studied abroad inFlorence Italy so today I just kind ofwanted to sit down and give you some ofmy top study abroad tips for studyingabroad in general but also specificallystudying abroad in Florence becausethat’s where I studied so that’s what Iknow most about so I am looking at myphone a lot it’s because I have thisvery extensive list of tips to sharewith you guys so the first thing I’mgonna talk about is packing when you arepacking your suitcase you really want totry and under pack because I believe theweight limit for most airlines whenyou’re packing a suitcase is 50 poundsand then they charge you extra so whenyou are traveling to your country thatyou’re studying abroad in you want totry to under pack so you’re under that50 pound limit okay so when it comes topacking I highly suggest you just packbasics for your clothing so maybe likeone jean jacket two to three pairs ofjeans maybe like one or two pair of jeanshorts basic like plain t-shirts tanktops etc just because if you’re packinga bunch of pattern things it’s reallyhard to make multiple outfits out ofthose whereas if you pack basics you canmix and match a lot and when you’repacking for over a monththat’s kind of more convenient and thenalso when you are like studying abroadlike you’re gonna buy more clothes whileyou’re there when it comes to shoes mytip is to only pack maybe three to fourpairs of shoes you don’t need to packten pairs of shoes and my Air Force Oneson the flight because they were myheaviest pair of shoes and again youwant to try to limit the weight of yourbag so wearing your heaviest pairs ofshoes on the flight is a good thing todoum what else Oh when it comes to heels Ireally don’t think it’s worth packing apair of heels when you’re studyingabroad in Italy just because the stonelike the streets are made of cobblestoneand they’re very oldso there’s most of the streets have abunch of cracks in them and so whenyou’re wearing heels you will fallbecause your heel is gonna get stuck inthe crack I’ve seen it happen to manystudents studying abroad and it it’sreally funny but when you’re the personthat’s falling it’s not so fun my nexttip is to check the weather before yougo to the country that you’re studyingabroad in for me I just kind of assumedthat Italy was going to be hot the wholetime since it was the summertime and Iwas so wrong the month of May was kindof chilly for the most part and itdidn’t really start getting hot untilJune so I didn’t have a lot of clothesfor the chilly weather but I ended upbuying some things just because you’rein Florence and the shops are amazing soyou’re gonna want to buy things butthat’s just something to keep in mind ifyou are studying abroad in Florencespecifically I really advise you not towear workout clothes just on your day today like walking around in the citybecause um a lot of people don’t wearactually no one wears workout clothesunless they’re going to the gym that’sthe only that’s their sole purpose forthem in Florence and going off of thatif you wear like jean shorts in the cityyou will get stared out because I woreteen shorts to my first day of class andthen I quickly realized that no onewears jean shorts in Florence thing elsethat you would might want to pack istowels because I was living in anapartment for the six weeks that I wasin Florence and they did provide bedsheets but they did not provide towelsso I had to bring my own bathroom toweland then I also brought like a pooltowel so when it comes to purses andbackpacks what I did was I brought onepurse that I and it was a crossbody bagand i really suggest that you have acrossbody bag when you are sendingabroad because when you are a touristand people are gonna notice that and youdon’t want anything to get stolen off ofyou so having a crossbody bag wellensure that like your you’re gonna haveyour eyes on your bag the whole timebecause it’s gonna be in front of youwhereas a backpack everything’s behindyou I had a backpack that I like broughtwith me that I wore like two classes andthat’s where I had all my school stuffbut then when I was just traveling orwalking around the cityI had my purse and then also I really dosuggest bringing a backpack one becauseyou’re gonna need it for classes andalso for the weekends I went on daytrips or I went on like weekend tripsand instead of packing instead ofbringing my whole suitcase with meI just put clothes for that day or forthat weekend in my backpack and I hadthat as money like carry-on for thedifferent bus rides that I went on ifyou are a female and you are watchingthis video you are probably gonna haveyour period at least one well you arestudying abroad and I did not know whatthe tampon situation was like inFlorence and I didn’t really want