Moving into the second half of my time in Florence, I’m finding a number of challenges that I’ve still yet to assimilate with or adapt to. While I’ve embraced much of the Italian culture, even trying to pick up some of the language, I’ve still had a hard time in fully adjusting. 

Most of these adjustments are not earth shattering by any means. The lack of a dryer in my apartment, for example, is a luxury I certainly took for granted at home, but not detrimental to my experience in Florence. Thus far, I have managed pretty well. I think that instead of fighting cultural differences, or trying to replicate my experiences at home, I’ve had less cultural dissonance and less struggling with the new parts of life here in Italy.

My time at my internship has been another source of grounding myself while in Florence. The familiarity and structure of going in for work four to five times a week has certainly helped me kill most of my down time, as well get a chance to really work and interact with locals on a daily basis. The greatest source of ambiguity at my internship also happens to be one of the great strengths of it, which is flexibility and openness in directions. I am given a great deal of creative freedom in my assignments at Ecoframes, which is something I value.

The biggest challenge of the internship has been time management. Between getting in all twenty hours, on top of the commute, getting classwork in, traveling, and still trying to find time to explore Florence, it’s been a lot. But I don’t see any of these as bad “challenges” to have. I have a plethora of options and opportunities on how to spend my time, and I’m just trying to enjoy things day by day.

My experience navigating the city and “being on my own” has not been too difficult. Florence is extremely walkable, and I’m constantly interacting with new people, so it has generally been a smooth transition. It’s weird to think we’re already approaching the halfway mark, so I will continue to do my best to embrace challenges and cultural differences for this second half of the semester.