"You Can Sleep When You Die!"

   After a very long and tiring day of traveling I finally made it to Florence! My trip went very smoothly and thankfully I had no problems. I made all of my connections, my luggage arrived safely, and I even got to sit next to a friend from USD on the 8 hour flight from Chicago to Madrid.

   When I arrived in Florence I went straight to school to pick up the keys to my apartment. I met two of my roommates there (Claire and Shannon) and we shared a taxi to our new home. When we walked inside we were amazed at how HUGE it is: We have the entire top floor to ourselves. There are 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a huge family room, a dining room, and a kitchen. It is the perfect size for the 7 of us. My room is at the back of the apartment and I share it with my friend, Caitlin. In order to get to my bed you walk past Caitlin’s bed, up a small flight of stairs and into a loft. Here are some pictures of my room and the rest of the apartment:

   For our first night in Italy my roommates (Steesha, Cami, Claire, Emma and Shannon) and I went out with a group of people from USD. We hung out at one of the girls’ apartments and then began making our way to a popular night club named “Ventuno” (21). After getting lost for a good 45 minutes, we finally found our way there. By that time it was probably 1:30 in the morning and I was exhausted from the long day of traveling, but I decided to be a trooper and check it out anyways. (As my cousin Catherine would say: “You can sleep when you die!”) Once we got into the club, we walked down a flight of stairs and into a room packed with people dancing to a song by Frank Sinatra (That sounds really lame, but it was actually pretty cool!). The music was blasting, there were black lights and flickering strobe lights everywhere and everyone seemed to be having a great time. I had a sudden burst of energy and all of my roommates and I pushed our way through the crowd onto the dance floor. For the next 2 hours, the DJ played all American music that was a lot of fun to dance to. Despite the many relentless Italian boys, we had a great time and danced the night away. It was the perfect beginning to our Italian adventure!

Steesha, Cami, Emma, Shannon and I on our first night out!