Firenze

When I was in middle school, I told my mom I wanted to do a foreign exchange program. We requested information on multiple programs when I got to high school, and I thought that I was actually going to go through with it my junior year. But as we all already know...time flies by, and before I knew it I was graduating from high school and beginning my freshman year in college.

Not only did Syracuse offer my dream major, but it also has an incredible study abroad program. When I found out about studying abroad, I knew that is was definitely an experience that would be in my future. Beijing, Hong Kong, Florence, London, Madrid, Santiago, Strasbourg...so many options! I did not even second guess myself...My choice was Florence, Italy. Even though, I was conversational in French and had no working knowledge of the Italian language besides "Ciao Bella" I knew that I wanted to spend four months in one of the most gorgeous cities in Italy.

On the flight from New York to Rome, I sat by this little Italian boy that was traveling alone. I tried to talk to him, but an apparent language barrier existed. He knew more English than I knew Italian so I resorted to using hand gestures. He probably thought I was ridiculous. I even took out my pocket size Italian/English dictionary to try to interact with this little boy, but I didn't even know how to sound out Italian words at this point. The "Drive Time Italian" CD collection that I bought obviously did not prepare me. I should have tried to learn Italian the way the boy sitting next to me learned English: Video Games!

I arrived in Florence on September 1st. After a few hours of waiting around in the airport, we loaded our luggage on tour buses that drove us to Hotel Mediterraneo.  The hotel was 100 steps from The Arno River.  There was a small outdoor cafe situated near the water.  I could not wait to sit by the water and look up and down the river.  The first time I went to the cafe I was by myself and I was content and mesmerized by the sights I was taking in.  This was a favorite spot of mine and I later returned with a few of the people I met on the plan.  This was the place where we committed our first Italian faux pas.  Wine and Italy are thought to go hand in hand.  So with this knowledge in mind, the girls and I each ordered a glass of wine.  We began sipping on our wine, talking quickly in English, and then slowly began to look around at the people around us.  To our surprise, no one was drinking a glass of wine!  Apparently, wine is not the drink of choice before dinner.  There was a large group of young Italians and everyone of them had a beer infront of them.  Wow was that a shock for me!

This was just the beginning of an unbelievable adventure...