WHAT A VIEW!

I am officially convinced that there isn't a bad view in this city!  Everywhere I look I'm just in awe (pictures don't even compare).  This is my first panoramic picture taken today from Boboli Gardens.  

Turn down the lights...cuz it's nighttime in Florence

Just a few night shots of Florence

 This is the bell tower from Piazza della Signoria

 Piazza de' Giudio and the Galileo Museum

Ponte Vecchio and the Riverwalk at night

Daytime in Florence

Piazza della Signoria (A replica of The Statue of David is held here).  My apartment is just around the block from here.

My favorite picture of the Florence Cathedral aka the Duomo, meaning "House of God"

Front of the Duomo.  This thing is literally massive...pictures don't even do a justice.

 The doors leading into the Church.

I don't have any inside pictures yet, as it is hardly ever open...but I'm sure I'll be getting in there soon.

 Santa Croce (Just another Church in Florence)

Piazza di Santa Croce

Time to get creative

So I tackled my first load of laundry last night.  I started it at 5:30 pm...it finished at 8:00 pm.  Two and a half hours to do one load of laundry!  Then because we only have one small clothes line out of our bathroom window and a small drying rack, I had to get creative....so underwear clothes-pinned to the shutters is what it was.  My underwear got dry and it helped keep the bugs out--dual purpose!  Our whole apartment smelled like a laundromat last night..no need for air fresheners.

What's for Dinner?

I never knew that pasta from a box and canned sauce could be so good.  The sauce tastes like it's homemade.  Pasta is so ridiculously cheap here a box/bag cost around €0.40.  The most expensive part of this dinner is the parmigiano-reggiano cheese, which is fresh of course.

Let's go to the Beach each, Let's go get away....

Today we took a bus to Viareggio, a city about 1 hour west of Florence to go to the beach.  After this past week and all the hot heat we've had, it was much needed before school officially starts on Monday.

The weather was perfect.  The water was cool, the sand was hot, and the view was amazing (you can't see in this picture because of the clouds, but the Apuan Alps were in the background).

 This is a picture of the LTU clan.  Ehren, Me, Steph, and Bre.  Note that this picture was taken pretty early on, because we all look like lobsters now.  Sunscreen was 18€ for a small little bottle, so we tried to conserve it for future use.

This is just a picture from the boat dock that I took.

These are "wine boxes" (the juice box for Europeans) that we got today.  Only set us back 1.20€ for a whole liter!

My Apartment

These are some pics of my apartment.  We are right by the main river in Florence, close to Ponte Vecchio, the Duomo, and a 5 minute walk to school.  Prime location.

This is the outside of my apartment.  We have the windows on the top with the green shutters all the way on the right.

This is the street that I live on.  

 This is the kitchen.  Everything is really small, the fridge is about the size of 2 mini fridges stacked.  We have a washer but no dryer...so it's clothes lines out the window and 4 hours to dry.  

 This is the main hallway walking in to the apartment.  We don't have an actual living room, just a couch in the hallway.  The kitchen is just off to the left.

 There are three bedrooms in our apartment.  Two single rooms and one room that is shared, so I share a room with Ehren, my roommate from LTU.

 This is my room.  My bed is to the right.

 This is my bed.  Complete with the retro orange sheets.

We have 2 bathrooms, which is convenient living with 4 people.  I hit my elbows every day in the shower, that's how small it is.  The window in the bathroom looks down into a small courtyard and our neighbors kitchen window looks right into our bathroom.  I'm sure they've encountered some unfortunate situations while making breakfast.

Our apartment is one of the few ones that actually has a bidet.  I had to take a picture of it because everyone here is fascinated by it.  The other day the girls from LTU and all of us roommates had a 20 minute discussion about what the proper way to use it is.  We ended up having to rely on Google/YouTube to tell us the answer.  It was quite the conversation.

Homemade Ravioli

So at dinner tonight, I realized I hadn't taken a picture of any of the food that I've ate here.  Tonight we went out and I got homemade cheese ravioli with fresh tomato basil sauce....only one word to describe DELICIOUS

Not beating the heat

The weather here is so unbelievably hot! Its been over 100 since I arrived.  Many places do not have A/C, or if they do you can't even notice.  With such hot heat we all take naps because its too hot to do anything.  The low temperature that you see usually isn't reached until about 4-5 am, just to be back in the high 90s already when I wake up (9 am).

I MADE IT!

This is the view outside of my bedroom window.  I'm on the third floor...guess I wont have to worry about working out this semester

GOODBYE AMERICA

Goodbye party for all my family to say bye and see me for the last time....of course it had to be Italian themed