Valentine's day in Florence

   3 of the girls were gone on trip so Michelle, Mikyla, Aisling and I decided to go find the chocolate fair. Jokes on us because we went the complete opposite way and it was right next to our apartment. We ended up walking to Santa Croce church and decided to stop and get food.

    The menu looked good, but when we say down, the waiter gave us the menu had drinks and pastries on it. But everyone else around us was eating real food. Mikyla called what we got "peasant food" and was questioning why we got the bad menu. They barely had any paninis left and our waiter took me and Aisling inside to show us what they did have. I asked about the brioches and he walked me over to that glass case and was telling me what all of them had inside and on the last one he goes "no idea what's in that," and I laughed.

   Then I just asked if I could have a cheesecake to go with my hot chocolate. He took me over to the first case and started listing them, I stopped him at chocolate since I was deprived of it for a while. He looked at me and was like "you want cheesecake?" And I said "mhm" and then he goes "you sure?" And I said "mhm" and was just smiling. And he said okay, and then I walked back to the table. He was looking at me funny, like, was I supposed to ask for something else so I could stay and talk to you? When I say back down outside, the other waiter had given Mikyla  the real lunch menu but we had already ordered.

    When we were done, our original waiter comes and the first thing he asks is if we have boyfriends. We all look around, start laughing and say "non existent!" Then he basically was making plans to hang out with us. He asked us if we were studying, and we said yes. And he asked what, but we all just said Italian. And he goes "then why are we talking in English" because we only the basics, obviously. We just started, silly attractive waiter. 

    In the end Mikyla wrote down her number (obviously) and then they all said I should since he was looking at me mostly and Aisling saw the way he was looking at me inside too. So I did, whatever. When we left, he came back and handed us a hot chocolate. So sweet!! I guess it was meant for me, according to the group at least. 

    We took a walk back to the river. 

    That night we went out, obviously! We went with Danielle and Katherine. I stood some pictures of Facebook from twice of us! 

With love from Florence,

  

               Tiz

The shot cafe

   This place is awesome! It's called the shot cafe. We first ordered a round of 10 shots and got 5 'sexy woman' and 5 'boobs.' I kid you not, that's what they were called. And then the lady lit them on fire. 

   After the shot cafe we went to a place called Yab. Some disco club. It was pretty fun. I had to save my friends from this creepy old dude. He would not stop trying to dance with them. I grabbed Sarah away and then he tried grabbing my wrist and I turned around, pulled my arm back, said no, shook my head and made it clear for him to go away. He was old, bald, and had glasses. No idea what he was doing in the club. 

Being a badass in Italy.. brb!

With love, 
          Tiz

Italian chefs and Blue Velvet

   We made friends with these 2 guys named Francesco and Davide. We have hung out with them about 4 times so far. We jokingly asked if they would come cook us dinner and they said yes. So they came on Wednesday night. They cooked us a 3 course meal! Pasta, chicken with curry and potatoes. It was delicious! Oh and they brought 2 massive bottles of wine for us!!

  It was delicious. I also cleaned the kitchen, everything in it and the able and swept the floor. It wasn't messy, but I didn't want them coming over thinking we were slobs!  

  They are so nice! Can't wait to hang out with them again!!!

   Thursday night,  we hung out with our landlord and a couple of his friends. We first went to this bar called Astor, it's a cafe during the day and turns into a club at night or something? I don't really know all the details but they were talking about how it's the place where Jersey Shore people went to. Not that I care all that much about them.  But Jwow was my favorite, that's for sure. And how come the autocorrect recognizes Snooki but not my name, Tiziri. Whatever, mines cooler. 

   So we were with our landlord and his friends, and they bought us a round of tequila shots. Astor had a 3 for 10 deal with certain drinks. And all the guys bought us our drinks. There was a total of 7 of is plus them 3 so 10 people. And they all paid!!! Crazy!! But nice. 

