One thing about Italy that has been hard to adapt to is the difference in shopping stores and what stores sell what. When we first got here, we wanted to find a target-like store to be able to find little things for our apartment, but we soon realized that there wasn’t really any places that had all of those things in one place. In Florence, and there are more small stores with one specific thing or a couple specific items. So, it was a little tough at first getting used to a new city that we are unfamiliar with on top of trying to find the items that we needed to adjust to our new living situation.
A situation where I have experienced uncertainty and ambiguity in the classroom was just this week for my international finance midterm. We were not sure exactly what the format of the exam would be like, and we didn’t know exactly what topics would be on it. From what I understood, I knew it would be open ended questions on different topics we learnt in class, so I spent a lot of time studying those topics and making sure I fully understood the concepts and could explain them thoroughly. This is a little different from how I study at home because my exams are either multiple choice at home or open ended, but the open ended are typically calculation based, while the multiple choice are typically concept based. Studying this way was a little different because I don’t typically have to explain the concepts myself on a concept based multiple choice question, I just have to choose the correct answer. Though this way of studying was a little difficult to adjust to at first, I felt like it actually ended up resulting in a better understanding of the topics and I am happy that I had to study it that way.
Outside the classroom I haven’t had to necessarily adjust to being on my own for the first time because I feel like I really had to adjust to that when I came to school in Pittsburgh. I had never lived in a city before and it was very jarring to move there without knowing anyone but my roommate. Adjusting to Florence in that way hasn’t been that difficult, because it is similar in size to Pittsburgh and is very walkable just like Pittsburgh. My experience navigating Florence has been a very fun challenge, though it seemed daunting at first. The city isn’t very big, and you can get from one end to the other in 25 or 30 minutes by foot. I feel like every day I get more and more used to the city and know where I am going more and more. I hope that by the end of the trip I really feel like I know exactly where I am going!
