The Secret Bakery....found.

One of my top recommendations for anyone studying abroad in Florence would be to search and find The Secret Bakery. In the list of things to do here that one of my best friends sent me after studying abroad here last semester, one of the items was find the Secret Bakery. As I have said before in one of my posts, there are no places open late at night for food here...but wait...Florence has a secret little gem. The Secret Bakery opens late at night, around 2pm, and serves delicious treats to those that can find it's location. You would never know it was an actually bakery from the looks of it outside, since there is only a sign that says "Be Quiet Please."

Of course I can't tell you how to get there, since that would ruin all the fun....but this is what you're looking for. That is all. And the product is absolutely amazing. They came to the door and just asked us what we wanted, a plain, cream or chocolate croissant. We know you can get invited in and that they have more selections, but we were a loud, big, group so we think that's why he just took our tally. After waiting only a few minutes, and paying only a Euro, we were given the most delicious, still warm, pastries that we have ever received! Good luck on the adventure!! :) 

Spring Break....BOOKED.

Today has been an amazing day in the journey of being abroad, the day that I can finally say two things: 1) Matt is officially coming to Italy, his flight is booked! and 2) We just booked our Spring Break adventure together to Amsterdam and Barcelona!! We booked everything on easyjet.com (baller website) and we will be taking a train from Florence to Rome and then flying from Rome to Amsterdam, staying there for 4 days and then heading over to Barcelona for 4 days and then flying into Milan and taking the train back to good 'ol Florence. So much to see, I am so excited to finally go to two cities that I have been dying to get to!

Last night we went out to a new bar, Naima, that Jessica (my friend from home who is here with UCONN) has always been raving about. Our group finally made it there and it was the one boy on our trip's 21st birthday, so celebrations were in order. They had great drink specials all night long, it was a fun, relaxed environment with couches and stuff to hang out on... we will definitely be returning in the near future! 

We are staying in Florence this weekend, venturing around this beautiful city (and possibly getting some assignments done for the classroom.)

Oh PS. if anyone has been to Barcelona or Amsterdam please leave me with places to see/go/go out, all that good stuff! 

Ciao amichiiii

first adventure on our own- Bologna

This was our first weekend going on a trip by ourselves, and to sum it up it was extremely successful! We took a train from Santa Maria Novella in Florence to Bologna, which on the way there took us only 40 minutes. There are 3 grades of trains, the Eurostar (fast), the Intercity (medium), and the Regional (slow) speed. We took the Eurostar on the way there and we took the Intercity coming back, which only took an hour. Our group of 8 successfully made it through the train station without getting robbed, success! It wasn't nearly as crowded or chaotic as I thought it was going to be, but we were definitely better being safe than sorry.
As soon as you get off the train in Bologna the main street leads you to Via dell'Indipendenzia, which is shopping CENTRAL. That road had basically every store you could imagine, clothing, shoe, makeup, food, and then right off that main road was the HUGE market which has bargains on shoes, scarves, bags... aka the hotspot. Many of us found boots for cheap, I got grey leather boots for only 40 euros....success! We then continued down the road and went into basically every store, since the sale season in Italy is only in January and July so why not! We passed by one store that had Longchamps in the window, my eyes opened wide and I made the decision for all of us to dash inside. I got an all purple Longchamp for only 45 Euros, such a steal!

After tiring ourselves out from all the shopping we headed to the center of the city at the end of the road and saw the town hall and the cathedral which was being renovated at the time. We traveled down a side street and got to the chocolate shop that the grad student directed us to, which was the fanciest candy store I've ever entered. I actually resisted to purchase any chocolate but everything looked amazing!

We finished our day trip relaxing for a few hours at a cafe where we enjoyed some cappuccinos and then  had aperitivo for dinner at a wine bar. Aperitivo is amazing and I think we need to start it up in the states, basically you pay for an alcoholic drink and then the bar provides food for free. You can go up as many times as you want, so it's basically their version of a buffet. We had it again tonight back in Florence in the Piazza di Santo Spirito which is right by our school and it was even better than the night before. Once again, success!

Onto a new week of classes and such...this week we are starting our regular schedule of Italian so we don't have to go to class every morning like we did for the first two weeks, score. Enjoy your football games you lovely Americans :)

Ciaoooo!

Ps. Random sidenote: If anyone is planning on studying abroad here, the homestays are freezing...make sure you bring a sweatshirt and slippers!

Best news of my life...

