Day 2-4

Well I lost the internet connection in my house for a while so I haven't been able to write for a few days. Since last writing my life has been such a blur. We have barely had time to stop and process everything before we are swept off to the next event. Saturday we had orientation for our classes and the program we are attending. They introduced us to our teachers and the administrators of the program, gave us a meal stipend, and then took us on a walking tour of Florence. Through the tour we were able to see some of the amazing site Florence has to offer, including: the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, the Uffizi art museum, the piazza Republica (the largest open air market in Florence), and the Piazza Il Porcellino (if you rub the boars nose and then let a coin drop from his mouth into the fountain it brings you good luck). I have pictures of most of these places on this post.
Saturday night we decided to go out and explore the Firenze night life. We began at an American pub. It was nice here but everything was so expensive. We only stayed for a little while. We walked around for a while and eventually found an outdoor bar packed with locals. It was much more fun here. But I must say, what everyone says about the Italian men seems to be quite true. You can't walk down the street or enter a bar without hearing a chorus of "ciao bella." They are also quite persistent. They will continue to pursue you until you have made yourself extremely clear that you are not interested. One Italian man continues to ask me to sit with him and his friends until I pulled out my phone to show him I had a boyfriend. But their spirit is not broken, once you turn them down they simply move on to the next.
On Sunday Linsday, Bryn, and I decided to walk around Florence again to better learn our way around. We spent most of our time in the area we walked around the previous day. We went to the Uffizi because we thought the David was located within. We walked all around the huge museum looking at the art hastily because we wanted to get to the David. Finally, we made it around the whole museum and failed to find him anywhere. So I asked in my very limited Italian where the David was located. The museum worker looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said "David e a la Academia". Which means the David is in the Academia, not the Uffizi. So we blew through the whole museum and didn't even get to see what we wanted. Good thing we have free museum passes so we can go back eventually and see all the artwork we didn't take the time to appreciate.
We also tried our first Italian pizza and gelato. Both were delicioso! Our waiter was so funny. He knew we were American so he made us try to order in Italian. Eventually we were able to do it, but it sure took us a long time to order such simple dishes.
Today we started classes. My philosophy class through Ursinus will be business as usual, but the Italian class sure will be a challenge. We already had to speak an entire paragraph about ourselves on the fly the very first day of class. At the beginning of the class period I was panicking. I did not think I had learned enough back home to be in this level of Italian. By the end of the class period, however, things were starting to come back to me. I'm sure things will be fine, especially since I really try to speak Italian at home with my homestay family.
So far this has been one of the best experiences of my life. In a matter of four days I went from being absolutely petrified to never wanting to leave. I never imagined it would take such a little amount of time for me to adjust. My host family sure does make it easy to enjoy being here. Each day they cook me amazing meals and we sit around the table, drink wine, and talk for hours. Guido, my host father, just finished showing me his family's photo album of Prague. I told them I was hoping to visit the city and they got so excited. They raved and raved about the city, sharing all of their experiences and pictures with me. Such a warm and friendly environment has really made my transition here so much easier.