Kelsi :) Hey guys!!! Sorry it has taken me so long to update but this has been quite an adjustment that we have had to made. Well I guess I could start with getting on the plane to come over!! Everything went well on the way to Chicago but then we almost missed our flight there. We were the last ones to board because our flight was a little late getting to Chicago so we eventually made it to our next flight!! That's where it all got bad!!! First me and Mary Shannon didn't have seats together so of course me being all emotional already because I was missing my family already started to freak out. I just was determined to make sure that we were sitting beside each other especially because it was a 9 hour flight. So we talked this woman into moving so were good. When I walked back to sit with Mary Shannon she was talking to her dad and she was crying so of course I then got on the phone with Mom and Dad and started to cry! I guess you can say we were a little emotional to say the least. We got it together and decided we were fine but then came the babies crying. We of course were sitting in seats that were by 4 babies crying from every angle. Thank goodness Mary Shannon bought me the headphones that had noise cancelling on it!! So we listened to our ipod and watched the same 4 movies for 9 hours. That was an experience let me say! We were just about to arrive in Germany when I started to get a little sad again, of course everyone who knows me knows that I am a little emotional. I definately get if from my mom who couldn't even say a sentence without crying because I was leaving. Well so Mary Shannon was talking to me and we happened to look to the right where there was one baby and we were so shocked to see what was going on!! There was a European woman right next to us breastfeeding her child out in the open and everything!! My tears quickly turned to laughter!! It's not everyday you see that in public!! Where was I...ok so we land but we have found out that there was a huge delay in our flight before we took off causing us now to miss our flight to Florence!! WOW alot to take in. Well we both calmed each other down and just figured ok so now we will just catch another flight no big deal. Well let's just say it wasn't going to be that easy. Once we got into Germany we went also were told that our luggage was only routed to Munich, Germany where we were and not to Florence where it was suppose to go. So we had to run down to the baggage claim to reclaim our luggage and then check it in all over again and get a ticket to Florence. You could say we were freaking!!! Once we got to the baggage claim all the baggage had been let off and there were like 10 bags sitting off to the side. Well I took 3 bags becuase I was being a baby and wanted my comforter which we were only suppose to take 2 so dad had to pay extra for me!! However I so wish I would have listened to mom because she was more than right about it all being to heavy for me to carry by myself. Mary Shannon had 2 bags but they were both overweight so her dad had to pay for that. I guess you could say we had definately overpacked. Back to my story... we only see 2 of my bags and only 1 of Mary Shannon's bags. I quickly ran up to the guy who of course my luck he could not speak any english! We just sat down and started griping how we were hungry, tired, and ready to just be there and now on top of everything we had missing luggage. Well Mary Shannon went to go and try and track our luggage while I stayed with our bags. Well after about 10 minutes I see this little German guy walking up with our missing bags. Of course I start screaming with excitement and yelling at Mary Shannon who is clear across the airport that we have found our luggage. I thank the man and we get our stuff and are on our way to check it in again. But this was the best part... Me and Mary Shannon with all of our luggage!! I had 2 duffel bags might I mention that 1 of them was a huge camo bag that was my dads!! The 2 duffel bags were tied together with dad's famous bungee chords he uses for everything. I then was also pulling a huge zebra rolling bag as well. This was very interesting watching me pull all of this. I had to walk backwards most of the time with Mary Shannon a little in front of me with 2 bags that were bigger than her!! With everyone staring at us I fall backwards on Mary Shannon's bags causing her to fall as well!! At this point it is either laughter or crying!!! We just laughed!! I have a huge hole in my black duffel bag with some of my shoe sticking out of it. I was so mad!! The airport people are never nice to my luggage. We are on our way to check it in and we walk up to the place and the woman didn't look happy. After explaining to her what all went wrong and why were re checking our luggage she checked it. First she was not going to because of the weight and my 3rd bag, but we were not letting that stop us so we showed her our receipts that stated how we had already paid the extra money and she accepted it. So we were feeling a little better at this time so we went and rescheduled our flight to Florence which was ended up being a much simpler task than we accepted. We then decided to go to sleep in the airport for a couple of hours because we were physically and mentally exhausted!! Well you can guess what happened next... we almost slept through our flight but this guy we had met earlier that was also studying abroad in our program named Kellen walked over to us and woke us up. We were very thankful that he did that... it could have been really bad if he hadn't! So we get on board and everything is going great and it was only an hour long plane ride which was awesome. We arrive in Florence and it is amazing!! We met like 5 people that