torisk like having a situation where likeI didn’t know how to use their tamponsor their tampons like we’reuncomfortable for me or I don’t know Ijust didn’t really know what it wasgonna be like so I personally brought myown box of tampons from the US and Ijust took them out of the box and putthem in like a bag just so they took upless room in the suitcase so if you’rekind of like unsure of like what theperiod situation is going to be likeabroad then I suggest bringing your ownsupplies because it just it’s not worththe hassleso my last packing tip is todouble-check your prescribed medicationsbecause I personally don’t takeprescribed medication so I can’t reallyspeak too much on this but I do knowpeople that did that do take prescribedmedication and they have some of themhad to bring like documentation withthem like showing like hey like this ismy medication and I need it forsuch-and-such reason because I thinksome countries limit like what you cantake in so I if you are taking aprescribed medication I would just go toyour doctor and make sure that you havelike the proper documentation if youneed that documentation I think there’slike a list that you can look up andit’ll show like what what you needdocumentation for and what you don’tneed documentation for I’m not toofamiliar with it because I didn’t haveto worry about that but I do remembermy advisor was kind of bringing that upto me so I thought I would just mentionit in the video okay now that we’re alldone with packing I want to talk to youguys a little bit about money soobviously the u.s. we have dollars andin Italy they use euros so somethingthat I suggest is that you order 200 to300 euros at your bank and sometimes youhave to order that a few weeks inadvance before you study abroad becausethey might not hold it so if you go in afew weeks and before you leave thecountry and you ask for that then theywill order it you can go in and pick itup right before you leave and I suggestbringing that much because although youcan use like credit cards and debitcards abroad some places in Florencedon’t accept card they only accept cashor you have to spend a certain amount ofmoney to use a card and then also whenyou are taking out money abroad in likean ATM make sure that ATM is attached toan actual bank because there were someATMs in Florence that were just kind offreestanding and a lot of city abroadstudents got scammed and like got theirmoney like stolen so definitely be awareof where you’re taking your money outand then my last tip when it comes tomoney is to make sure your credit carddoesn’t have or your debit card likedoesn’t have an international like taxfee on it I use Wells Fargo and thedebit card that I had any time you swipeit abroad it charged it charged like anextra percentage I think it was likealmost $5 it was either $5 or like 5% ofattacks that they were gonna charge youevery time you swipe your card and ifyou’re studying there for six weeks thatadds up very quickly so I ended upgetting a credit card with a differentbank that didn’t have that extratransaction fee so that’s just somethingelse to keep in mind my next topic isgonna be trips and I just have a fewthings that I wanted to say about thiswhen you are traveling alone like me Iwent to Italy by myself I didn’t haveany of my friends come with me and justended up making friends in Italy while Iwas there and travelling can be kind ofscary when you’re alone so what I foundout that they haddifferent study abroad travel groups soI joined one and the one that I joinedwas smart trip and the people that wereworking the trips were only a few yearsolder than me so they were reallyrelatable and really awesome and I’mstill friends with some of them todayand basically you kind of choose likewhere you want to go they have differentitineraries laid out for differentcities and so I would just I think Iwent to almost all the cities in Italyjust because they were so affordable andthen they kind of have an itinerary ofthe trip planned out already so youdon’t have to worry about transportationsome of the food is provided but you dohave to pay out-of-pocket for some foodand then there’s different activitiesthat are already included in the amountof payment that you’re giving them andthen they also have additionalopportunities that you can partake inwhich will of course cost you extra buttrust me it’s worth itI definitely save money by travelingwith smart trip so I highly recommendthat if you are studying abroad in Italybut I do know that they have otherlocations throughout Europe I am halfwaythrough my list I know it’s long but Ijust want to talk about my first fewdays in Italy and I some things that Ilearned immediately that I just want toshare with you