First few days in Firenze

So I am now currently a resident of Florence, Italy. My goodness what a beautiful city. THough I haven't been to very many places yet, Florence has easily been my favorite so far, which is a good thing because it's where I chose to live. Florence is an ancient, beautiful city that is one of the art capitals of the world. The city and it's buildings have a very "white" sense about them and by that I mean I can tell now why some people in Rome I talked to called Florence "The White City". The residents themselves, for the most part are very friendly and quite patient. Time seems to move a little bit slower here. Everyone walks everywhere and take their time doing it. I have been accused of this frequently back in the States, so I have had no problem adjusting to the "chill" lifestyle.

As I mentioned earlier, I live in the center of the city which is where all of the action and most of the attractions lie. I live on Via dei Calzaiuoli, which is a main shopping street where many formidable Italian fashion label's stores are (Armani, Dolce&Gabbana, Prada, etc.). I am taking a fashion marketing class while I'm here, so it's interesting to hear about these brands and the influence the Italians have had on world fashion. I live one block away from the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore which everyone here refers to as simply "the Duomo", the world's third largest cathedral. Talk about an amazing structure. It is truly massive and is the center of the entire city. I live on the north side of the Arno River, very close to the world renown bride, the Ponte Vecchio. My friend Kate walks across it every day to get to class. It's a structure unlike anything I'd ever seen. I now understand better why Florence is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

My first day here, I met this interesting man named Fr. Bruno. He is quite the character. An amazing man, he has literally been everywhere and a good source to have when looking into traveling. He took us out to dinner our first night in Florence, got us boozed up and fed us like royalty. He reminds me a lot of the Jesuit priests back at Creighton. He is a apparently a pretty famous guy in this area as when we are with him, we are constantly bumping into people who seem to have some sort of affiliation with him. I believe he is working as some sort of chaplain for the program I am studying through. If any of you come to visit me (which I would love if you did), I will be sure to introduce him to you.

So my last post drew a little bit of criticism as although my photos were well taken, I need more photos of myself and people in them. So this post won't have many but I will try to in the near future, starting with Carnevale in Venice this weekend. Also, I will have a lot more pictures of Florence soon, but these are just the few I have taken since I've been here.

Ciao!