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First thing when we woke up, we walked to Chad's sister bank...but had no luck. They had these intense metal detectors where you had to take off anything metal and step in and it did a 360 around you and then would clear you to go. After no help there, we walked to another bank, and then two exchange places, and then a Western Union. With very little cash, there wasn't a whole lot we could do. We walked to the Basilica of San Lorenzo because it was relatively cheap to get in. I had to wrap a scarf around my legs because you're not supposed to show your thighs in some churches...oops. It wasn't anything amazing inside, but had lots of old paintings and cool architecture inside. We then walked back over to Duomo that was free to get in, and a lot more awesome inside. Had to make a skirt out of my scarf again...need to not wear shorts next time!
We continued to walk around, went to McDonalds where they actually had a full dollar menu! We each got two burgers and fries for a total of 6 euro. Way to go McDonald's. There was one of the worlds oldest pharmacies across the street so we walked over there, buut you had to pay to go all the way inside, so we vetoed that. We walked to Santa Croce Church and Piazza where Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are all buried, but they charged to get in as well. That's the thing about Florence - you have to pay to go in almost everywhere, and a lot of the time the prices aren't cheap! It's not an easy city to come to unless you're willing to pay money to go inside everywhere. We still had the whole day left, so we grabbed a bottle of wine (Chianti, the wine Florence is known for) and some bread and a pack of Kit Kats and wandered back to Piazza del Signoria. We had stopped by earlier and sat in one of the monuments and watched this guy sketch one of the statues and listened to some live music. We found a place to sit and basically people watched for a couple hours, sipping on some wine and enjoying some bread and chocolate. We had read that Piazza del Signoria is one of the best places to sit and watch Florentine life go by, and it really was. It started sprinkling at one point, but never poured, and people were geared up in their rain ponchos and umbrellas.
We took a short nap back at the hotel, and Chad's parents wired us some money, so we looked up a place to eat and how to get to a bar later and then stopped by Western Union and got some moneyyy. We couldn't find the restaurant Chad had found so we settled on a random one that looked appetizing...they were super pushy though and not very pleasant. But the food was good, and we left to go to Duomo and drink our bottle of wine we had from Interlaken. More people watching! There's guys all over Florence who sell paintings on the street, but it must be illegal, because every time the police car drove around the square, they would swipe up their paintings and act all nonchalant like they did nothing wrong. It was quite entertaining watching them put out their paintings and pick them back up over and over again!
We then grabbed some gelato at this place Chad had read about in his book that was supposed to have some different flavors from other places, it was pretty good! We then walked to Lions Fountain, a bar people had told us about that is super American and people pin their college shirts on the ceilings. We couldn't find the A&M one though :/ They had a deal for a beer and shot for 6 euro so of course we took advantage of that! It was a pretty cool bar, if only we'd brought an A&M shirt with us!
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