Florentine fun

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Florence is an interesting city, a real hidden gem. We had a guided walking tour & the guide was incredible, the city has so much history that is largely unknown.



The first night was the karaoke club, the Red Garter. On the Contiki cheese scale this rated pretty high, just a room full of Contiki people on classroom style tables doing karaoke. In saying that the beer tower is awesome and if you’re ever there definitely worth ordering :-D. I decided to call it a reasonable early night and caught the 10:30 bus, mind you this turned out to be the best part of the night belting out karaoke on the bus and having a massive pillow fight.



The day in the city was great, we had a leather making demonstration by this cute and fun Italian girl that was really interesting, and I also picked myself up a Florentine puzzle ring (which took me about three days to work out, but for the record I can now put it together behind my back ;-). But the highlight of the day was lunch. Myself and a couple of the boys went to a steakhouse for lunch where they did a 1kg Florentine steak, the boys had a crack at it, but I’ve had a few tonners before so I shared one with Tom. Funniest part was ........ well our tour manager, Alex, and 2 other tour managers were having lunch at the table across from us ........ ok firstly some background info, I have previously mentioned that Tom was head over heels about this girl known to all of us as “Hair & Makeup”, and so he finally made the move two days earlier and got shot down with the boyfriend story. ..... So back to the present, we got talking about ‘Hair & Makeup’ and one of the other tour managers says “Well why don’t we ask Alex about her?”. Needless to say Alex looked like the cat that stole the milk, and Tom’s jaw hit the floor. Oh the devastation on his face. You kinda had to be there but honestly it was pretty funny. In his defence, Alex had no idea, but it was hilarious. As I said to Tom, ‘if you’re gunna get out played at least it was by the best :-). From then on Alex was known as the cutter of grasses :-) .



Note: For anyone reading this from Contiki, or considering a tour with Contiki, and who knows the ‘Alex’ I’m talking about, I just want to say that he is a highly professional and amazing tour manager for whom I hold the utmost respect. The previous story is not a reflection of his general character, or how he upholds himself, but merely a funny coincidence, and a memory that I am personally fond of and want to remember, I also thought it might bring about a laugh for those that can relate.



So anyway, that night we had a Tuscan dinner, it was nice, still a bit of Contiki cheese, but pretty good all the same. Then it was off to Space Electronica, supposedly the biggest night club in Florence. I was really psyched about it but then realised that it was pretty much only Contiki people which was a bit of a downer. Nevertheless I did manage to find some Italian girls and have a dance or two which was fun.

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