Buon Giorno

It's my third full day in Florence and it really hasn't sunk in yet.

First and foremost, getting here was terrible. Awful. Miserable. I cam to the airport a solid 3 hours early, checked in, called the insurance company abotu the Santa Clara car crash fiasco, then ate lunch with my mom. Thank god that when my mom dropped me off at Security she didn't cry, because I was on the verge and if she had cried I definitely would have, and I really do hate bawling at the airport.

Our initial plane to Paris, set to take off at 3:35 pm California time. We boarded on time and sat for an hour. We were surrounded by 16 other study abroad students going to Florence through Syracuse (the girl next to me was from USC!) After an hour of sitting, the pilot announced that the plane was missing a part. (Like, WTF? Do the pilots land and then go, Oh whoops, feels like we've been flying without a part... Mah 'B. Really? Like, really?) Therefore, it didn't take off for Paris until 8:30 pm California time. The positive: Me and Jessgot $15 food vouchers for anywhere in the airport. So naturally, we got $15 worth of food even if we weren't hungry. SUCCESS. Can you say Cappucchino, diet Coke, biscotti, chocolate chip cookie, and bagel with cream cheese? Because I can. Yessss. After mucho hours of waiting, we finally boarded and took off.

After a 10 hour and 30 minute flight (I was asleep most of the time) we got to Partis around 6:00 pm, Paris time. Of course, we missed our connecting flight. Air Paris gave us two options: either to stay in Paris for a night and catch a flight to Florence the next morning, or to fly to Pisa. We uninimously opted for the latter. After another 2 and a half hoursof just chilling in the Paris airport, we took a connecting flight to Pisa (as in Leaning tower of...) around 8:30 pm, Italy time, and landed in Pisa at 10:30 pm. After picking up our bags, the bus driving the other study abroad kids brought us all into Florence, arriving at their hotel at 1 am. Finally, Jess and I took a cab from that hotel to the NYU campus, with me finally getting into my dorm at 1:30 am.

I unpacked and then realized I didn't buy an electrical converter, because I'm a fucking genius. My incredibly kind roommate let me borrow his, so I got internet access for the first time in 24 hours... which is a big deal, actually. I unpacked all my stuff and crawled into bed around 2:30 am, finding it pretty hard to sleep due to jetlag and all the sleeping on the plane and such.

In other news, I finally finished Goblet of Fire. Great successes abound.

I spent the entire night waking up and falling asleep and waking up and falling asleep again, finally giving up at 6 am. Got up, got dressed... finally saw the campus in day light, HOLY SHIT. Gorgeous much? Why yes. Did the orientation thing starting at 10:30.... at about 2:30 time difference took its toll, and I stumbled home, crawled into bed, and was knocked out. I woke up at 11:00 pm to pitch black. Shit, I wasted the day! Haha. I decided that I didn;t want to go out into the city by myself (good choice), and took a Vikoden (sp?) to lull back to sleep...

...Just to wake up at 5:30 am. Damn. Deciding I wasn;t going back to sleep, I crawled out of bed and stumbled to the Villa Natalia (my building's) common room. I finished my final Oscar predictions (I would, wouldn't I?) and kept reading Order of the Phoenix (I would, wouldn't I?). Shower, breakfast, more orientation.

To be continued.