Hello from Florence! We got here yesterday with no major setbacks. Amen. We get to stay at this really fancy hotel in downtown florence so thats a plus but we keep getting lost everytime we leave the hotel. One girl on the 3rd floor had her room broken into last night. Someone sawed off the door handle and got in then stole her passport, credit cards and travelers checks totalling about $8000. Needless to say, not many people slept very well last night. They took her to the US Emb. and shes on her way home today. Kindof a bad way to start out the semester, right? Italy makes up for the miserable 3 days in London so Im happy The food is AMAZING! Seriously! Today we had our orientation at this 15th century palace in downtown Florence and we got a nice little security talk from the police chief in the city. Basically, American women are the only ones that seem to get raped around here so he talked to us for about 2 hours about that. Ive settled into my room with my new roommate named Alaina. Shes from New York and very nice so I think we will get along well.

I must say...Im failing miserably at trying to communicate with the Italian people. A good number of them speak some english so thats helping out a lot. I can now say hello, how much, my name is Michelle, thank you, and excuse me. haha I think Im off to a good start, dont you? Our hotel is an American one so most of the staff speaks english. We start our language classes on Monday so we will see how bad it gets from there...considering our beginners Italian classes are taught completely in Italian. Oh boy. We dont have internet in the hotel because they want us to pay £88 a week...which is ridiculous and never going to happen so I'll try to get to this internet cafe as much as possible during these next 3 weeks. They gave us a pretty big calling card so I can call a lot more often than I thought. Mom, how do you use that card that is connected to the phone bill?? I used it in London but it wont work here. Can you call any number with it or only the home number?

Okay, thats all I've got for now. We have dinner at 630 at the hotel and then we are going to the ballet Aaron is SOOOOOO excited about that one! haha I'll call you again soon mom and dad! Lie to Grandpa and tell him that I've picked up the language like a true Italian! Lots of love from your Italia!

Michelle