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After packing up we had a little bit of card trouble and thought we might have a problem, but after telling the lady to swipe the card faster, it finally worked. Phew! We got some 2 euro pizza and ate it on some church steps in a plaza by our hotel and then got some gelato! I got the Kit Kat flavor...best one yet!! It was so yummy. We shopped around a bit...if only we'd had a bit of money I would have gotten a couple Murano glass items, there were some really cool ones.
We grabbed our bags from the hotel and headed to the train station...still had about an hour till our train so I took some pictures with our Aggie rings till our platform was listed. The train was reallyyy nice! We were wondering if maybe we'd accidentally sat in first class again, but the Italian trains are just really nice! You get a foot rest, a fold down tray, working plugs, anddd they speak good English on the announcements - always a hard one to find. We had a bottle of wine we'd bought the night before so we toasted to Venice and finished the bottle and enjoyed our pretzel mix while on the way there.
Once we got into Florence, we spent the next 45 minutes wandering around trying to find our way to our hotel...made the mistake of not looking it up before we didn't have wifi anymore. It was quite the trek, and Florence is quite hott! Once we found it, discovered our hotel is on the 3rd floor so climbed the 68 steps (yes, I counted) up to our hotel. By the end of this trip, we will have climbed a few thousand steps. SO MANY STAIRS in Europe. The hotel owner is this cute old man who was really sweet, and he showed us to our room, which was pretty spacious.
Chad needed some more shorts (and I can never say no to shopping) so we walked to the H&M, which ended up being pretty close. It was a four story H&M...so many clothes. I was on one floor at one point and heard my name called from the next floor up...turns out it was Sarah who is studying abroad in Florence this summer! I had just Facebook messaged her about meeting up before we left the hotel...so crazy how many times we've run into Aggies on this trip...what are the chances?!
We then walked to Ponte Vecchio, a really old bridge in Florence. It's been around since 1345, originally a wooden bridge and now a stone bridge, and has expensive jewelry shops on it, and a great view of the river and Florence. Sarah had recommended a place called Gusta Pizza for a meal, so we wandered around till we found it, but had an hour to kill before it opened. There was a plaza nearby so we went and sat by a fountain for a bit and then walked over to another bridge and took pictures. At five till 7, we walked over to Gusta Pizza, and there was already a line out the door! Turns out its supposedly the best pizza in Florence, and I would have to agree. We sat by a girl from Israel who is studying abroad that told us she comes there quite often. Also, didn't know this, but apparently Florence attracts around 20,000 study abroad students every summer. I had no idea it was such a big place to come to! We definitely saw a ton of college students while there though. Anyways, these other two girls sat at our table who just finished their freshman year in Kansas, and are backpacking through Europe for a month. They were a bit snobby and awkward. However, the pizza was SO GOOD. I got the margherita one and it had tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil on it. To top it off, the whole pizza was only 5 euro, and if I hadn't been starving, I probably wouldn't have been able to finish it.
After dinner, we walked along the river up to the point where we had to turn to go up to Piazzale Michelangelo, a square on top of a huge hill that has an amazing view of the city and Tuscany hills, especially at sunset. We walked up more stairs, and then took a bunch of pictures...I probably took around 50 easily. It was soooo pretty though! With the orange and blue sky reflecting in the river and the city to the right and then the Tuscany hills in the background...too perfect.
We then took a bus back to the train station and walked back to our hotel. Leslye leaves tomorrow for Peace Corps so we skyped with her for a long time. So weird she's going to be in Ethiopia so soon!
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