guys so I highly suggestwalking your class schedule before yourfirst day of class and thank God I didthis because I forgot to plug my phonein at night when the night before myclasses and my phone died in the middleof the night so I ended up waking upliterally ten minutes before my classstart arch bone over night somethingelse i really suggest is to bring aportable charger because your phone doesdie a lot quicker when you’re abroadwhen you’re walking between classes youand your phone battery is low and youwant to take pictures of the beautifulbuildings and scenery you’re gonna wantto have that portable charger whenyou’re at the grocery storebring a reusable bag so maybe that’ssomething you want to pack or you canjust kind of buy while you’re in Italyis a reusable bag because they chargeextra if you use plastic bags whenyou’re checking out also one more thingI want to say about grocery shopping andjust food in general is that in Italy Ifound out that it’s illegal to putpreserveand the food so a lot of times likethat’s why people have smallerrefrigerators in Italy because they gogrocery shopping multiple times a weekbecause their fruit will literally gobad in like two or three days all rightwe are almost through next I just havesome general tips that I want to sharewith you guys and the first one is donot walk around the city at night wingif you are alone because especially ifyou’re a female because the boys and menI should say in Italy are much moreaggressive than the men in America andthey will come up to you and things willhappen if you don’t have a way toprotect yourself you’re walking aroundwalking around alone at night just justdon’t always go in groups even if you’rea guy there was a few guys that gotended up getting mugged because theywere walking around alone at night andlike people knew that they like weren’tfrom there because like no matter howhard you try to blend in like you do soyou’re still gonna stick out a littlebitmy next general tip is to downloadGoogle Maps onto your cell phone so Ipersonally didn’t have like a data planwhen I was studying abroad I just had myphone on airplane mode and I logged intoWi-Fi wherever I was at to use my phoneand I it was kind of hard to like get toplaces because I couldn’t just pull upmy maps on my phone but something that Ilearned after like the first two weekswas that if you plug in an address intoGoogle Maps while you’re in Wi-Fi andyou leave that Wi-Fi area it will stilltake you to your destination and thenlike it’ll shut off because you’re atyour destination and there’s no moreWi-Fi but you don’t need to be in Wi-Fifor the Google Maps to take you to yourdestination which I thought was reallycool so I used that a lot to get todifferent places that I wanted to kindof just check out in Florence my nexttip is uber in Florence is not a thinglike it is in America if you do decideto take a taxi and you have luggage withyou put your biggest suitcase in thetrunk and don’t put anything else in thetrunk because they charge you per bagplus they charge you like however manyminutes or miles it takes to get towhere your destination is so if you havecarry-ons bring that in the backseatwith you because they won’t charge youfor that this is kind of a random tipbut don’t drink a cappuccino after11 a.m. because that’s just what peoplein Florence do they only have them inthe morning and if you have them in theafternoon it just is kind of weirdyou’re at restaurants they don’t reallysplit checks in Florence so definitelydownload venmo that way like yourroommate if you if your roommate ispaying for dinner you can just memo themthe money or if you have cash then youand you’re making kind of like splityour cash and pay for dinner that way mylast tip is restaurants usually closedin the early afternoon and don’t open upagain until 7:00 so that is justsomething that you want to keep in mindso make sure your eating schedule kindof follows the restaurant schedulebecause there were definitely some timesthat like I got like my eating times alittle mixed up and then I kind of likewent hungry for a few hours just becausenothing was really open and or I wouldjust go to like the market and like buysomething like that instead but yeahjust keep that in mind that is all Ihave to share about my tips for studyingabroad in Florence I also have a blogand on my blogI created a guide to Florence andthere’s a lot of like additionalinformation about restaurants to go toplaces to see and then also I think I dohave some tips listed there but ifyou’re looking more for restaurants togo to in Italy or specific venues andplaces that you to check out when youare in Italy that I highly suggest you
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