Dad and Michael come to Florence!

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I had a few days of peace and quite over Easter Weekend, because all of the roommates and guests except Amanda and me were out of town. On Friday Amanda and I headed over to Cortona for the day. My friend Danny is there, and Mimi said it was gorgeous, so we had to do it. We got up and got on the train and talked for a while, then we hit the Camucia train station. We got off the train and had to take a 15 minute bus to Cortona, which is up on a mountain. We got off the bus and saw our first view...it was absolutely breathtaking! We found a little cafe and got some coffee to warm up and kept catching up from the past couple weeks and talking about everything. It was really refreshing to just sit and chat for so long, because between all the visitors we felt like we hadn't seen each other in forever. After wandering around the town for awhile and seeing a lot of the views, Danny got out of class and we met up for a long lunch. He had heard of a really good trattoria but had never tried it, so we decided to give it a shot. I got tortellini in a cream sauce and it was so nice to finally have cream sauce! We had a nice long lunch then Danny had to go to class, so Amanda and I headed back to Florence. We got back to rain and gross weather, so we headed straight home and had a nice relaxing movie night.

Saturday I woke up to Michael and Dad arriving! They were re-routed to Pisa so it took them a little extra time to get here, but around 3 I headed over to their hotel! It was great to see them! They were both starving, so after settling into the hotel we went to a pizzeria right by the Duomo. I showed them around the city, and then all got ready for dinner. I took them to Trattoria Za-Za and they both loved it. We got some more gelato. They were pretty jet-lagged and headed back to the hotel.

Easter Sunday we were up early to see the cart explode in front of the Duomo. There was a huge procession from Piazza Della Reppublica to the Duomo, and the crowds were huge. There was a band and performers, a procession into the Church, then eventually the cart started going off. There were two rows of fireworks on all 3 levels, so one section would go off then some sort of special effect, and so on until it all blew. It was so cool to see! It started raining so it was tough to get around the city, but we did the best we could. We had lunch at Queen Victoria, and saw Ponte Vecchio, the main piazzas, and the other parts of the city that we could get to in the rain. Michael came over that night for a little bit, we tried to go to Friends with Meredith but for the first time Friends was ridiculously packed, so we just came back and had some wine and cheese and all talked for a while.

Monday they left to travel, so I got some down time. They came back Thursday afternoon and headed up to Piazzale Michaelangelo while I was in class. We met up and headed over to the Accademia. Then we hit the market and I got a gorgeous leather jacket! Michael and Dad both got some ties, but it was so gross outside so we shortly headed to GustoLeo for dinner. It was great and they both really enjoyed it. Michael wanted gelato one last time, then they headed back to the hotel to rest before the 10 am flight and long travel day.

It was great to have them here and spend time with them!!

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