Ciao Italia : Day 2

Today marked day number two in Florence! Adjusting to the time change didn't come easy, but after a night of sleeping in I was ready to explore. Olivia, Amanda, Taylor and I left the apartment at 1230 in search of a bank and a specific pizza place that apparently had the best pizza. The banks in Italy were extremely different than American banks. We had to each one by one go through a door that enclosed you for a few seconds than opens and lets you into the bank. For anyone who is claustrophobic this would be hell. Everything in the bank was very slow pace which I was definitely not used to! After the bank experience we went to find the pizza place. After walking around for over an hour becoming more starving by the minute we gave up on our search and settled for the first sit down pizza place we could come across. The pizza was so fresh and simple! We loved the fact that we felt we were having quality time with each other and weren't being rushed at all. It was then when we started comparing the differences between Italy and the US. We noticed the more mellow, patient and quality/portion of foods were. In Italy they really take the time to sit down and have a nice meal. There is no rush to be somewhere else. This is something we all hope that we will take away from our experience of being abroad. Another thing we noticed was how pleasant it was to sit down and have a meal with no interruptions. Without phones none of us had the option of "being somewhere else" or talking to someone who wasn't in our company. We so easily lose a sense of that because we are so accustomed to being connected to everyone at every moment. After our nice sit down meal of eggplant and margarita pizza, white wine, and brochette we went to go meet up with a group of KSU students to find our school and eat gelato for the first time. As we wondered around trying to find the KSU building we ran into Dr. McLeod our teacher and first week guide for Florence. As always Dr. McLeoud was more than excited to see us and directed us to the school. We toured around our new building and then were off for some gelato. The gelato was amazing!! From there we continued to explore Florence. We walked over to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge where we sat on a beach for a while and admired the view. We also passed the statue of David and a few other sculptures as we made our way around the city. On our way back to the apartment we did some window shopping (mostly in Zara and an Italian Department store) and resisted the urge to splurge on our first day. This was hard for everyone but we managed to escape the stores and all their temptations for the day! Again as we traveled back to the apartment we took a long and unexpected detour of Florence but with the great directional skills of Olivia made it back to our apartment. A few hours later we went out to go find a place for dinner. Luckily for us we got placed in an apartment that was more residential so the food is a little cheaper than by the Duomo. We ended up at a pasta restaurant (how shocking) and got grouped hugged into entering by an italian waiter named Valerio. Again we were in a restaurant where no one spoke anything but broken English. Lucky for us we now know four Italian words... Ciao, grazie, molto buono and prego. This of course got us no where but but pointing at what food we wanted we were able to order. The food took a while but was pretty good. We all got pasta and salad and some wine along with free service and free limone cello thanks to Valerio. Valerio also gave us a 10% off coupon for tomorrow in case we decided to come again. It was another meal of laughs, wine, and dazed and confused with our attempts to communicate. Italy is amazing and definitely a good change!
Ciao!

The meal we finally had after starving all day....