were with our program so we stuck by them. We got our luggage and of course ppl got a huge kick out of my camo bag I just replied haha can't you tell I'm from Arkansas!! We are loading our luggage outside in the bus to go to the main office when it started raining horribly!!!!! Of course everyone is running back into the airport where as me and Mary Shannon just stood tall and strong by our luggage and just laughed as we were getting beyond soaked!!! We all got in the bus eventually arrived to the main office where we were going to register in and get our apartment keys. As soon as we got there the shuttle bus guy tossed our stuff inside and left. The crazy part was getting out of the bus. The streets in Florence are so small and everyone drives like a crazy person not even awknowledging that there are ppl walking. So it was quite an adventure trying to get out on the street. Once we walked ino the office they asked for Mary Shannon's name and she told them and then they said omg thank goodness is Kelsi Konecny with you. She replied yes and I walked over to her and said it was me and she said ok good. Your dad has called a couple of times to see where you were and if you had made it yet! I was so embarrassed because there were like 20 ppl my age in there and everyone was getting a kick out of that. I was like that would only happen to me!! Gotta love my family!!! Hey but it goes to show how much they love me so I didn't mind it a bit!! After we registered we had to load our stuff back in the bus and we were now on our way to our apartment. Our driver was driving of course fast speeding through what we would call an alley they would to refer to them as streets. Well he decided to go down a one way the wrong way so taht he could take us to our apartments and of course there was a car coming our way. Well they exchanged a few words that we couldn't understand becuase it was in italian but what I got of the conversation wasn't good because our driver spit on the other man's car!!!! It was the craziest thing I have seen!! Once we got into our apartment we could finally settle down except for the fact that there were 3 flights of stairs that we had to climb to get our bags up there. That was one of the hardest things I have had to do!!! The lights on the stairs were automatic so they kept going out leaving us in the dark. After alot of sweating and cussing we made it into our new home!! It was very interesting. The bedrooms are great, the bathroom is definately small, and we have a tiny kitchen!! It is a pretty big apartment though so we were happy. In our bedroom we have a huge window that overlooks the street which is absolutely gorgeous!!! You can open the shutters and see everything that is going on below us. We met our roomates Chrissy and Kate who are so cool we love them to death!! Chrissy is from Pittsburgh and Kate is from Texas. We stayed up awhile just chit chatting and then decided that we were hungry so we set off walking to see if we could find some type of a market that we could get something to eat. Wow we found one alright but we couldn't read any of it and understand what exactly these ppl were eating. I found some Ritz crackers, some peanuts, and chips and that was my supper!! After we ate we went to bed and ended up sleeping until 2 today!!! The noise outside is so loud in the morning you can hear everything and everyone talking in the morning so it's going to be hard to sleep in every morning. Once we got up and moving we took a shower. Ok now that is what's really hard to deal with . We don't get much hot water so we have to as Mary Shannon says rinse, wash, rinse. You have to rinse your body off, turn the water off shampoo your hair, turn the water off, wash your body and condition your hair, turn the water on for one last rinse off. Crazy huh yea that's what I said. Then it came to the part of drying our hair. Well I left something out last night we were trying to plug in our power surge and we blew the circuits. Everything went pitch black. Thank goodness dad gave me a flashlight. My dad had taught me how to turn the circuit back on so me thinking I was such a genuis decided I was going to fix it. Well we couldn't find it in our apartment so I went downstairs to the main circuit part for the whole building and flipped the switch back!! Yea big mistake!! I turned off the electricity for the whole building!!! I quickly turned it back and took off in a dead sprint up the stairs back in our room so no one would know it was me!! haha Well I wasn't done messig with the power box. I guess you can see that I'm to much like my dad and was bound and determined to fix the problem. So I kept looking around our apartment and found it. I was't tall enough to reach it so I got Chrissy to reach up there and power our stuff back on! It worked!! OK so now you know why I was scared to plug in my hair dryer. But luckily it worked fine!! I dried my hair and then came time to straighten my hair, that's another story!!! My chi wouldn't work so I having horrible hair like I do I knew I had to do something so I curled every piece with a curling iron making me right now look like curly sue!!! haha I had to do something!! But everything is working out and we are planning to explore tomorrow. This place is absolutely amazing and I am looking forward to hanging out with everyone I met and learning about all the history that lives in this city!!! Our apartment is even built in the 1500's !!! How crazy is that!!! I am hoping to download pictures on here so that you all can see what I am seeing because it is absolutely beautiful!!! Love everyone and miss you all soooo much!! Please keep in touch and write us on here!!! Wish us luck and we take on the city of Florence!!!! LOVE YALL!!!!!!