Arrival

Well...I'm finally here

Despite twelve hours (give or take) of flight time, a six hour time difference, three broken straps and name tags on my bags, virtually no sleep, three countries, at least three different languages, several new friends, one older German lady who regarded me with a mixture of fascination, curiosity and disgust whenever I moved, plugged in my headphones or even turned my head a bit... and a partridge in a pear tree, I arrived safely in Florence with five others at around 4:00 p.m.

Although the first day in Florence was a little chilly and quite overcast, I was glad that it didn't quite resemble the home I had just left.

Thankfully, we arrived at the hotel in a timely fashion thanks to our cab driver taking us on a beautiful, though not altogether expected drive through Florence...I saw him make several changes to what I believe was a GPS... He may have been quite lost at one point.

Since then I have been in meetings at the Villa Rossa, or "Red House" in Italian, the main Syracuse University building in Florence. I will soon register for classes and possibly an internship before the semester starts next week.