    After Astor we headed to Blue Velvet which is what Riccardo mentioned to me. I was excited to go in. I was sort of lagging behind talking to a girl who I met from class and we were just talking so when I got to the door, all my people were inside and thy were yellig me to come in. Our landlord was outside with his friends still talking to the lady at the door. There was a bouncer who at fort wasn't letting me in, but as soon as he left to go deal with something... I made my move and slowly walked inside. Yes... I GOT IN FOR FREE!! I sort of sneaked in I guess. I wasn't about to pay a cover anyways.

   

    6 people shoved into one bathroom

   And then we found Davide. He was working and taking pictures for the club. So we all freaked out. I asked if I could take pictures and he said yes. But he didn't let anyone else take pictures so I felt pretty special haha. He needed some time to relax and dance anyways so I have him a good 10 or 20 minute break. He said he liked my pictures too. So thank you Dad for making me tag along with you even when I didn't want to. Father knows best!!

   Then Davide drove Sarah and me home. Up to the door, literally so close

  What a great 2 nights!!!! Aaahhhh, Italy is becoming so much fun!! 

With love from Florence,

                  Tiz

Classes in Italy

   My classes this semester are interesting and I'm excited to start learning again. I actually miss school. I'm the type of person where, if I don't have a set schedule, then I don't quite know what to do with the spare time. And after having over a month of vacation, I'm looking forward to classes.
  The first class I have during the week is Italian I. It's mandatory, but even if it wasn't I would take it. Starting my 6th language? Uhh.. yes please! I feel like I have 3 options for learning Italian. Either lean on French for words, lean on Spanish for words, or forget both and start from scratch. Something as simple as "how old are you" is a mixture of French and Spanish but Italian words of course. In Spanish it's "cuantos anos tienes" with the tilde on the n of course. but I don't know how to do it on this computer. And I'm lazy. Anyways, in French it's "quel âge à tu." So it takes the 'cuantos anos' from Spanish and the "à" from French to make "quanti anni hai." Now, the question is which language is better? And for pronunciation! An easy word "qui" in French is pronounced [kee] but in Italian is [kwee].  Oh and Davide said that Italians don't like Spanish people all that much. I'll explain who Davide is but back to classes... 
   My teacher for Italian is some lady who is short with dark hair and big glasses. She's super cute. She gets up and sits on the table and her feet don't touch the ground. Love her! She's really nice and funny. I think I'm her favorite, let's just say.
   Italian is the only class I have on Mondays and Wednesdays. Tuesday mornings I have Introduction to Fashion Industry and then I have History of Architecture. I'm super excited for History of Architecture. It's what got me in to interior design. And the fashion class is just for fun. All the girls in that class are fashion majors, I'm pretty sure. Looks like, now I have to dress nice for Tuesdays hahaha. 
   Thursdays I have 20th century design and architecture, which I want to drop because it does not seem like fun which I originally thought. And I'm not getting any credit for it, so I would rather change it to a different class that I will actually learn something. So Thursday right after that class, I went straight to the office to drop it and asked to add a food and wine class. Technically that's not the name of it. But you cook and learn to pair wine with foods. And my cooking skills are limited, so not broaden my horizons! right?!
   Fridays... NO CLASS! Using those days to travel! And after thinking it over for 5 minutes. I decided I'd rather take the cheap ass train tickets that leave at like 5 or 6 in the morning on Fridays instead of leaving Thursday night and paying more. I'd be saving on the train ticket, and on an extra night in a hostel. 
   
Let the good times roll! And don't forget to holler at me!


With love from Florence,
          Tiz!

The Lion on the Prowl

     During the day, we walked around and took a couple snapshots of this lovely city known as Firenze!

     I don't think I ever talked about my roommates and every one in the apartment. So... my roommate's name is Allie and we are both juniors. The other girls are all, sophomores. There's Michelle, Tara, Sara, and Mikyla. We all get along for the most part, and I like them. I like Allie a lot she seems cool, and I'm glad that we get along.
    Friday we went out to Lion's Fountain after meeting up with a couple of other girls from ISU. These guys bought us a round of shots at the Lion's Fountain. I ended up going to a club called twice, that has no cover charge.The night was moving pretty quickly but I totally realized a couple of things..

