in a hotel for the first two nights until we move into our host family homes on Tuesday. It's actually really nice because it's in the same building as our Italian language school so it'll be nice to be here for a couple days. We arrived at the hotel around 3:30 this afternoon and a few of us went out exploring around Florence to fill the three hours before we were meeting for dinner. We walked down to the Duomo, to the river, and back, seeing a lot of the major sights in between. It is incredibly hot here (it was over 90 today), but it was beautiful and sunny so Florence looked just beautiful :)

After our walk, we hung out in the hotel for a while and I may or may not have taken a short nap by accident :P At 7:00, we met as a group in one of the classrooms in our building before heading out for dinner. We learned that three of the students are delayed back home on the east coast because of Irene. Two of them can't make it out until Thursday! I am so glad we got here without any trouble. Dinner was delicious, although I was absolutely exhausted and couldn't eat all of the three course meal. After dinner, we took a little walk as a group and ended up getting gelato. I had peach and raspberry gelato which was simply delightful :) Then we walked home and here I am now. I don't have a whole lot to say besides that at the moment, and besides, I must get some sleep. I already posted my favorite photo from today but I'll indulge you with a few more because who knows how often I will update this.

Italian class starts tomorrow at 9:00...woah! Goodnight :)

xoxo Kari

 The view out the plane at the Alps

 The balcony of our room! (I just got off the plane........)

First gelato