Benvenuti alla villa!

Well I'm finally here. My flight from O'hare was delayed just enough to force an 8 hour layover at the Rome airport yesterday- a period of time I spent mostly staring at the rain pounding the runway. Not too exciting... though I did get through 4 episodes of The Sopranos (Annie thanks for the DVD player!), finish reading Blue Like Jazz, and eat my first ever piece of Italian pizza (I think this one had bacon on it).

When we finally arrived in Florence, we took a fast and furious cab ride through dark rainy streets to our villa. The cab pulled up to a stone wall with lots of scaffolding... my first thought was "Is this it?" But as soon as we stepped inside of the outer wall, it became obvious just how beautiful this place truly is. There are so many paintings and sculptures everywhere! I also noticed that there were many lemon trees in the dining hall... makes the place smell like lemon pledge, only fresher, and not so much like a cleaning chemical.

The food is going to be extraordinary here at the villa... and given my penchant for eating large quantities of delicious food, I can tell I'll soon be right at home. So far we've had several pasta dishes, lots of cheese, and very tasty blood oranges (try them if you've never had one... very tasty!)

It's raining today, but so far we've spent most of our time learning about our town (Sesto Fiorentino), our classes, and life at the villa. I'm especially excited for the art history class, which meets half the time at Florentine art museums. Already, we've learned of upcoming trips to Siena, to some local mountain ranges, to an opera, to Venice, to Rome, and more. Exciting eh?

Another part of this program that caught my eye is the possibility for internships in local schools--- I might have the opportunity to teach english to local elementary school kids. If I'm their only exposure to Americans, they're all going to think that we're a race of giants and ogres! Yikes! I'm also planning on signing up for a conversation partner from the town to help me learn some italian.

Tonight we're going to hit up some local establishments to sample gelato and pizza... and hopefully track down a place to watch tomorrow's big Packer game! A lot of us are really excited about the showdown--- I'll be wearing my AJ Hawk jersey to downtown Florence tomorrow!

I'm off to an "introductory lecture" on the city followed by a tour of this villa... very excited!

I miss you all back in the states! I'll be sure to upload pictures soon, as well as videos from my 21st birthday celebration!

Arrivederci!