Andi Dorfman's Bachelorette Blog: 'It Felt like Nick & I Were Boyfriend and Girlfriend'

Andi Dorfman is the Bachelorette!

After a dramatic exit from Juan Pablo’s season of The Bachelor, the assistant district attorney, who lives in Atlanta, is searching for love once again on ABC’s hit franchise. Andi, 27, will be blogging for PEOPLE.com every week about the men, the dates and the difficult decisions she’ll make on her road to romance.

So check back each week. You can also follow Andi on Twitter.

Ciao! We were in Italy this week, and I couldn’t have been more excited to return to one of my favorite countries in the world. I have visited Italy with my family before, but obviously this time was different – a bit more romantic to say the least!

I had a tough decision to make for the first one-on-one date. I knew Cody was the only guy who hadn’t had a one-on-one date yet, but after last week’s confusing group date, I knew I had some things I needed to talk to Nick about. Plus, I knew I had a perfect date that fit Cody’s personality coming up later that week. So, I made what was probably an unpopular decision – to bring Nick on that first date. I just held onto hope that Cody would have faith and understand.

My date with Nick started off with a walk around Venice and a beautiful gondola ride. We were swarmed by pigeons in Piazza San Marco and had the best gelato I’ve ever tasted. I remember thinking how natural it felt between Nick and me that day. It really just felt like we were boyfriend and girlfriend in this amazingly beautiful city. Seeing the city by gondola made the whole day so much more romantic. Nick brought the passion and made me feel so special. My favorite kiss of the day was when we were floating underneath the famous Bridge of Sighs. According to local legend, if you kiss under the Bridge of Sighs, you’re supposed to have eternal love. I had always felt a mental and physical connection with Nick and today was no different. This was the Nick that I have loved getting to know.

Later that night, Nick and I got all dressed up for a special dinner in a stunning masquerade hall. I’ll never forget riding up on a gondola and seeing Nick standing there in his Italian tuxedo – He looked so handsome! He joked that night that he felt like he was James Bond!

Nick Owns Up

I had my concerns with Nick from the previous week because he seemed to not be getting along with some of the guys, which was a major turnoff. Nick actually owned up to his part of the drama. He explained that he’s confident, not arrogant, in the relationship that we had been building and that’s probably what had rubbed the other guys the wrong way. I liked that Nick was honest about the situation and I decided to trust him knowing that there was bound to be drama, but it was definitely something I knew I had to keep my eye on.

As if the night couldn’t have gone any better, Nick got all nervous and started mumbling his words and I knew something big was coming. When he finally found his courage, he told me that he was falling in love. I was so happy that Nick was allowing himself to have those feelings for me – especially considering how skeptical he had been in the beginning of this journey. At the end of the night, I felt that although taking Nick for the first date was unconventional, I felt so much better about where he and I stood with each other and was so happy to kick off the week with such an unbelievable date!

Fashion Emergency

What you didn’t see on the date, however, was that my zipper broke in the middle of dinner. I’m not talking about a small break – it broke all the way down the back of my dress! SOS! We ended up finding black electrical tape and taping the entire back of the dress. Haha!

Now it was time for a group date! I brought the guys to a quaint town in the Veneto region called Monselice. When the guys arrived, we explored the town and found a festival going on. We shopped and enjoyed some local foods and entertainment. I brought the guys to a castle and thought it would be fun to do a lie detector test with them. A lot of the questions were really funny, and c’mon, lie detector tests aren’t even admissible in court, so I certainly wasn’t putting much weight into it, I just figured it would be funny. Plus, I secretly wanted to see what it was like to take one myself. Then the results came!

I had every intention of reading the results prior to the date, but then the guys, and especially Brian, had no hesitation and read mine almost immediately. Hearing them read my results definitely made me change my mind about reading theirs. I wanted the guys to know I trusted them and that this activity was really meant to be fun. So I ripped up the results! (Ahhhh, I know women across America probably screamed.) Trust me, there was a part of me that wanted to tape the papers back together and read the results!

