WE MADE IT to Florence.....and finally our luggage did too!

After almost missing our flight in LA and running to each of our connecting flights, Jade and I made it to Florence!  It definitely wasn't a smooth trip, but we are relieved to be here safely.  To start off our trip, all of United systems crashed so we waited in line for over 3 hours.  Somehow, someway we made our first flight to San Francisco.  From there, we had our 10 hour flight to Frankfurt, which was wayyy toooooo long.  I had such a hard time sleeping and getting comfortable. Once we arrived in Germany, we were rushed to catch our flight to Florence.  It was a long day and night traveling, but we landed in Florence at 5:20!  Once we landed, we went to baggage claim only to find out that our bags were left in Germany.  Thank goodness my mom told me to pack some pj's and a change of clothes in my carry on!  I was not happy about having to leave my luggage behind, but they said that they would deliver it the next day.  

I'm happy to say that after 24 hours with no luggage, it finally arrived!  4 huge suitcases between Jade and I.  I wish someone would have had a camera of us trying to wheel them to a cab over the cobblestone pathways.  I dropped one of my suitcases once....oops!  Today was a much better day than yesterday.  We had our first day of Orientation with our new school and learned all about this wonderful place we are going to call our home for the next 4 months.  For lunch, we found the cutest restaurant near the Ponte Vecchio called "Desco", which was filled with all the locals.  We all thought our food was delicious and would definitely go back sometime!  After lunch, we met with our landlord and learned how to work just about everything in our apartment from the washing machine to the dishwasher.  Things in Florence are a little different than home, but I don't think we will have too difficult of a time adjusting! 

Here are pictures of our apartment!  It is so much nicer and bigger than I expected.  I live on Via Cavour, 83!

Jade and I share an adorable room!

One of the cool bathrooms!  So modern..I love it!

Our family/lounge room.  We have a dining table with 7 chairs, so we are excited to cook and have roommate dinners here!

Where all the cooking action will happen.  It's no American kitchen, but I know we will make it work!  Our university offers cooking classes and I know that we will all sign up to learn how to make some authentic italian food! YUM! 

Farewell BBQ with the Spooners, Sekeres & Naillings!

GOODBYE USA, HELLO ITALY!

Tonight was such a fun night! The Spooners, Sekeres & Naillings were all able to get together and have a goodbye BBQ for Jade, Katie, & Me.  It was so wonderful to have our families all together to enjoy a night of good food and good company. We all gathered at our house and enjoyed marinated chicken, ribs, hamburgers, BBQ tri-tip salad, pink salad, and beans.  For dessert we had homemade chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches.  YUM!  Needless to say, no one went home hungry.  It was so nice to have all of our families together one last time before we head off to Florence.  We are so lucky to have such supportive and loving families!  

Even though we go to college in 3 different states, our friendship is still so important to us.  I am so lucky to have these two girls as my best friends.  We are so excited to have this semester together in Italy!  We will always be the 3 musketeers!  We will miss all of our friends in California, Washington, and Colorado, but Florence awaits us!

Even though we are excited to move to Italy, I know that we will miss our families so much.  We have the greatest siblings and parents in the entire world!  

Hi everyone!  As my semester in Florence, Italy quickly approaches, I figured it would be fun to create a blog for everyone to see and hear about my time away.  My goal is to update this often and post lots of pictures!  Words cannot describe how excited I am to study abroad.  I will miss Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and all of my friends there, but I am looking forward to learning all about the Italian culture, food, people, shopping, history, and so much more!