I'M IN ITALY!!!

CIAO Blog buddies!

I made it to Italia! And let's jump right into it: It's amazing!!!

First some housekeeping business:
"Blog Email": elkgrovealex@gmail.com You can use this to contact me privately, off the blog, but if you wish to make comments directly to my posts, I believe you have to have a google/gmail account and be logged in. It is free to sign up.

My phone number has been cancelled, so I will not be able to receive texts, and will have a new number when I get home. I'll get that out to people when I return. :)

I might try Twitter, but with the time difference, its kinda annoying.

All right, onto the good and fun stuff!

I am in FIRENZE, ITALIA!

This was my plane out of Sacramento! Seeing it there, made me realize I was really leaving to a land far, far away. I refused to be worried, afraid, and anxious prior to this moment! I had three layovers, which sounds horrible, but I discovered that I was susceptible to severe air sickness. It was so terrible that landing was a blessing each and every time. I was able to buy medicine that put me out for my next flights (whereas with the group flight, I would've had 13 hours of misery).

Frankfurt, Germany was intimidating, but the Germans were really friendly with me. Almost missed my flight though, which was scary.

Florence Airport I met two incredible people right off the bat: Victoria and Brea, we became instant friends, and shared a taxi to our hotel. It was a lovely stay. Haha. Met everyone, but I will admit, day one, I was super homesick!

Next day we got to our apartment (I'll do a separate blog with pictures to boot - but it is kinda messy right now. haha - 7 guys. )

We live in Central Florence, about 10 minutes away from the Il Duomo (which literally translates to a cathedral church - the main church of a town/city). Here was my very first photo (which was taken by my cell phone, because I forgot the connector chord to my digital camera. :( I think someone else has one that would work for mine, but it will take me a while to figure out just who that is. haha)

This is the view on the way to school! haha. And here are a bunch of random shots:

There is so much more! But it would be very boring to cram it all into one little blog post. :)

This is my intro to Italy, and just a few snapshots I did around Florence, day one.

Tomorrow's blog will feature part one of my first day trip. It is quite exciting and the pictures are great!!

Ciao for now!!!

Shelby C. and Me