We were where?!

Okay. Got some paperwork stuff done, took my Italian placement exam, and some other things here yesterday before I headed out for the day. I decided that it would be nice to go explore yesterday since I had a bunch of time before dinner.

4:45pm - depart from SU.

I proceeded to walk towards the Duomo and explore the center of town. I got myself a Panna Cotta gelato and just wandered through the street not necessarily keeping track of where I was going. It was great people watching for sure.

~6pm - decide to start heading back to the hotel.

I went in the direction that I had assumed to be towards Il Fiume Arno (The Arno River) because my hotel was right next to it. As I kept walking things started to get quieter and quieter. It was still light out so there was nothing to be afraid of. I came across a piazza that looked oddly familiar. Upon closer examination I realized that I had been there roughly 20 minutes beforehand.

~6:25pm - decide that it is time to take out the map.

You have to understand that the roads here in Florence are clearly marked but they are all so small that cartographers deemed most of them unnecessary to be included in maps of the city. So I kept going until I found an army looking guy and asked him quite simply "Dov'e' siamo??", which means, "Where are we?". He chuckled a little bit and then struggled to figure out where we were on the map, because like I said, the maps here stink. Anyhow he showed me the way (without the map) so I took off. I was convinced I wasn't going in the right direction so I stopped at a gelateria that I was passing and the really nice girl behind the counter started a conversation with me and helped me get home as per way of the map.

6:52pm - arrive at the hotel.

I went right up to bed and collapsed for a few minutes before heading down to dinner. I had dinner with Emily, Brandon, and Vallusi. They're pretty cool. Emily went to a host family Q&A after dinner and I went and slept til 9:45 when she got back. We went and got the boys and headed out to go explore the Ponte Vecchio and surrounding area. Well, that ended up being a three hour and fifteen minute excursion to very southern part of Florence - basically the boundary of the city. It was insane. We walked for so long and saw a lot of stuff but we were basically just wandering aimlessly. It was quite the long night.

Slept like a rock and now I'm at school. We meet the host families in four hours or so - oh the suspense. Hopefully tonight will be nice with the family and stuff. Gotta figure out my way around without getting lost at some point. My rationale is that you can never find anything unless you get lost! So I'll get lost now so that I can really live here in the near future.

Ciao.