The First Day was a Challenging One

So I made it, I’m here in the wonderful Florence Italy.  Who knew that my first day would be filled with so many challenges though…

The first challenge was getting my luggage up to my fourth floor apartment while using skinny steep stairs.  It took two trips and by the end my face was flushed and I had to catch my breath from laughing at myself struggling with my bags.  After struggling with the bizarre Italian keys I got into my apartment, it is very small but cozy.  It has the typical Italian ammenities as well, such as the bidet and green wooden shutters!

The staircase…my apartment is by the skylight!

 

Me and Taylor’s bedroom

The view from our window…you can see the wine shop that’s across the street from us!

The second challenge.  Who knew I’d be spending part of my first night knelt on the ground looking through the glass door of our elevator trying to talk to the landlord.  Fumbling through my Italian dictionary I figured out that, “mechanic here in five minutes!”   45 minutes later an old grumpy Italian man came and ten minutes later he got us out of the elevator, did I mention five of us were in the cramped wooden and old elevator (I got to know those girls pretty quickly.  But anyway, the grumpy mechanic wouldn’t let us go until he could scold us in Italian (which none of us actually understood so we just nodded and kept apologizing).

The final challenge and the ending of my first night in Florence, to get our heat to work!  Yes our heat was broken.  First when I attempted to take a shower the hot water disappeared almost immediately, so I was forced to was my hair in the kitchen sink with ice cold water.  Then none of us could figure out how to fix the heat so our apartment was the same temperature as outside (I'm guessing about 30 degrees).  Without a number for our landlord and anyone else, we were all forced to pile on the layers and sleep in a tight ball in order to stay warm all night.   My “pajamas” included plaid PJ bottoms, sweatpants, two pairs of socks, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, scarf, hat, mittens and then I topped it off with my north face fleece laying over me.  Needless to say I was nice and warm while sleeping.

But I am still excited to be here and can’t wait to see the city in the daylight!