Last night we went out to a new bar called Bacco Bar, located in Santa Croce, that had the special of 1 euro beers starting at 10pm and increasing 50 cents each half hour. Great way for us to have fun and save some cash! It was a good location and a fun time, our plan was to head over to Club 21 after that but we never made it there because we all got hungry and headed over to The Williams Pub for some American hamburgers, hot dogs and fries. Good to know fact: places don't stay open late for food here, so that means no late night munchies like in the states!

As some of you may have seen on my Facebook, yesterday I was the happiest person in the entire world. And as Kari Friedman commented..."blog about it." So I have forewarned Matt that I am going to be blogging about him in advance, sorry not sorry! :) My boyfriend headed back to University of Albany for his final semester, not being registered for one class. His mom offered him a trip to Italy for his graduation present if he was able to get into all of his classes. Their classes started on Wednesday and he got into 2 out of 6 classes, so everything was riding on yesterday. When I came back home last night and got onto Skype, I found out that he got into all 6 classes!!! I literally fell asleep smiling cause this means that he gets to come for his week long winter break which is my spring break, in 3 weeks! I'm so proud that he'll be graduating this semester and jumping into the real world!!! (YAY Matt!)

Tomorrow we are taking the train to Bologna at 10am to spend the entire day there and come back to Florence at 8:30pm. One of the JMU graduate students informed us of all the places to shop, the markets, the best restaurants (they are known for tortellini in bolognese sauce), and the best chocolate and Nutella shops! I am so excited for our first trip on our own to explore the amazinnng city of Bologna!

Ciao amichi!!!

wait... we actually have classes?

This is the first week that all of our classes have officially started...wait, so we actually have school work? It seems unreal that we actually have work to do. Classes here are longer than they are at JMU, they are each an hour and 30 minutes. We don't have desks in the classroom that were in, which I'm convinced makes it harder to concentrate. I dropped one of my classes, Architecture and Urban Planning, since it was would have been very difficult for me. Lets just say I was the only Speech Pathology major surrounded by all Art History majors... instead I decided that I'm going to take 6 credits of Italian, which only entitles me to going to class one extra day of the week. Might as well tackle the language while I have the opportunity!   For most of my classes here we get to explore the city one day a week for the class in order to further learn the topic by going to museums and exhibits, which is a nice addition to the classroom. Tomorrow we are going to the Uffizi museum for our Art History class, which I'm actually excited for! Me gaining an interest in art... I never thought it would happen!
We went out last night to a couple bars to hang out and relax. Both places were really nice and they were very generous in giving us free pickings and telling us to return back to their bar. Today we tried out a new place for lunch, Casalinga, which was delicious! I got Minestrone di Pasta e Fagoli, which is one of my favorite meals that my mom makes, for those of you who don't know what it is... its soup with pasta and white beans, aka amazing. Also just a little random fun fact about Italy, people bring their dogs EVERYWHERE. There were 2 where we ate lunch today, they bring them shopping, to the cafe, i mean everywhere.
This weekend we plan on taking a day trip to Bologna, which we heard has great shopping and is very beautiful. Then again, what city in Italy isn't!?

Ciao amichi!!!

First weekend in Florence

Our JMU program took us on our first organized weekend trip to Siena. It was a beautiful, countryside city that we got to explore on our first weekend abroad, only an hour bus ride from Florence. We met up with our tour guide... who got quite boring quite quickly, but we got to learn and discover some beautiful areas of Siena. 

 San Dominico

 The Cathedral 

 Piazza del Campo

Last night we headed to Dante's for dinner, a pizzeria that also offers free wine for students. We got delicious pizza and wound up getting two bottles of Chianti wine for free! The waiters loved us and also gave us free t-shirts and hats as well, such friendly Italians... we will definitely be returning. 

After our busy day yesterday, I wound up sleeping in until 1pm today since it was the first time that I could! My roommates and I decided to head out for a day of shopping in Florence! We went to Zara, H&M and some local markets that had leather bags and scarves. I didn't go on a crazy shopping spree because I want to explore other stores, but at orientation we learned that the sale season in Florence is only in January and July...so why wait?! Sales = madhouse. When people shop here they are all over the place, they don't move out of your way and the stores are extremely crowded, but hey, I guess no one wants to pass up a good deal...

the little details

One concern that I had before coming here was what the weather was going to be like. While everyone at home got bombarded with the 8 inches of snow this weekend, the weather here has been in the 50s every single day. The students in the graduate program said that this is unusually warm but I'll keep praying that it doesn't get any colder. I can definitely live with this rather than it being 20 degrees back in the good ol' 'burg. 

