My lovely apartment in Florence!

   Well our trip to Florence was pretty. We got to see the country side and stopped at a little rest stop. Maddy found a giant thing of Nutella. Its is EVERYWHERE here! Picture below.

   The roads are really nice here and have no pot holes. They look the same as roads in America. Picture below.

   We are finally moved in! YEA! Our apartment is super awesome. It is exactly what you would think of with a cute little brick wall to make everything feel really homey! Pictures below.

   

      The picture to the left is of my street and the one bag that I brought for four months. Which is proving to be a great idea!

On the  right is a picture of my front door complete with a cute little Vespa. There are many many scooters here. Most of them look exactly like this. There are also no speed limit signs so when you hear the hum of a scooter getting louder either roll into a ball and hope they miss you or push someone out of the way to get on the sidewalk!

  My apartment is right in the middle of the historic city center.We are on the 5th floor of the building with no elevator. This building dates back to sometime in the 18th century so of course there were no elevators then. Lugging my luggage up the steps was not fun, but thankfully I only had to do it once. The apartment is one bedroom, one bath. Completely furnished with dishes, washing machine and all. There are no dryers in Italy. Italian electricity is 4 times the cost of electricity in the US so we have to keep only one or two lights on at a time and have to unplug everything. For example, we have to unplug and replug the microwave and lamps when we want to use them. We also only do dishes and laundry after 8 pm because the government subsidizes electricity after then. NOW FOR PICTURES!  

   So this the the door before you get to our door. You walk in from the street (from the picture of the door about this picture of the inside door) then walk up 80 stairs, which is a lot by the way, and then you see this door. You must unlock them all, so we are pretty safe. So you come to top of these stairs and you see this...

Which is kind of like a reception area, only no one is ever there. My apartment is to the left, there is another one to the right and two upstairs. Its kind of like a little apartment complex within a building. So on to my front door...

 Not much to look at but it really give the feeling that you are in Italy. Its all wrought iron that is twisted together. And the key that opens the door is a skeleton key! Just like you are opening a castle door or something! All the apartments are named. I live Torre. I dont think there is a translation for the word.

 When you go inside there is a tiny hall with two doors on each side. To the left is the tiny bathroom big enough for maybe two people to be in there at one time. The bathroom is also the laundry room.

 This is the bathroom part of the bathroom with the shower and stuff complete with bidet... we dont use that.

   This is the laundry side of the bathroom. This is our tiny tiny tiny washing machine. It can hold mayyyyybe 4 towels. I guess Italians do their laundry everyday or something...

   When you walk out of the bathroom straight across from you is the bedroom. Which is nothing special. Its just a bedroom. But it does have 10 foot high ceilings that are all wood with beams. But the picture above is of when you turn out of the bathroom and turn to the left. This is one of two nooks is the great room. Our kitchen and living room is all one giant room. This used to be my nook that I sat in but Ali has taken it over... The brick that you see covers this entire wall. Next are the pictures of living room and kitchen.

     

There it is folks! My lovely little apartment in Florence, Italy!