Falling in Love with Italy

I am here in Firenze, Italia and am quickly falling in love with everything about it. I live in a two bedroom apartment with one and a half baths and 4 roommates, all from the States. I am taking 3 hours of Italian classes everyday (which figures out to be about 12 credits of Italian... 4 semesters of Italian in one... yikes!), a Florentine architecture class that takes us to the places we are studying, and a voice lesson. Here is the view from outside the window of my classroom at the Instituto Europeo.

This building is called the Duomo, the biggest and most recognized cathedral in Florence. Here is a better picture of it from the street outside the door of my school.

My classes are small, only about 12 people in them (one of the students is from Slippery Rock and one is from New Castle! How crazy is that!?). I had my first voice lesson the other day and it went so well. She got me to sing higher and with better tone than I ever have in my life. She is very excited to see where my training will take me, and so am I.
I feel like in some ways I haven't awoken from a dream yet. It is all very overwhelming and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. Pray that I draw near to Christ in all that I do and that I work hard for His glory. There is so much to do and so much to see I am easily distracted. But I see Him in everything here; in the buildings, the art, some of the people, and definitley the cappucino. It does not get much better than waking up early in the morning, spending some time with God, getting ready for the day, and then walking to the Duomo for class and on the way stopping at my favorite Caffe for some of the best cappucino in the world.

Here are my roommates and a few of my classmates on the side of the Arno :-).


I do have a cell phone number. You can call from a land line using a calling card (which would probably be most cost efficent for you). All of my incoming calls are free, but calling to the US is about 60 cents a minute. To get outside the country dial 011. Italy's country code (what you dial next) is 39. And my number is 335 7751 624. So all together:

My cell phone number: 011 39 335 7751 624

My address is
Kate Meyer
Instituto Europeo
Piazza delle Pallottole n.1 (Duomo)
Firenze, Italy 50122

Hope to hear from you guys! KM_in_Italy@yahoo.com.
I love you and am missing you all so much.