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This weekend was downright amazing!
We left Rome Thursday afternoon to take the train to Florence. It only took us an hour and 45 minutes, which was a pleasant surprise after last weekend. We got there and walked to our hotel, which was only about a ten minute walk. We settled in, then went as a group on a walking tour of Florence. It started to rain which wasn't exactly fun, but the city was so beautiful and different from the other cities we've seen so far that it was still great anyway. We saw the Duomo, the leather market, and many other neat Florentine sights. We then went back to the hotel, got ready, and went to a group dinner. It was delicious, until we found out the meat in the pasta sauce was RABBIT!!!! Sooooo gross -- actually it tasted pretty good but that's still too strange for me. We then went to a local club called Space, which is apparently where the Jersey Shore went when they came to Italy. The downstairs is a kareoke bar and the upstairs is a dance club. We got to see an alum from our sorority that we haven't seen in a while, and that was great. We had so much fun! Except that my shoe broke walking home, and I had to borrow some from Jackie until I could buy new ones of my own.
The next morning, we went on a tour of the Uffizi and Academia, which are two art history museums. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures at all in them, but we did get to see the real David in the Academia which was pretty cool (I took pictures of the plaster one in the piazza, so you can still see it!). Sara-Margaret's mom came to visit so we got to see her and hang out with her. We had the afternoon to ourselves, so we got lunch, went shopping (i found new shoes!), and went home to take a nap and get off our feet after all the walking. We then got dinner, and went for a typical Florintine dessert: waffles with nutella and gelato! Sooooo yummy! In the evening we went back to space, and after everyone in our group heard how much fun we had, they all decided to come with us, so we showed up with a group of 17 girls and we had a fabulous time!
Saturday morning we toured two churches: the Church of Santa Maria Novella (beautiful marble exterior and convent of Dominican friars) and the Church of Santa Croce (where Michaelangelo, Rossini, Machiavelli, and Gallilei are burried). They were both extremely elabborate and beautiful, but we weren't allowed to use flash when taking pictures so some of the pictures aren't as great as they could have been. Thank goodness I'm learning how to edit the lighting on my camera for the highest quality pictures possible! We got gelato as a group (best i have had yet!) and then had lunch, I got the most delicious gnocchi I've ever had, with tomato sauce and fresh mozzerella on top! I've been so spoiled by Italina cheeses I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to eat cheese back in the States ever again! We then decided to go to the leather market that we had not yet been to and went shopping. I received the best Creepy-Italian-Man-pick-up-line yet: "I really like your face. Would you like to be my next wife?" Give me a break! Bargaining with street vendors for better deals was kind of fun actually, though. We got lots of goodies for all our friends and family back home, and then had to run back to the hotel. At 4:00 we met with some other girls from our group and decided to train to Pisa to see the leaning tower. 20 Euros round trip and a one-hour train ride was just too good to pass up, how could we not go see it when it's so close?! We took way too many typical tourist pictures, then ate dinner right by the tower. I had the greatest pizza I've had yet - mozzerella cheese with sicillian sausage, I can't even explain how delicious it was! We then hopped back on the train to go back to Florence. We were all exausted from our adventurous weekend, and everyone just wanted to chill at the hotel for the night. However, my friend Weston that is in the US Air Force is stationed in Italy and came to Florence to visit me since we were so close! He came to our hotel and we sat up on the Roof-Top Terrace with people from our group and we just caught up, it was great. He left and we all went to bed. We woke up this morning and headed back to Rome! When we arrived I took a nap because I was just sooo exausted. We're just lounging around and relaxing unwinding from our amazing weekend, and tonight we are going to dinner at a must-visit restaurant here in Rome and to a Chocolate and Wine bar with that same alum to visit one last time before she leaves tomorrow.
It's going to be tough to top this weekend! This whole trip has just been so great, I don't know if I'm ever going to want to come home!
Feel free to check out my tons of pictures from this weekend, they're posted in the Florence and Pisa album!
I'm definitely starting to notice just how different Italy is from America. I'm really enjoying it, but i am forseeing coming back to the states to feel strange. Here we don't have dryers, free water, or traffic laws -- common luxuries we take for granted at home. But here there's just so much history, beauty, and just a completely different way of life!
Okay, long enough of a post for now! Missing you all at home so much!
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