MaKayla Painter, Pitt in Florence Summer 2023
All housing through the Pitt in Florence program is provided for students by CEA CAPA and can be found all over the city. For example, I live in an apartment building above a museum! My walk to classes is 2-3 minutes to one building and 5-8 minutes to the other building which is an amazing commute as some of my other classmates who live across the Arno have a much longer walk. Florence is such a compact city that no matter where you get placed with housing, all of your basic needs will be close. I am also less than 10 minutes from a grocery store, farmacia, cafes, and local amazing restaurants. My biggest daily walk is to the Santa Maria Novella train station, but even that is less than 15 minutes away.
My apartment consists of two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, two balconies, and an open kitchen, living room, and dining room space. Four of us live in this apartment but only share a bedroom and bathroom with one other person. My roommate and I found two twin beds, two night stands, one dresser, a wheel cart, and a clothing rack in our room. Our room is a loft so storage space is tight and therefore we keep our coats downstairs in the closet and our luggage under our beds. In the downstairs bathroom we have a washer and in the closet we found our drying rack. Our apartment also came with other basic cooking amenities like pots, pans, cups, silverware, wooden spoons, a strainer, etc. It even came with a moka, which is the device Italians use to make coffee!
It is important to remember that all of the housing in Florence is found in old buildings so each can have little issues. I am very fortunate because my building comes with an elevator and air conditioning, but these are not found in every place. When I got here I was surprised to find out that Italy has very strict laws when it comes to electricity and heating use. We have not had any issues, but I do wish I had known before I got here. CEA CAPA has a person whose whole job is to deal with housing and he has been incredible to work with when issues do appear. The housing director also organizes a cleaning crew which comes every other week to help us keep up with the apartment.
My direct roommate is a girl I knew before coming to Florence, so we were able to request one another. My other two roommates were random, but CEA CAPA has you fill out an application and generally tries to put people together who are from the same university. What I absolutely love about my apartment building is that many of the other people who live here are also study abroad students. I have met so many of my closest friends here because we all live down the hall from one another. We each take turns enjoying Italian culture by hosting ‘Aperitivo’ nights. The hosting apartment will make a large charcuterie board, and everyone will come over with a dessert and enjoy meeting new people. I have met people from universities across America through us sharing an apartment building. Overall, my housing experience has been wonderful and should not be a worry in your mind when considering studying abroad in Florence!
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