   1. Italian people know how to party: the music, the moves.
   2. Boys are the same everywhere. Like, no thank you. If I wanted to dance with you, I would have given you the look or made some type of signal. Please step away and let me dance the night away.
   3. VIP section.. is BOMB!

 And my most important lesson... don't get mauled by bear at the club, aka the boy who coincidentally lives on the floor above you. No worries, nothing bad happened. Just looked like I was strangled the next day. No big deal.
   I was dancing with Marisa and Kaitlin and just doing my thing, when someone grabbed my hand and started dancing with me. He was decent so I was like, whatever, that's okay. Any who, we went and sat down and talked. A little later, Kaitlin came and told me we were leaving. I told Antonio, that's his name, and he came with. One of the other guys, Riccardo, who I had met earlier, told me that his friends were still with my roommates. (We got separated, but Kaitlin is part of the ISU crew, so it was okay.) Riccardo called his friends when we were outside, and found out that they were at a Kebab place. So we walked over. Then we just went home. 
   Antonio's friend asked where we live, and I said "by the Duomo." He asked, "What street?" and I said "Sant'Antonino." Then dear god, I am not kidding he says "what?! We live there too, number 7! There's a group of girls who live below us." I freaked out mentally and thought 'Are you shitting me? You live above us? This is terrible.' Then we just all walked home and said goodnight. I said bye to Antonio at our apartment door. He was too much.
   Naturally, us girls did not sleep until about 4 or 5 in the morning. Thank god because we were tired and I knew we were going to do the same thing the next night. 

The Crawl and the Secret Bakery

  Thursday night we went on a bar crawl. Met up at Piazza della Repubblica, by the carousel. Kait from Euroadventures was one of the people waiting there and I thankfully spotted her. We headed to this bar called Naima where this super tall, hot guy named Cam was taking care of the money and the wristbands. He put on the wristbands like a boy, not very nicely done. At Naima, all beer and vodka mixed drinks were free for an hour, so it was basically "all you can drink" for one hour. Alina and Mark were there too, I met their friends and stayed with them for awhile. They're really cool and I like them a lot. I'll definitely stay in touch with them while I'm here so I have other people to hang out with and not just the same ones.

   After Naima, we went to another bar, but I don't know what it was called. I didn't pay attention, I just followed the group. I was walking with Mark under his umbrella since it was raining so much. Kait was leading, but she took a wrong turn, so then the entire group had to turn around, but it was okay. I thought it was kind of funny. 

   When we got to the bar, there were supposed to be Welcome shots, but they were totally all gone, someone drank them. This guy Brian though bought us all a shot, which unfortunately was straight vodka and without a chaser. I didn't know what it was at first, but it burned like a bitch in my throat. We didn't stay long at that place.

   The 3rd bar was called Uncle Jimmy's and there were bras and lingerie hanging from the cieling. There was also a game of beer pong going on in the lower section. At one point, Sarah was playing with some dude and they had one cup left but kept missing it. I said I'd take a celeb shot and they let me. I shoot the ball and I didn't see where it went, I turned around and said, "well, I tried." And when I turned around again, the girl was pulling the ball out of the cup! I was surprised because I thought I missed. I was super excited. Oh and there's a guy named Kent and a guy named Kevin who I SWEAR are twins, because they look exactly alike. And the guy Kent got mad because I called him Kevin. Whatever, not my fault Jesus copy and pasted your faces.

   We left Uncle Jimmy's and headed to the club, but it was packed and had to pay a 1 euro entry fee. In order to get in, it was going to take forever plus it was raining. so we headed to the secret bakery. A guy named Nick was leading us. We were about 2 streets away from it and you could immediately smell the pastries, it smelled like croissants and les petits pain from heaven. It's called a secret bakery because it's illegal to sell them at night, and this particular bakery is the place that makes the pastries for all the really nice restaurants around Florence. They don't open the door unless you're really quiet because they don't want to get caught. It was a little difficult since one girl was being super ass loud and wouldn't shut up.

   Once I got mine, I was so happy. It tasted like chocolate from the heavens. I want to go back, like... Now! Luckily Michelle, one of my roommates, wrote down the street names. 

