is this real life?

so today was interesting. we went to the supermarket and learned how to grocery shop. pretty exciting stuff. We also had academic orientation. good news.... i PASSED my placement test and i am in italian 2! i was kind of nervous when the test said there was an oral exam after the written portion... turns out it was just me nervously answering yes and no questions about if I had family in Italy because of my last name. So it was super easy :) and i found out where all of my classes are. The Lorenzo de Medici school doesnt have a "Campus" like most colleges. It is essentially random buildings in the same general area of the city with a couple of them scattered around. Well all of my classes are in the same building.... which i think is a good thing! my schedule also rocks.... one class a day. except wednesdays.. I have 2 classes. we dont have class on Fridays either! holllllaaaa 3 day weekends. you know what that means.... lots of traveling :)

anyways, so today i had my first "ahhaaa" moment. so after our orientation I had to take my placement test and the rest of the girls in my flat went on a mission to find a hair dryer and a straightener. Mary left me with her phone because i dont have one... ill get to that story in a while. So i call them to meet up and they told me they were shopping at zara. So i decided to try to make it back to them without getting a map out... by myself. I made it to the duomo so i had made it halfway there. As im walking through the piazza admiring the duomo the bells from the duomo tower started going off. I literally stopped walking, looked at it, and stared. This building is absolutely stunning. I kid you not it blows my mind every time i walk by, i literally can't believe that something this beautiful is in the middle of this busy city. America is slacking when it comes to pretty buildings. for reals. future architects.... forget the modern look. the detail and fine scultping/molding/whatever it is....yeah thats where its at! ok so im walking.... the church bells are going off... im successfully navigating the city by myself.. and it dawns on me. this is my life for the next 3 1/2 months!!! how insane is that?!?!?! yeah its unbelievable. It was just one of those moments where i realize how fortunate i am to have this opportunity and how thankful i am for it. so thank you parents :) you did good!

so i met up with the girls at zara.... dont worry parents I havent gone shopping... yet!! oh so cell phone story. yeah its a classic. Last night we got crazy lost trying to find the stupid cell phone store. after walking around aimlessly we literally stumble upon it and go to talk to the italian owner. he was no help, kind of hostile, and im pretty sure he thought we were dumb americans and trying to scam us. So we buy the cheapest phone he has. Well he only has 4 left, and then 2 of this other phone that was the same price. There are 6 of us so we said perfect. We picked out our plan, paid for it and headed home. Well me, being the sleepy jet lagged person I was, went to bed last night without opening my phone and decided I wanted to set it up today. Well I go to open the box for my phone and what do i find??? a charger and NO PHONE!!!!! yeah ridiculous.. i know! so i have to go back to the store tomorrow and try to convince the italian guy that there was no phone in it. Im thinking it was the display one or something and hoepfully he gives me another one. This could be interesting.

Well that's all i have for today. Now that we are officially done with all of our orientations, we are on our own schedule. This weekend we are thinking about hitting up the museums because its supposed to rain saturday and sunday. Uffizi and Acadamia (hellooooo statue of David) are calling are names! Also, we think we found a zoo today? so we are going to see what that is all about! Ill post after the weekend with pictures too.

until then... ciao!! :)