Exploring my New Surroundings

The first week of Florence was slightly overwhelming, but still very exciting at the same time. After the first night in Florence, I woke up around 8:00am because I was so excited to go outside and explore. I left my apartment around 8:30am and to my surprise, the streets were pretty empty. People were just opening up their stores and setting up their tents for the outdoor markets in the piazza by my apartment building. I figured that Italians start their day a little later than I had expected. I continued to walk further down the street in hopes of finding a more open spaces like a piazza. The streets of florence are very small and almost looks like a maze, so I was afraid of getting lost. If I were in the states, I would usually go on my phone and use my GPS, but here in Florence, I do not have data on my phone without WIFI so, I had to get used to relying on street signs rather than my iPhone. This was so difficult for me, but it helped me in the long run because I was able to familiarize myself with my surroundings faster.

After just a few minutes of walking, I was able to find my school! To my relief, it took about 5 minutes to get there from my apartment and it was also surrounded by many cafes and stores. I could not wait to eat and shop! I decided to find a cafe and order myself a coffee and something for breakfast. There was a small cafe by my school called Cafe Bianchi that I decided to try out. After practicing how to order my coffee over and over in my head I finally ordered in Italian to test out my skills. The waitress could tell I was American (probably because of my american accent) and answered me back in english. I was a little thrown off because I wanted to practice Italian, but in a way it was comforting to hear english and I didn’t feel like a fish out of water. 

After enjoying my first cappuccino and pastry, I decided to keep walking towards the river to see more of Florence. The streets suddenly became very busy as all the shops and restaurants began to open. I could tell this was a touristy area because there were a lot of small gift shops and large groups of people following tour guides. Since the streets were filled with people, it was nice to walk along the river where the space was more open and the view was so amazing as well. As I continued to walk along the river, I not only was familiarizing myself with my surroundings, but I was also using the opportunity to people watch. One of the first things I noticed was that no one was out jogging or wearing any workout clothes. This surprised me because athletic wear is a big trend in the United States. It’s acceptable and fashionable in the states to wear athletic wear even if you are not planning on working out. So many questions started running through my mind. Do people work out here? How are they not overweight? And where can I go to workout? I enjoy working out because it releases stress and makes me feel better and in addition, I knew for sure that I will be eating a lot of pizza, pasta, and gelato so I had to figure out where to workout soon.

The next few days throughout the week consisted of meeting new students in my apartment building and getting ready to start school. Luckily, we had 2 days of orientation that week for the international students so, I was able to see what the classrooms looked like and I got to meet the other international students as well. There are about 50 international students and 400 students within the entire school, so it is a small university. It was really cool to meet the students at this school because unlike Drexel, Accademia Italiana is just a design school so everyone I met had similar interests as me. 

Thanks to the two day orientation, I felt better about starting school the following Monday. The students and professors I met were all very nice and welcoming and the classes were not hard to find. The only slight issue I had was that my class schedule was messed up. I was in classes I did not sign up for and it made me nervous because I needed to make sure I was taking certain  to in order to stay on track with my courses at Drexel. Thankfully, the professors at Accademia were very helpful and my advisor was able to meet with me right away to change my schedule around. 

Although everything was going well so far and the people I met were really nice, I was a little upset that I barely had the chance to practice Italian. Everyone who lives in my building is from the United States and when I am trying to order food or drinks in Italian at a restaurant, the waiters answer me back in english. Practicing Italian was going to be harder than I thought. However, I knew I couldn’t be too discouraged yet considering I was only there for a few days and school hasn’t started yet. So far, everything was going well and although I was already missing friends and family, I was excited to start my semester long journey here! 

-DM

This is the view from the rooftop terrace at my school

The river I walk along to get to class