    Here are a couple pictures from the whole night:

   The entire night was super fun and I met a shit ton of people, and we got back at like 2 at our apartment. Allie and I were in our room  when Tara comes in and sits on my bed and we're talking.. slowly, every one comes in. I was sitting on my bed on Tinder and then showed everyone a picture of this dude who came up, and the next thing you know... everyone gets Tinder and we are all on it looking at guys and swiping left or right for the next 2 hours. We didn't go to sleep until 4!
 

Arriving in Florence

   At the airport in Zurich, while I was waiting for the lady at the desk to tell me if there was room on the plane for me, I met this girl named Kait. We started talking and she told me that she's going to be working for a company called "Euroadventures" it's essentially the same thing like Discover Excursions from Spain and 'We Love Granada.' They're companies that help students travel to other countries or just around the country that they are studying in. 
    Kait and I met back up at the airport in Florence and we kept talking, she's super cool. There were 2 other people, and when I mentioned the street name that I had to get to, they said that they were going to the same place. Their names were Mark and Alina. Both from New York, and really nice too. We ended up sharing a taxi and we were asking the guy, so much information. Places to stay away from, best restaurants, best bars... you name it, we asked it!  Once we got the student meeting point, we signed in and waited for our packets and inside there were keys to the apartment. Luckily for me there was a girl who lived in the same apartment building as me who had just arrived too. I said bye to Alina and Mark and got their names to add them on Facebook and stuff and then headed off with Ashling, I think that's how you spell her name? She seems cool. 
   Everyone seems cool, but that's how you want to be the first time you meet someone, you know? I feel like it takes a couple interactions with someone to actually know what they're like. I'm talking in general right now, not trying to say anything bad about anyone.
    When we finally got to the apartment, which the rain and uneven streets were not the best combination, we couldn't open the front door, so we rang the buzzer and had the girls let us in. We couldn't open ANY doors. there are 3 until we're finally in the apartment. Ashling lives just across the hall from us with her 1 roommate, Gianna. Meanwhile, we have 6 people in our apartment.
   I like it, it's modern and cute with white walls and gray accents. I met all of my roommates and at first, I started forgetting names. In our apartment we have, Sarah, Mikyla, Michelle, Tara (who knows Alex, Alex the French guy!!), Allie (who is my roommate) and then me.
   I didn't eat dinner that night and I didn't really have breakfast the next day. We had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn which was basically 7:30 even we technically wanted to get up at 7:15. We had orientation at 8:45 at some place that no one knew where it was or anything. I would compare us to somewhat lost puppies, but who isn't when you get to a town that you don't know where anything is and shit.
    We went to all the meetings and after that... I don't even know. 
    

Frantic with flight Issues

     I don't even know how to express myself right now. I  am currently in Zurich, semi-stranded. But let me explain to you how this came to be.

     The night before I am supposed to be leaving for Florence on a simple journey that requires 2 planes, my dad tells me that the second flight was canceled. Instead of flying Brussels - Zurich, Zurich - Florence, I would be flying Brussels - Zurich, Zurich - Frankfurt, Frankfurt - Florence. But wait.. that's just the beginning.
     So this morning, everything is packed and I'm all set and I make it to the airport on time, everything is fine.. then my mom's cousin's husband starts telling me stories about his flights that were delayed and all these terrible flying stories. BAD OMEN! And I swear to you, that I knew it. My flight from Brussels to Zurich was supposed to leave at 9:50, but we didn't end up leaving until about 10:20. My flight from Zurich to Frankfurt was on time but since the first flight was delayed, I didn't make it on time.

   The guy at the transfer desk was bogus and I started crying, no lie. I called my sister and started crying. I had to get all my emotions out. And then I got pissed. 

  In the end, I ended up getting put on a waiting list for a direct flight from Zurich to Florence. The guy said that the list was 4 people long. I was super stressed. Luckily, they gave me a meal voucher. And if I hadn't made it on the flight, then I would have received a hotel voucher. 

  Thank the Lord that I made it on the direct flight!! Ugh!!! 

   

   More details on the first day when I charge my laptop!