Ciao everyone! Officially 3 weeks here in Florence. I have started all of my classes and they are so fun. The classes I’m taking abroad are Mystery of Wine, Yoga & Meditation, Visual Merchandising, Culture to Italy, Retail Management, and working in a boutique as my internship. They meet once a week and last 2 and a half hours. I work in my internship 6.5 hours a week Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My favorite class so far is my yoga class. For an hour we spend learning the philosophy of yoga and terminology and the last hour and a half is pretty much attending a yoga class. My goal was to stay active while living abroad, but it’s extremely hard with a very small gym that doesn’t have all the equipment I am used to. Me and one of my friends here attend the workout classes offered Monday’s & Tuesday’s and my yoga class has actually been a pretty good workout. I’m always so shocked the next day when I’m sore from just attending class, lol.

On February 1st I turned 20! It was a Thursday, so it was the start of the weekend for most of us. My friends and I went to a club in Florence called Bamboo and it was so much fun. Before coming here I didn’t expect Florence to have as much nightlife as it does but it has been one of the best parts of the experience so far. The day after me and some friends went to Gucci Garden, the new Gucci museum in Florence. Being a fashion merchandising major, I have done so much research on Gucci for school and it is my favorite designer. Gucci started in Florence and the museum was free for students and was so cool inside.

That Sunday, we took a bus to Bologna for the day and explored the city and the World of Eataly. The city was really pretty and similar to Florence. I’ve been to the Eataly in Boston but the Bologna location was 5 times the size and was more like a mall of food. Our tour guide actually described it to us as the “Disney World of food”. While it was semi-overpriced, the food was delicious. That night was the Super Bowl and we went to an Irish pub to watch the game. It started at midnight in Italy but it was really cool to feel like we were back in America for a night, even though there were no Super Bowl commercials in Italy!


Last week, I pretty much just ate a lot of food. Literally, me and my friends taste tested our way around Florence! We found a couple brunch spots, maybe too many gelato stops, heart shaped pizza, frozen margs, and whiskey milkshakes for brunch. On Sunday, we woke up early and took the time to explore Florence. I went to the Salvatore Ferragamo museum which was very important to see as a fashion merchandiser. I bought a Gucci belt (!!!) which I’ve been planning on doing for a while here in Italy. We climbed up to the Pizzale Michelangelo to watch the sunset and the view was amazing. We ended the night at a restaurant that served free, unlimited wine to college students.

Up until now, I have pretty much stayed in Tuscany since living abroad. This weekend I am going on my first weekend trip to Prague, Czech Republic. I leave Thursday night for the 13 hour bus ride and I can’t wait! I am excited to check out the John Lennon Wall and attend a bar crawl on Saturday. Next weekend I am taking a 7 hour bus to Interlaken, Switzerland for a long weekend. I am deciding between kayaking or skiing in the Swiss Alps.