Florence

Florence has always been a city that has been talked about highly and I knew I definitely wanted to visit Florence while I was in Europe. Pepperdine has an international program in Florence as well and if you travel there you are welcome to stay in their Villa for free if you can reserve a bed. So luckily we applied early enough so that we would get beds in the Villa and we didn’t have to pay for a hostel, which was so convenient. Also another perk was that we know a few of the kids in the program so they were more than willing to show us around the city all day and take us to the trendy dinner joints at night. Our suitemate Allie from last year lives in the Villa so it was really nice to be able to see her again. We arrived on Thursday night and stayed until Saturday at which point I went back to Lausanne by myself while the rest of my group went to Venice for Carnevale. I wasn’t too excited to go to Venice so I just decided to come home and have a day of rest before we headed for Greece. So on Friday we toured the city and saw the Duomo, the David and the Uffizi gallery. I enjoyed walking around a city where so much history took place. Having learned about the Renaissance, the Plague and everything else that has happened in Florence it was cool to see the city. I had always heard such great things about Italy, but to be honest I wasn’t that impressed with the city. It felt so dirty compared to Switzerland and the people are much more easily irritated and some of the streets are just too sketchy. I was completely fine only being there one full day because I felt like it was like long enough to see everything I wanted to, get some good food and wine and come back to Switzerland. After seeing Florence and the Villa and the people in the program, I had never been so happy that I had been rejected from the program in the first place. I had originally applied to study in Florence and wasn’t accepted and now I understand the saying “everything happens for a reason.” I totally would not have enjoyed Florence as much as I love Lausanne. I am so happy to be in a place that I love and can safely call my temporary home.