When the birds are as psychotic as the fifty or so living directly above our balcony, they make it their living duty to serve as our 7:30 wake up call. And if that isn’t enough, how about waking up on Sunday to “Here Comes the Bride” and a wedding going on in the garden that our balcony overlooks. Needless to say, it beats the high pitched shriek of my cell phone that woke me up daily at Penn State.

On Thursday, I moved into my apartment in Florence. There are 5 of us in here, and we scored big time on the apartment draw. If the third floor balcony overlooking one of the most picturesque gardens I’ve ever seen isn’t enough, how about the abundance of food that the school left for us in our kitchen, the spacious bedrooms and bathrooms, or the awesome friends we’ve made around our building? As far as the apartment goes, there isn’t much to complain about. But oh man, I have a 15-20 minute walk to and from school every day, which is an awful chore when the weather is constantly beautiful and I get to walk by the most breathtaking building I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Like I said, not much to complain about.

I’d also like to take a minute to give a shout out to the high quality orange juice in Florence. If it weren’t worth noting, I wouldn’t, but I drink 5-10 glasses a day because it is tenfold better than the OJ at home. Think about that!

On Friday, the school took us to orientation in a town called Fiesole, which is on top of a hill overlooking Florence about a 15 minute bus ride away. The view from the highest point in Fiesole provided hands down, undoubtedly, the most amazing view I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I tried posting a picture to the blog about a half an hour ago of the view, but it ended up erasing my entire post so I can’t provide that, but you can find it on Facebook!! Regardless, it is simply impossible to put into words the feeling of standing in Fiesole overlooking Florence and its surrounding hills.

My new friends and I have also had a great time going out at night this weekend. We searched out some fun local bars and had ourselves a nice time. Get this: I caught the end of the Flyers game at a local bar on Saturday.. Awesome!! I’ve gotten extremely lucky from the aspect of friendship in Florence. All of my roomates are awesome, and everyone I’ve met is extremely friendly. We all get along really well. Not to mention, and I could go on for awhile about this, but my apartment has taken serious steps to achieve the real Italian feel for home cooked meals. Every day, we go out and buy fresh groceries for that night’s meal, and we cook from scratch. My one roomate is an awesome chef, so he leads the charge, but we have been cooking some high quality Italian meals up in here. For example, on Sunday night, we made penne with like three different cheeses, topped with meatballs made from scratch, and self-constructed garlic bread on the side. And of course, we had ourselves some 2 euro red wine, which is all too delicious for any occasion. Since then, we’ve had some other awesome meals, and we might be making steaks tonight. Ohhh yeah.

As far as school goes, I’ve been to the first of both of my classes. Yesterday, I had “The Villa and the Garden” from 9-12:15. We sat in a class for like an hour and then went walking to some awesome buildings around town. In front of the Palazzo Strozzi, we witnessed like a 30 car motorcade roll up with a bunch of dudes in black suits and glasses, all unfolding within about 20 seconds. I’ve never seen anything like that at home, but it seemed as if some important political figure was hangin out in Florence. More about the class though: From now on, all of our remaining Villa/Garden classes will take place on site at sweet country villas and gardens. One of my roomates, a fellow Penn Stater, is in my class with me, so we are gonna be getting our field trip on every Monday and Wednesday for the next 6 weeks. The school pays for transportation to every day’s lecture site too, so Dan doesn’t need to drop any extra euros….
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have my Management course, the first of which was this morning. By the way, it’s 4:00 here. That course is taught by the Dean of Penn State’s business school, which is awesome because it’s only a 22 person class. He seems really cool, and uses a lot of real life scenarios and hands on cases that allow us to interact in a more conversational style than a lecture. A 3 hour formal lecture would put me to sleep, regardless of who is teaching, so I’m glad it worked out this way.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now, thanks for reading. And if anyone needs and kind of reminder or alarm at 1:30 your time, I’ll gladly put the birds on speaker. Ciao!

And remember to check out my pics on Facebook, because they load a whole lot easier on there! 

Location: Florence, Italy