First Day In Photos

It was drizzling my first morning waking up in Firenze. On my way to school, I walked to past Santa Croce and stopped to admire it for a few minutes (I was jet lagged, so I had woken up early and had some minutes to spare.)

Santa Croce

I crossed the Arno and walked along it, to the the building where the Stanford Center is. It is just about directly across the Arno from the Uffizi.

Uffizi

For lunch, some other students and I bought a panino (proscuitto and mozarella, my favorite) and walked across the Ponte Vechio to eat it in the Piazza della Signoria. We watched the tourists from under the shelter of our umbrellas, admired Michelangelo's David and the other statues in the square, and walked around (and of course, we bought a gelato during our walk).

Il Palazzo in the Piazza della Signoria (David at the bottom)

After an hour and half, we returned for the second part of our orientation for the Stanford Program in Florence and heard about all the possible classes. At the end of the day the sun finally came out, and as I walked home, I looked down the Arno at the Ponte Vechio in the evening light.

Ponte Vechio

After a lovely walk, I returned to my room and opened the window to the last of the day's sunshine.

The View from My Room

As you might be able to understand, I'm still adjusting the idea that this city is my home for three months, and that my feet will walk on these coblestone streets everyday on my way to and from school.

Pretty neat.