Welcome to "Graduate School"

After spending nearly 48 hours in airports/planes [completely not normal for transatlantic travel] I have arrived in my new home, Palazzo Capponi, for the next year. Even though it used to be den for squatters and drug dealers/addicts, JMU has done quite the lovely job at making it livable, air-coditioned and IKEA themed. The neighborhood we are living in is on the not so popular side of the river and is known as Santo Spirito. It is lovely during the day and has an open air market, but for some reason at night the piazza outside my window [see image below] becomes an open air party for the homeless of the city and fills my night with the soothing sounds of dog fights and bottle smashing.

Just to to give you an idea of how seriously all 17 students are taking the program thus far, we have to this date: gone bar hopping, completed a scavenger hunt, wandered around Florence aimlessly and sampled at least 4 different gelatarias. In other words, classes don't start until a week from Monday.

Sorry this post is so long, but I just wanted to give you a general overview of life thus far.

Tonight has been themed blackout night by the rest of the group and we are planning on playing a rousing game of wine pong in the kitchen of our building, seeing as large quantities of beer are non-existent in Italy. This should all make my day trip to Pisa quite interesting tomorrow. You will obviously be updated on this.

Which brings me to the game....

What Florence does not have -

-Taco Bell

-Hot Showers

-Splenda

-Vagrancy Laws

-Paper Towels

-Cars larger than an oversized suitcase

-The History Channel

-People who wear too much deodorant

-Total Cereal

Things Italy does have-

-T.B.D. (not that there is nothing I like, just that listing things now would not be fair to Italian culture)

Alright, I shall leave you for now, but I think you should probably keep up with this blog because I am quite sure that things will get much more interesting with time. Ciao!

OH. Skype: nsdoleman and/or follow me on Twitter: @seff86