I had a few expectations coming to Florence. I expected to get all A’s. I want to get an A in finance, luckily, I have an A in finance as of now and will keep working at fulfilling this destiny. A little bit of studying never hurt abroad. I think I need to tone down my traveling for the next couple of weeks so I can only focus on getting the grades I deserve. Also, I expected to enjoy my internship. I need to keep working at my internship until the last day of the program because I really appreciate what the Shippypro team has given me the opportunity to complete. I am slowly becoming a master at writing blog posts because they say that practice makes perfect and between this scholarship and my job with Shippypro I have wrote nearly 15 blogs.

I have lived in Florence about 4 months now. Three takeaways I have: 1.No one has been kicked out which is for sure a good thing, my 4 roommates are all still here living in the same building we started the program in. All the Americans are winding down with their time here in Florence and it is a bit sad. I met some really nice people and I will miss living by them. 2: The Italians like to take there time, and 3. some things are certainly better in Italy than America (Pizza and politically).

We have had some major problems with our home in these four months. Multiple plumbing problems, sometimes it smells bad, roommate disagreements, people not taking out the trash or doing the dishes and I just lost my keys on the streets with only 11 days left to go in the program (certainly all of these are not ideal). Luckily, we have worked through all of them except for my lost keys and no one has gotten hurt. Living with others can be quite difficult, especially total strangers. Lines are crossed and people are angry at new customs they are not used to. I am hoping to get my own apartment when I move back to Oakland for the next semester.

My transition into my internship has been very good. I enjoy my managers and coworkers and the other students I do the internship with are very kind, friendly and hard workers. I experienced very few challenges in my internship and for this I am quite thankful. The best advice I could give to someone who is interning Abroad is keep a open mind! That is the key in general to being abroad.