Florence is expensive!!!
I have 300 Euro left. I'm terrified about whether or not I can make that last for two months. Fingers crossed...
Otherwise, I still love it. I've been here 17 days and have been so damn busy! My school schedule is crazy, and the weekends are just a blur. Lets see, what's happened so far...
I've met a ton of awesome people who I will be very sad to say goodbye to. Funnily enough, I haven't actually made friends with a single Italian person so far, I'm seriously starting to wonder where they're all hiding! I've found myself saying the phrase "in The States" way too much. Last Friday I got a ride in a shopping cart.... When I told that to one of my friends she said "Why?", and I replied "WHY NOT?!"
Something that I love about Florence is it's totally legal to drink in the streets here. We start almost every Friday and Saturday night in the piazzas, on the steps of one cathedral or another, with hundreds of other college-ish age people, just cracking a bottle of vino and people watching. It's great. I did see one fight break out but we just moved on to the next piazza and everything was fine. Speaking of moving on to the next piazza, I have done SO much walking since I've been here! I thought I walked everywhere in Chicago, but this is ridiculous. With that plus the 6 to 8 hours of standing at an easel at school, my legs are just killing me. On the bright side, I know it's good for me... and at least everywhere I go is beautiful :)
Another thing: DO NOT PUT "CANDEGGINA" on your clothes! It means "bleach".
I made this somewhat hilarious mistake my first week here. One load of laundry (which is about half of the clothes I brought) now has awful bleach stains on them. My roommate said she bought laundry detergent and I just took her at her word. Google Translate has become my best friend these past couple of weeks.
The caffeine thing is still a slight issue, what with my crazy class schedule and trying to do as much as possible every day. My roommate Izzy went into a pharmacy here and asked for caffeine pills (not totally unusual?) and they practically kicked her out. I guess people here just sleep a lot.... not an option for me!! When I get back to Chicago I will sleep for a week straight, I swear to God.
My birthday is on Sunday!!! I can't believe I've been 21 for a year already. Here comes 22. I'm honestly not looking forward to it, I was planning on spending my birthday in Paris with my besty Ryan but I can't afford it, so now the fact that I won't be in Paris is all I'm thinking about. Well, I feel like there's a million more things to say but my mind is blanking, and I need to eat something....
Ciao!