I finally have internet in my little apartment in Florence!

This morning I woke up incredibly early because I was told to get to the Questura (immigration, I think?) to hand in some forms in exchange for some sort of document allowing me to stay here and study/intern. So I was out by 8AM and at the Questura by 8.15, which wasn’t bad considering the place opened at 8, right? WRONG.

By the time I got there the queue was so long that most people were just waiting outside, the number inside was at about 30, and MY number was 248. Nice.

So I waited an hour and my number gets called, and the lady looks at my papers for 5 seconds and gives me a second number.. ? Wait another hour for that and the man takes my papers and tells me to come back on Monday. I didn’t get a receipt or anything so how they’ll know what to give me when I come in on Monday is beyond me!

Because I have to go in on Monday though, my internship start date has been pushed back to Tuesday.

It was around 11am by the time I got out of the Questura and figured since I was on the other side of town, might as well walk to the Mercato Centrale and take a look at the local produce for sale. Picked up some fresh biscotti, lots of cheese, pasta, tomato sauce, bread and my new favorite snack; MUSHROOM TRUFFLE SALSA. It’s delicious spread on crackers, I think that’s what I’m going to bring back for my mom as a souvenir… but it might be an acquired taste, apparently it smells like my feet.

My feet smell good FYI. I bought Body Shop shower gel on Monday.

So after lugging back stuff from the market I had time to kill and a few errands to run before the internet technician was to come to the apartment, and as a treat (or torture, I’m not sure) someone decided to bring me around the shops in Florence that I’ve been drooling over from the outside, to look at bags!

I live so close to all these places, it’s very distracting. We went to LV, Gucci, Prada, Miu Miu, Ferragamo, Dior and this little boutique that carried Chloe, Jimmy Choo and Marc Jacobs bags. And in every store the sales assistants followed me around and I pointed at all the bags I liked and got to walk backwards and forwards in front of big mirrors imagining I owned the bag I was trying out.

My two favorites at the end of the day were;

Miu Miu’s Leather Coffer

(but in light pink) I’ve been looking everywhere for a nice bag with a shoulder strap long enough to be worn across my body.

And to NYBoy’s horror and dismay;

They didn’t have it in pink at the store but I played with the white version for a long time. The lady told me to! She told me to try to get used to it… that didn’t take very long. It’s the softest bag I have ever EVER touched. I love it.

Sadly, I’m going to have to work a while (in a real job, not an unpaid internship!) to be able to afford a Dior.

Tonight my dinner is going to be fresh mushroom filled ravioli from the market for dinner in a simple tomato sauce with extra parmesan cheese.

I love Florence. The food is amazing, even when it’s home cooked… I think the quality of ingredients here is much better than in the UK, the shopping is great, the weather is really nice, my apartment is super cute (and on the corner of the main shopping street!) and there’s a gelato shop on every street.

On the downside, I do not speak any Italian so it’s been hard to communicate with people for directions etc. BUT my first Italian language class is tomorrow! I’m doing 2 hours a week just to learn the basics.

I love how this summer is going, it’s such a dream come true!