A City Filled With Interesting People.

When thinking about the city of Florence before I had personally been there, I thought of the very small and pretty town filled with lots of rich history and amazing food as this is all I had heard from those that had been there for a week or less. After arriving and living here for around a month now I can say that these thoughts have been proven true. But one thing that I did not expect would be the very diverse amount of people throughout the city apart from strictly Italians that were not talked about. When walking down the narrow roadways to school it's easy to spot out people of many varying backgrounds. I really enjoy talking photos of people, as well as drawing them, so this was a great place for me to expand on this ongoing project of mine. The people here all have different interpretations of what's cool for clothing, haircuts, etc... so this was a great change from the typical American style. Also as a side note, the difference in the amount of people of smoke is quite the change as well. Along with the size of the cars.

To talk about my experience so far in terms of adjusting to the new lifestyle and becoming accustomed to the changes, I think I'm doing well as of right now. Moving into an apartment with people I hadn't met before was a little nerve racking but exciting at the same time. We all became great friends within the first few days and we still prefer to go out and participate in activities as a group. I feel like this helped a lot with the sense of culture shock in the beginning as I wasn't experiencing all this on my own. If one of us became lost, or needed help with anything, we would figure out a way to get the job done. I still become nervous in public sometimes as I am still learning the basics of the Italian language, and don't want to make myself like a fool. But most of the people that I've met in the city have been very nice for the most part. One thing that annoys me though are the "gypsies" of the town. Earlier today I had seen a man sitting by himself looking at something on his phone, and a gypsy woman walked right by him grabbing his phone from his hand. Luckily he managed to grip it correctly and not let her take it, but acts such as this really bother me.

I'm extremely excited for what's to come next in this adventure, and I can't wait to share the experience with others.