Buongiorno!

I'm now into my 3rd week in Rome. I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, it was just a busy week here in Roma and I've barely had time to breathe. Luckily, the week ended quite nicely and I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks. Only three more left!

I'm going to split this week up into a couple of posts, so let's start with Florence.

Two Thursdays ago (wow), my roommates and I woke up earlier than usual to get ready, pack up last minute items adn make it to our Italian class on time (it had been moved up 2 hours in order for us to make it to our train on time).
I was so exhausted from staying up too late the night before I could barely keep my eyes open in class. I even had to get up and go stand in the bathroom for a fewminutes so I wouldn't fall asleep sitting in my chair (sorry, mom)! After class, though, we headed back to our apartment, grabbed our luggage and lunch and went downstairs to wait for the bus that would take us to the train station. Luckily, the bus ened up pulling up just minutes after we got to the stop and we hopped right on.

Once we got to the train station we waited for the rest of our group to get there before we boarded the train. A lot of people got McDonald's (you don't know how good Micky D's sounds until you go to a country where getting a cheeseburger is hardly an option), but I just enjoyed my pb&j I made myself and Miel Pops (Italian cheerio's). We then got on the train around 1:40pm and were on our way!

It took about a hour and a half to get to Florence, but the train ride went by quickly and being the shopaholic that I am, I couldn't wait to get to the city that everyone told me has great shopping. :)

After we got off the train and started walking to our hotel we passed by streets filled with leather shops and little boutiques side by side and right around the corner from our hotel was Gucci, Tiffany & Co., Armani, Prada and Louis Vitton. I was just as mezmorized as you could imagine any 21 year old girl would be.

Once we got to our hotel my roommates and I went up to our room and found a beautiful room with high ceilings, cute bed posts decorations and another twin bed placed right inbetween the other four. This made me chuckle, but at least it was better than a pull out couch. The whole hotel was, hontestly, way better than I expected. It was beautiful, the rooms were big, breakfast was included (with any coffee-type drink you wanted), a rooftop terrace, air conditioning, wifi and unlimited hot water (a luxury in Italy). Ah, it was an Italian paradise.

We had a little while to get settled in before we met as a group downstairs in the hotel lobby. There we were introduced to our tour guide for the afternoon. She was nice and had quite the sense of humor, which I enjoyed. She showed us around the medieval city including the Duomo di Santa Maria del Fiore, Battistero di San Giovanni, Basilica di Santissima Annunziata, and the Fontana del Porcellino (a bronze statue of a boar). They say if you put your hand in the mouth of the Fontana del Porcellino then you will be back to Florence again. However, it was too crowded for me to do that during our tour, so I guess I just have to take my chances.

After the tour we had a little while to freshen up before meeting for dinner. Once we met, we made our way acrosst the bridge and to the restuarant. The food was delicious! For an appetizer we had two pastas: one made with a bolognese sauce and the other with a tomato sauce. The bolognese was actually made with rabbit. This grossed a lot of the girls out, but I just ate the whole thing because it was so good! Then, for our main course we had pork and potatoes. I honestly didn't want to eat the pork at first because I never eat pork and it didn't look appetizing. I felt bad, though, if I didn't eat it, so I gave it a try... It was so good! By far the best pork I have ever tasted (sorry, dad). The creme filled pastry type cake for dessert was just as good.

Afterwards a few of the girls told me they planned on going to this night club they heard about from friends that night. It was also the same night club the cast from Jersey Shore went to during their stay in Italy a couple seasons ago. I wasn't sure about going at first, but hey, you're only in Florence once right? Well, I'm glad I went. I had an awesome time! There were other college students from all over the world there (Canada, Australia, other parts of Europe). The music was great, too. Although I felt like I looked like I had just gotten out of church wearing the same dress that I wore to dinner, I had a really great time and was so glad I went. Afterwards, we all went back and got some sleep before our busy day the next day.

The next morning we woke up pretty early, got some free beakfast (and cappucinnos) and got ready for the tours we had planned. We had a different tour guide this time, but I really liked her a lot. She was so sweet and really knew her stuff!

During the tour we went to the Uffizi art gallery where we saw beautiful pieces of art, including those of Leonardo Di Vinci, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Botticelli's most famous piece, The Birth of Venice. It was incredible. Going to an art museum seems kind of boring, but I really enjoyed this one.

