Gimping Around Firenze

some exciting things have been going on...

let's begin with my broken foot. yesterday i was walking on a little grassy path to talk to some of my friends and i fell over a 4 inch tall curb. it was probably the most embarressing thing of my life but of course i brushed it off and pretended it wasn't a big deal. after chatting with our friends, my roomate and i decided to walk home (about a half a mile walk) and by the time we got home i was sobbing because my foot swelled up and hurt really really badly. my host mom freaked out and took me and my roommate to the emergency room to have my foot xrayed.

we waited for 3 hours in the dirtiest italian hospital (Santa Maria Nuova) ever. finally, they wheeled me away in a wheelchair for xrays. my foot still hurt really badly and but i didn't think it was broken or anything so i was a little annoyed about our wasted time. BUT they discovered that i had a small fracture -- small enough to not hurt badly but big enough to be put in un gesso (a cast) for A WHOLE MONTH. yeah... you heard me right. i've been in italy for FOUR DAYS and have broken my foot and will have a cast for the next month... this should be interesting.

also at the hospital they gave me an injection to help my circulation or something. i was freaking out because my mom and i read in an italian travel book that italian hospitals sometimes re-use their needles and the book had a translation for "is this a new needle." who knew that i'd actually have to whip that line out?!?!

i love my family and my roommate though. they all stayed at the hospital with me and held my hand and hugged me when i was crying about being stuck in a cast. we got home around 9PM and were so exhausted that we had dinner and went to bed. i woke up this morning with literally 30 mosquito bites on me. kike (pronounced "kee-kay" - my host father) said that a bunch of mosquitos from africa called "zanzara tigre" (tiger mosquitos) had recently been flocking to italy from africa... good to know... ugh.

today we trekked back to the hospital and got a permanent cast (the one they gave me yesterday was temporary). my host parents borrowed some crutches from una signora vecchia (an old lady) ... and they MADE me use them. they are the old people crutches that liek connect to your arms. hahahahaha, it was so embarressing -- marilena and i hopped on the bus and headed to the centro to meet friends/have lunch/go shopping. we ate pizza margherita and drank birra at a little out door ristorante. then we shopped.

i bought a dress from a store called ZARA. i figured it was ok to buy another dress because for the next month dresses and skirts are all i can wear since i have this fatty cast on my left leg. ugh. the centro was CRAZY -- millions of tourists everywhere!!! i get a lot of attention for my leg. it's kinda nice but embarressing at the same time. on the bus on the way home an old lady got up and offered me her chair because i was struggling to stand up with my stupid cast on... it was funny.

now we're home and i'm exhausted. i'm not sure what's going on tonight but hopefully i'll be able to go out and keep up with the group!! it's been tough and i'm getting frustrated but don't feel homesick and am trying to hardest to keep moving along!!!

i've taken tons of pictures but can't post them until i get school on monday because at home we use our host family's computer. monday i'll post pictures of my beautiful leg. haha.

ciao tutti!

Sono in Italia

I finally have wireless! Yay! It’s been really hard to get online at school because EVERYONE tries to go on at once (we’ve all been dying without internet) but then it gets really really slow. Ugh. It’s been about 4 days since my last update… I have a million things to report!!!

New York with the parentals was fabulous! My mom and I spent Sunday morning strolling around 5^th Avenue and shopping at H&M (which bytheway I am soooo excited about the fact that they’re building one close to home soon!). We also visited the site of Ground Zero… different than it was last time I was here (about 3ish years ago). Monday we went to Jones Beach. Eh, I’ll take CA beaches over NY beaches ANY DAY!

Monday night was the flight to Italia. It was fun at the airport because there were a million people from my program there AND half the group was SCUers… it was kinda cool to reunite with them all after summer in the New York airport for a flight to Europe?!?! What?!?!? Hahaha, I slept most of the way.

When we got to Munich Natalie and I were separated from the group (we had a different flight than them) and had to navigate ourselves around… ok. In that airport, they HARDLY spoke English. We were freakin out. At least I found out that my cell phone works!!!

Our plane to Firenze… was scary. It had propellers. It was a good thing I feel asleep about 5 minutes after getting on the plane because I would have had a huge panic attack thinking about crash landing into the alps! Ugh. I hate airplanes!!!

In Firenze, Natalie and I (and all our bags – half the group’s luggage got lost on the way here) met up with two other girls from our program and we all got a taxi to our hotel – it was the scariest ride of our lives!!! Cars for sure have the right-of-way around here… we were honking at people in the street to get them out of the way!!!

Our first night here was fabulous. We went to a bar called “The Red Garter.” It was probably one of the most American bars in all of Firenze. It was full of ALL English speaking people – Australians, Brits, Canadians… We spent the night kareoking to American 90’s pop hits (Britney, Bon Jovi...), drinking, dancing (Marco?? what??), and we even signed up for a beer pong tournament – even though we left before it got started. We didn’t stay out too late and got back around midnightish.

The next day was HELL. Worst jetlag ever. We got to go to our campus (the building is absolutely beautiful) and had to do a million things to get registered and stuff. All I wanted to do was go lay on the grass in the courtyard and sleep! In the afternoon we walked from our campus to the hotel and stopped by the Duomo :)

Wednesday night was Alexa’s 12:01 so OF COURSE we went out! The night was a ruckus. We started out in our hotel room drinking a little bit of wine… Then we headed up to the roof of our hotel where there were about 60 people hanging out. From the roof we had a perfect view of all of Firenze! The Duomo was right there!!! I tried to take a picture but um, it didn’t come out very well. Around 11:30ish we left the hotel in search of a fun bar. All of us have heard of fun bars and discos around here but none of us had any clue how to get there!!! We ended up at a bar called JJ’s and seriously right outside of the front door was the Duomo. It was incredible! I met a few local guys that didn’t speak a single word of English and spent about an hour trying to have a conversation with them in Italian! It really wasn’t that bad. We actually had a lot to talk about!! I can say and understand a lot more than I thought. I came home with a rose and a phone number? Hahahahaha. We got home around 3AM. The walk back was waaaay longer than the walk there (or atleast it seemed).

The next day we had to wake up at 7AM to be out of the hotel by 9AM. Everyone was for sure still drunk. Ugh. It was terrible. In the afternoon we finally got to meet our host families! Marilena and I were totally freaking out. We live with the Berrisso family – Susana (the mom), Enrique (the dad), and their two sons that are 20 and 24… fun! Oh, and they have a dog named Ouso (that’s the sweetest dog ever!) I LOVE our family! They’re originally from Argentina. They switch off between speaking Spanish and Italian and very broken English. Between the four of us we can understand and say pretty much everything.

They live in a beautiful apartment! Seriously I would love to live there on my own. Marilena and I walked around taking pictures of the whole house because it’s so great. It’s in a really nice part of town (Le Cure di Firenze) and is only about a 15 minute walk from school.

Today we have registration and I think we’re going to spend the rest of the day afterwards shopping and touring Firenze. Omigod. I love it here so much.

CIAO TUTTI and I miss you all!!!