Can I get your Italian number?

Ciao...buonasera! Today was a successful day in Firenze....after a late night last night full of a few struggles. We had a long day of orientation yesterday, and we were all exhausted. We did a little grocery shopping on the way home and got a 5 liter bottle of wine for 4 euros..we could get used to this lifestyle! Then last night we went to a dinner that was hosted by our program at this beautiful old hotel called the Palazzo Borghese. We had an Italian feast including bruschetta, eggplant parmesan, penne with arrabbiata, and risotto with asparagus. And tiramisu for dessert. Everything was pretty good...and it was free so why not?
We then went home to get ready to go out, and I was the smart one who decided to plug in the hair dryer and I blew a fuse in the apartment. So we had no power and our hair was soaking wet...not ok.  After searching, we realized there were two different circuit breakers in the apartment so we finally got power back on but by now it was almost midnight. Then we ventured out to find our other friends' apartment but when we got there, realized we had no way of telling our friends we were there....woops! And then we really looked like lost Americans just standing outside a sketchy apartment...so we went home:( And curled up in our cold apartment(the first night it was only 16 degrees Celsius...apparently this is normal?) and watched Eat, Pray, Love to inspire us to learn more Italian.

This morning the first thing we did was get our Italian phones so now we can text and call eachother! Then we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for a free brunch with our program, the attempt at American food was a little less than thrilling though. Then we decided to wander a bit and run a few other errands. We took pics at the Ponte Vecchio, did some window shopping and then went to our school to finalize some papers for our permit to stay. And then we went on the most important errand....we got italian hair dryers and straighteners! And the owner of the store was so cute and nice. Dad you'll be happy to know that his name is Paolo...dad was wondering how long it would take me to meet an Italian named Paulo. Thankfully, he was like 40 and not creepy and very nice. He also gave us a mini Italian lesson! So now we can safely blow dry and straighten our hair without blowing a fuse. Then we went to another store to get fleece blankets so we can stay warm in the apartment. Tonight we are on a mission to eat good pizza and we are going on a pub crawl...should be fun!!