After that we made our way to the Accademia where we saw the Statue of David. Now this, was truly incredible! The statue was so much bigger than I had immagined it would be, and the detailing of it was unbelievable. It amazes me that one man could create such a piece of art (this goes for a lot of things in Italy, honestly). I was blown away. I wish I could have taken pictures, but sadly, that wasn't allowed.

Afterwards, one of my roommates and I decided we wanted to try to go shopping around town. We were going to go with a few other girls, but got left when we stopped to talk to someone for a moment (by accident, of course) and ended up just spending the afternoon just us two. We found a cafe' that looked good for lunch and had some delicious sandwiches sitting on the side of one of Florence's streets. It was quite relaxing. Afterwards we went looking for [affordable] shops. It took us a while to find good ones that we wanted to go into, but after that we were on a roll. We stripped the leather markets and little boutiques around Florence's square. I didn't find much that day, just looked around and got an idea of gifts I wanted to get my sisters [since Florence is the home of the Fleur di Lis (Kappa's flower)].

After a few hours of [shopping] and walking, we headed back to our hotel. I took a short nap before I met up with Carla, Jacquelyn and Laurel to go find the oldest wine shop in Florence (Casa del Vino--so orignal, right?). Well, that wasn't as exciting as I thought--kind of disappointing, honestly-- but we then made our way over to the HardRock (yes, HardRock like in America) and ate dinner. I had my first salad since being in Italy. It was GREAT! I had been wanting (still want) salad since coming here--it is so hard to find a salad [with chicken/some kind of meat] here.

We enjoyed our dinner, took some pics, bought some souveneirs, got gelato waffles (BEST THING EVER--belgium waffle, nutella, gelato... oh. my. gosh.), and went back to the hotel to get ready to go to club Space again. This time, more people were coming from the group and we were excited to get to know more people from our group better and have fun.

After Space, we went back to the hotel and ran into some other people from our program that didn't come with us. They had plans to go find the [secret] bakery-- it's named this because this bakery is not supposed to be open at night (probably because it is a supplier and not it's own company) but they prop their window open just a bit and serve delicious chocolate and cream croissants for only 1 euro! However, the best part about finding the secret bakery was that we didn't have actual directions on how to get there, we were told to "follow our nose" and we would find it.

Well, luckily that worked and we did find the [secret] bakery and the croissants were delectible! They were warm, goo-ey and just plain delicioso! This was definitely one of my highlights of being in Florence.

The next morning we got up early [again] and went to the Basilica di Santa Croce and the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella with our tour guide from the day before. Both were beautiful!

Afterwards, we got gelato as a group at what was supposed to be the best gelato place in Florence, but I didn't care for it too much, and then I went with Jackie, Carla, Laurel, Sarah-Margaret and her mom for lunch. I got bruschetta and it was so good! The tomatoes on the bruschetta had to be the freshest tomatoes I've ever seen!

We then made our way over to the biggest open air market in Florence at the Piazza di San Lorenzo and went shopping! I got a few things for my sisters and a couple more things for myself. It was fun. We didn't have a lot of time there, though, because we had to meet a few other girls to go visit Pisa!

The train ride to Pisa took about a hour (we were under the impression it would only take 30 minutes at first, but it wasn't too bad) and once we got there we looked like any typical tourist and took our turns taking pictures [holding] up the Tower of Pisa. I was really excited to see the tower since it was definitely on my list of "must see's"in Italy.

After our picture taking was done (we got some good individual ones, Gator chomping, group pics etc.) we walked over to this restauarant with an excellent view of the tower. Unforunately, you paid for the view and not the food, but the wine was good, the food wasn't very expensive and the view was incredible, so I guess it was worth it. :)

Once dinner ended, we went back to the train station, got on the next train back to Florence and were back in no time.

I then when up to the terrace of the hotel where a few of my roommates and trip-mates were and enjoyed the view of all of Florence until I was tired enough to go to bed-- e' belissimo!

The next morning we enjoyed our last [free] breakfast and cappucinn(i) at the hotel and were back on the train to Rome by 11am. Once we were back I took a short nap, caught up with Andrew and my parents and took it easy for the rest of the night. Thankfully I did since the week after was insanely hectic! More on that later, though.

It's almost time for my next class and I need some coffee, pronto!

Alla prossima!

Cassidy