Florence, Italy- Week Two

Ciao!

This week has gone by molto veloce (very fast)! Yet, I had a great first week of classes and a fantastico time in Chianti this weekend! My week started off with 8:45 am Collection Theory class- my first real fashion design class- even taught by a fashion designer here in Italy! Following that class I had Italian language and Graphic Design. I really like my Italian language professor, although it can be hard to understand her Italian accent at times! Tuesday I had Fashion Illustration, where we began drawing! Since I have never taken a sketching class it was really hard for me to begin drawing yet I will get plenty of practice with all the homework! We were assigned 15 sketches for next week! Wednesday I had Pattern Design, a class where we will begin making patterns for clothing! I have 8:45 am class Monday- Wednesday and Italian language everyday from 12:30-2:30- hopefully all that class time will help with picking up on the language quickly! Luckily all my professors speak pretty good English. They speak both Italian and English in class because there are Italian students, as well as students from all over the world! The best part of my schedule is having no class on Fridays! Yay for 3 day weekends! :)

Everyday is an adventure walking the fifteen minutes to school, passing by gorgeous architecturally designed buildings and churches, the most scenic areas in Florence, cute cafes, Italian shops, men trying to sell umbrellas' (which happened almost everyday considering all the rain we got this week!), tourists, and all kinds of people and languages!

Wednesday night, 5 of us girls went to a really cool bar called Art Bar where they use fresh fruit to create "art" around cocktails! It was super yummy, as you can see from my picture!

Friday I decided to take an adventure to visit my dad's cousin, Lisa, who lives in Florence and works at a Pilate's Studio! It was really cool seeing her after several years and seeing where she works! I will definitely have to take her up on her offer to attend her Friday 9 am yoga classes! My friend Jenna went with me and afterwards we explored an area of Florence that we had not yet discovered! It was nice to get away from the city center to an area with less crowds and more residential areas, since we live in the middle of all the excitement of the city!

The real excitement of the week was taking an overnight trip to Chianti with my study abroad program! We left at 5 pm Saturday and took a bus into the hills of Tuscany 30 minutes from Florence to an estate where wine and olive oil are produced! We ate amazing 3 course authentic Tuscan meals, learned about the production of wine, how to properly taste and drink wine and discussed culture shock. I am currently in the “honeymoon” stage of culture shock and have a feeling I may be in this stage the entire time! Probably not...but I absolutely love Italy! The slower pace of life, more enjoyment of food and beverages, cultured people, fabulous fashion, and beauty everywhere I look have made me fall in love with Florence. 

Well this blog post was supposed to go out this past weekend but sketching homework has postponed it! However I wanted to get this out before I leave for Rome tomorrow! I am meeting Alex there and I am super excited! He has been studying abroad in Spain since August and I haven’t seen him for 6 months. The next 5 weekends are booked with trips I am taking around Italy which include Rome, Venice Carnival, Siena and San Gimignano, Verona, and Milan! I am so excited to do more exploring of this amazing, gorgeous country! Keep reading in the coming weeks to here all about these trips!

Florence, Italy- Week One

Welcome everyone to my first blog post! I have been in Florence, Italy now for almost a week and I am loving it! I arrived on Monday, January 7th, after 2 days of traveling. My family took me to Billings, MT on Saturday, January 5th and I flew out from Billings at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, January 6th. After 4 flights from Billings- Denver- Chicago- Zurich, Switzerland- Florence, I arrived! My flight from Zurich to Florence was absolutely breathtaking because we flew over the Swiss Alps! I'm sorry Montana and Canadian Rockies, but you have NOTHING on the Swiss Alps. They are out of this world. So beautiful. The picture below was taken from my window seat of the airplane. 

Upon arrival in Florence, I met up with Jenna Rogness, my best friend/roommate and fellow classmate at Concordia College. We ended up arriving a day early than we were supposed to, oops! So we booked a hotel in advance and stayed there the night of the 7th. We were both jet lagged and felt gross from 24 hours of flying, but were so happy to be in Florence! This is a picture of us upon arrival to our hotel, Soggiorno Pitti Affittacamere, which was located in the city center of Florence. 

 The next morning we took a taxi to our apartment on Borgo Degli Albizi and moved in! We were surprised to find that our apartment was huge! With 2 single rooms, one very large double room, a big living room, kitchen and 2 bathrooms. Jenna and I both got our own rooms and a few hours later our roommates arrived and moved in! That evening we had a delicious authentic meal at a restaurant called Baldovino. We had lasagna and a dish with truffle oil, red wine, and tiramisu for dessert. It was delicious! 


The next day, Wednesday January 9th, we started orientation at Accademia Italiana. Accademia Italiana is one of the best art, fashion and design schools in Europe, so I feel incredibly lucky to be taking classes in the fashion program! I will be taking Collection 1, Pattern Design 1, Fashion Illustration 1, Basic Computer Graphic Design and Italian Language. We start classes on Monday and I'm really excited! In addition to learning about the basics of living in Italy, we also took tours around Florence, my favorite one so far being to Fiesole, a hill outside Florence where you could see the whole city below. The picture to the right was taken of me at Fiesole with the city of Florence behind me. Such a gorgeous view!

Orientation lasted from Wednesday, January 9th- Friday, January 11th. During that time we had to prepare documents for our permit to stay, secure our class schedules, and just learn about Italian life! Friday night 6 of us girls went to a club called Twenty-One, for international students, which was really fun! I got a drink called a negroni- very popular in Italy and danced to American pop-rap music! 


This weekend we are having a chill weekend, with sleeping in, going to a few shops, and meeting new friends! 

Stay tuned for my adventures next week, as I begin classes and take a trip to Tuscany to wine vineyards over the weekend! Thanks for visiting my blog!