First Impressions: Florence

Florence, Italy

My journey to this beautiful and ancient city began after a crazy 24 hours of driving home from the Outer Banks, picking up my visa (finally), and packing my life for 4 months into 2 large suitcases, a carry on, and a backpack. 

After all that was accomplished I arrived at the airport. I chose to fly standby to save money (otherwise I could've flown with my school or booked a ticket myself). I have that amazing opportunity thanks to my dad who is a pilot. (If you like to travel, marry a pilot (or be their child).The "quirk" as I like to call it of flying stand by is that you're not guaranteed a seat on the plane. So checking two bags for an international flight during a pretty high traffic time was pretty risky, but it definitely paid off! I got my seat on the first flight out to Frankfurt, and was automatically given a seat on the flight to Florence. The trip was shockingly easy. 

In preparation for my 4 months in Italy I have been studying Italian through Kent. This fall I will be finishing up my second year and I'm hoping all the language dots connect in my head because there's a lot going on up there. (My family speaks Russian, and I studied French for 3 years sooo languages get all jumbled up and sometimes the wrong language comes out.) 

I arrived in Florence at 9:30 am and was able to get my belongings dropped off at my AirBnb before check in time. My hosts were a very nice young couple with 4 cats and a dog. All very playful and friendly. I myself have two cats and a dog at home that I wish I could've packed with me. 

When I made my booking I didn't realize that it was about a 30 minute walk from their apartment to the Duomo. So I walked nearly 9 miles during my first day. There is a slight outline of the route I wandered in the map above.  

A lot of the locals are on Holiday right now, so many of the shops and restaurants outside the historic district are closed for a few weeks. I got pretty confused at first thinking that this is how Florence always is, a ghost town outside of the Historic Center, but that's not true. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the city thrives when the locals return. 

After returning from my exhausting excursion around 5 p.m I knocked out and slept for the next 18 hours. It was amazing. 

If you have studied abroad in Florence and have any tips or fun facts to share, please leave them in the comments section below! 

That's all for now!

Arrivaderci,

Aleksandra

Look forward to a post about my apartment, some of my experiences shopping, and going out! 

I also can't wait to share my weekend trips!