As for our house...not only is our home-stay mother an amazing cook but she hardly speaks any English. She forces us to practice and I love it. We have the best dinner conversations, passing a dictionary back and forth. She says that she loves us and that her students last semester never even tried to talk to her and that she enjoys our company. :) 

The food here is absolutely amazing. I know everyone says it, but it truly is so fresh and delicious and tasty. For any of you that heard that the pizza is not that good here, that's false. Gustapizza, which is located right by our school is delicious and the same family also owns a panini shop right down the street called Gustopanino, which is also the best panino we've had so far. 

The people here drive like maniacs.. so when people say New York drivers are crazy, come to Europe.. they drive three cars in a lane, with vespas, all over the place! My first architecture class was cancelled because our professor got hit by a car when he was on his way to school on his bike...wild! 

Today we did some journeying of our own, walked in the Duomo and ventured to the Piazza di Santa Croce and then sat along the River Arno (below)

Tomorrow we have our first day trip to Siena, so excited to see another beautiful city in Italy! Ciaoooo

Ciao from Firenze!!

Greetings from Florence!!
After lots of traveling and staying awake to avoid jet-lag, I'm finally getting settled here. Traveling was a breeze, Lufthansa is an amazing airline if you ever get the choice, just sayin. Everything has been amazing so far, our homestay mother is amazing... she is the best cook ever. For the first meal we had lasagna as the first course, followed by salad and beef, and then fruit and cake for dessert. She never makes us take more than we can handle, and everything just tastes amazing. This is the view from our homestay window, right along the River Arno...beautiful!

Today we had our JMU orientation, got our Italian cell phones and internet in the school, and then took a walking tour of Central Florence to show us the way around and to give us reference points. When we took a break we all got our first italian gelato!

I still can't believe that I'm going to be staying here for 3 months... there is so much to see and so much journeying to explore! The adventure is just beginning... 

Ciao!!! 

Mission Accomplished

As I started laying out everything that I needed to pack for Florence, my anxiety skyrocketed. Originally I was planning on paying an extra $50 to check my second bag for the flight but then Stacey told me she fit everything into one so I freaked out and tried to fit everything in one checked bag. Is that even possible?!

And then I tackled the rolling technique. I rolled all my clothes up, and miraculously...it all fit into one bag! Without space bags!!!

That left me with my carry on duffel bag to fit my clothes and other remaining items (and extra room for when I come back). Clutch.  Packing for Three Months in Two Bags: Mission Accomplished. My flight leaves in 7 hours, I can't believe it!! Upcoming missions to accomplish.. jet.lag. Next time I blog i'll officially be in Florence, arrivederci America!!!

"lists are good..."

My departure to Florence is only one week away... and yet I'm still slacking on the dreaded process of packing. These were the instructions that I was given to help guide my packing: pack light. That's it... pack light? How am I supposed to pack light when I need to pack for THREE MONTHS!? They told us that we would need warm clothes and jackets for when it's cold and then some days it may be hot enough to go swimming...welllll that lead me to create a list. I have asked others who went abroad for their advice on things to bring and I got some other helpful hints along the way:

1. Don't bring heels because it's hard to walk on the cobblestone roads
2. Bring layers and basics (a must)
3. Bring warm clothes and slippers for the cold home-stay
4. Gotta bring your toiletries since they're expensive and hard to find the right match
5. Don't bring too much because you will definitely shop and have more on your way back (truth)

So after taking this advice and attempting to organize myself this is my personal packing list:

• Clothes- kinda broad for now...but I plan on packing only the clothes I wear the most, my basics, leggings, scarves, jeans
• Socks & undies
• 1 sweatshirt and 2 sweatpants for the house (will probably wear on the plane)
• Sneakers, boots- not Uggs, but 2 flat boots and one heeled, slippers, and some sandals 
• Bathing suit
• Toiletries and Make up
• Ipod, Camera AND CHARGERS (of course!)
• Adapter- a must if you want to use your electronics for more than a week
• Journal and Books
• Medicine (just in case)
• Detergent sheets (since we need to do our own laundry)
• Visa letter and Passport :)

Hopefully I'll be able to stick to my list and everything will fit into my three suitcases... wish me luck! Pictures to come when the process is complete!!