I love Florence more and more every day.

I love the weather, and the people; I LOVE where I live. I love learning how to speak Italian (very slowly!).

Before I came here I imagined it as being a cute little tourist place like Nice in France, but it’s a pretty big city, with pretty big shopping places. I love that even though I’ve walked up and down the same little streets over and over again, it’s still exciting.

I do not love Italian bureaucracy.

I handed in my forms for an permit to stay in Italy on Wednesday, and they told me to come back on Monday. I figured I’d go in the morning because I had a class scheduled for 2pm. So I was there by 8.15AM, and I waited 2 hours to be given a number, and another 2 hours just to be told to come back after 1pm.

I came back at 1pm, decided not to wait for another number because I was sick of waiting, finally got to the front of the crowd and was given my permit, which was…

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the exact form I handed in, with my handwriting on it and everything, but with a stamp on the bottom.

DOES THAT SERIOUSLY TAKE THAT LONG?

I was sooo tired of waiting, I’d been sat there since 8.15am until when I got the form back, by which time it was about 1.30pm? Not to mention the place is a 2km walk from where I live. I was not happy.

So after my Italian class, I went into MAC and got a makeover courtesy of Marco who had excellent English and even better makeup skill.

He even showed me how to fill in my brows using eyeshadow instead of a pencil (I have really sparse eyebrows, they’re not cool)

And then I got gelato, from this really bright store with neon lights called Festival del Gelato. I think it’s the best gelato I’ve had since I got here, but I haven’t yet tried the famous Vivoli gelato that all the guidebooks rave about.

Just to make all of you jealous;

I got a cup of Kinder gelato mixed with watermelon.

The watermelon is my new favorite.

TOMORROW!