Angelina Colaianni, AIFS: Florence Summer 2022
The housing for my specific program was all apartments. The AIFS program leaders saw it as an opportunity for us to fully immerse ourselves in the culture and lifestyle of Italy, so they placed us in apartments across Florence’s city center. I had seven roommates, which was the most that one could have. At first this overwhelmed me, as I had never lived with a roommate before — much less seven strangers. When we arrived in Florence, we stayed at a hotel the first night while our apartments were being prepared for our arrival. It was there that I met two of my eventual roommates, and we instantly got along very well. They were just as nervous as I was, which helped to calm my nerves. We did not meet the rest of our roommates until the next day when all the students were getting ready to take taxis to our respective apartments. Friendly introductions were exchanged as our group of seven split into two separate cars. There was someone waiting for us at the apartment to show us around, and after a brief tour of the place, we all began to choose rooms. There were four rooms in the apartment — two on each side of the building— so we all shared a room with someone else. My roommate was one of the girls that I had met the previous night in the hotel. We had gotten along very well and ended up getting even closer during the 3 weeks that we lived together.
The apartment was huge and even had a balcony. When we stepped out onto the balcony to check it out, we were in awe; right down the street was the Piazza del Duomo — an iconic building in the heart of Florence. We felt incredibly lucky to have such a view right outside our window. The views and the amazing people that I got to share the space with were the highlights of my housing experience. It was an overall pleasant time, with only very minor challenges. The apartments in Italy are old, so we had a few issues with plumbing or various parts of the house not working correctly. The shower attached to my room did not drain whatsoever, but it was easy to overlook tiny inconveniences like that when there are other showers and other things to appreciate about the apartment. Every leaky washer and faulty oven became inconsequential to the overwhelming amount of good that came from staying in that specific place. I could not have asked for a better apartment — or better roommates.
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