Josh Is Not Happy About Lie Detector Test

Throughout the night, all of the guys were joking about the lie detector test and Brian even made up his own lie detector test for me. The nighttime portion of the date was really going great, until I talked to Josh. Uh oh! He clearly was not happy about the test.

There’s a big part of me that understood why he didn’t like the lie detector test but it wasn’t as if I had even read his results. I wanted it to be fun, but it clearly frustrated Josh, which in turn frustrated me because I had just come off a great date with him in Marseille. I really wanted to pick up where we left off, but clearly we were both frustrated that night. I will say that there were still some good parts of the conversation that you didn’t get to see, but I still walked away from my conversation with Josh feeling defeated and confused.

Secret Admirer Revealed

Luckily, Chris was there to lighten the mood. He kept telling me he had a secret to tell me, and I knew that he was the secret admirer! He was so cute when he finally told me! I was so excited that it was Chris because it allowed me to, again, see how romantic, thoughtful and most of all, how attentive he was. It brought back all of those feelings from my first date with Chris. He was definitely deserving of the group-date rose!

I took Cody to Verona for our first one-on-one date. Verona is the fictional birthplace of Romeo and Juliet, and if you go there, you can understand why Shakespeare chose Verona – it was very cute and romantic. Cody and I have always had a great friendship, but obviously there has to be more. I figured Verona was the perfect place to see if Cody and I could spark a connection. We toured the city and then got to visit a special place that responds to love letters seeking advice called The Juliet Club. We were amazed that the letters came from all over the world, in all different languages and all addressed simply to “Juliet, Verona, Italy.”

Saying Goodbye to Cody

Cody was one of the most genuine and grateful guys I have ever met, and I thought he would love to read and respond to some of the letters with me. As we wrote back to people, I could tell how much the date meant to Cody. I knew it must have been tough for him to wait until the end of the week for his first date, but he really loved the Juliet Club and he was the perfect person to do that with.

Despite our time in Verona unfortunately, it became clear that my romantic connection with Cody wasn’t where it should have been. Later at dinner, I could tell that we were not on the same page, and I realized I had to do something that I truly didn’t want to do. Ultimately I had to let Cody go that night and it was so tough.

I hate hurting anyone’s feelings and that night I knew I was hurting Cody and it was breaking my heart. I can’t say enough kind things about Cody. He was truly the sweetest, most grateful guy in the house. He always made me appreciate my surroundings. However, at that point in the journey, I really had to go with my instincts. For Cody and I, that romantic connection just wasn’t happening, but I wish him nothing but the best moving forward.

The cocktail party for that rose ceremony was at the oldest winery in Verona and was so gorgeous. You didn’t get to see Dylan give me these beautiful bracelets, which was such a sweet gesture, especially since he had been so sick that week.

Nick stealing me first was a bold move to make. I really loved seeing him take the initiative and I wished all the guys could step up like that. That night with Josh, we both had a lot to talk about after the group date. Hearing Josh talk about how he didn’t feel great about our last conversation made me feel like we were both on the same page again. I remember feeling better after talking with him.

Chris ‘Got Me Thinking’

Before coming to the difficult decision of who to send home, I had a deliberation with Chris about the week in Italy. It was a great time for me to use Chris as a sounding board – he was always great with asking me questions that got me thinking about these relationships. I decided to send JJ home, because just like Cody, I just wasn’t feeling the romantic connection. JJ was such a vibrant, caring and intriguing guy so it was hard to say goodbye to that but I simply could not see a future with him.

Next week we are off to Brussels, which was my absolute favorite place we visited on this journey! With hometown dates just around the corner, the stakes are definitely higher. After one of my dates next week, I get my biggest shock of the season when someone sneaks over to my hotel room!

Thanks for reading my blog and being such a great supporter! See you next week in Belgium!