Confessions of a Foodie Drama Queen: Day 1...or 2...the jetlag is kicking in....

Buonasera!!! Just want to say first that I am here safe and sound...that is for my mom who sent me many worrisome texts today, it's harder than you think to get wifi here but now were all set up and good! But as per usual, today was not without its hiccups haha. The flight from Amsterdam was pretty uneventful I watched three movies and had a whole row to myself. I didn't get much sleep despite my tylenol pm, probably only 2 hours total. I arrived in Amsterdam at 6:30am and had to go through a mini customs and another security check point. And of course I didn't know I had to take my camera out of my bag and had to search the whole thing and I think they almost were gonna do a pat down on me but saw my terrified face and let me go...thank gosh!! I then had a layover for 3 hours, met a lot of other people in my program and got a Starbucks coffee...coffee never tasted so good:) I arrived in Florence at about noon and immediately went to get my luggage. Thankfully, nothing was lost and customs was a breeze...literally a dog sniffed my bags as I walked by and that was it. Then all the people in my program were herded together like cattle while we waited to be picked up by a shuttle. We all wore stickers that said our address....and mine is via Sant'Egidio 12, which proved to be the worst address of the day. The cab drivers wanted to take people whos addresses were near each other and clearly mine wasn't near any of these addresses. Everytime a cab driver would look at my address they would shake their head no. I was getting pretty pissed and normally I would have said something but I figured I'm in a foreign country so I better hold my tongue. I was the last shuttle to be picked up...at 2:30. Then i was taken to the wrong address where the keys didn't work, and after a minor spaz finally we arrived and I had to drag my 50 pound bag up like 2 flights of stairs to our amazing apartment where Colleen, Dana, and sleeping beauty Mikey were waiting for me:) They were a sight for sore eyes...our apartment is beautiful and newly renovated, you can still smell the fresh paint!! And we had a gift basket sitting on our kitchen table with olive oil, pasta, and nutella in it. I had never been so happy to be home! We live i our own little "palace" as our landlord calls it and we have our own private courtyard that we have mostly all to ourselves and we live right above a spa! I will post pics of the apartment tomorrow. But for the most important part....we went to dinner tonight at Gastones's right near apartment and decided to treat ourselves. We got a bottle of Chianti to start and now I'll let the pictures speak for themselves......