Florence

Good afternoon all-

We were able to add some pics so you can check out our travels for the last couple of days.

Made it up to Florence today, slept in after all of our walking yesterday and got on a high speed train to the Tuscany region. We had reserved another night at a hostel in Florence, although this one is much different than the one in Roma. More of a college dorm feel. We feel really old!!! Were doing laundry and emailing while the disco is filled with college kids. I just feel out of place because I dont have a mybook page to update all of you on (or is it facespace). Anyways we got to Florence, grabbed some bread, meat, cheese and a bottle of vino, headed to a park, sat down to eat and figure out what we were going to do, and both realized old art has no interest for either of us. We did run down to one museum to see the exhibit, Lyndsay will fill you in. Anyways after the quick tour of the art museum, we wandered up to a hilltop that overlooks the city and watched a great sunset with a bottle of local vino...very relaxing. Not sure what the plan is for to tomorrow, we realized tomorrow is a national holiday and all local hostels/hotels are booked that we have checked, it will be interesting.

Cheers-

Jason


Lyndsay here

My nightly turn at the blog and most likely I have a lot to write. Even though I am sure no one reads this page except for our parents, since we haven't received too many comments to our blog pages at all.

I will begin with what is arguably the highlight of the day .... I FOUND 50 Euro tonight at dusk as we were walking back from the hilltop sunset. Just a 50 Euro bill laying on some steps. This is the equivalent of abotu $80 US dollars so I was pretty pleased. I of course will spend teh remiander of my days only looking at the ground. It was funny because I had just told Jason this afternoon that I found it odd that we hadn't seen one single coin on the groun in Europe at all .. not even 10 cents. Then, I go ahead and find 50 Euro. Funnier still, we were just starting to walk down about 1,000 stpes from the hilltop overlooking the city and I was on step # 4, when I thought I would turn arond, start at the top and count each step, when lo and behold, there it was. I guess my counting stpes is nto so dorky after all, even though I forgot to count teh steps after that I was so excited. ALMOST beats my friend DL finding a $100 chip in Vegas. Dending on when I turn this 50 Euro in, it could be close to $100 US dollars.

Moving on to the other end of the spectrum, let's discuss what was arguably the lowest point of my day .... Jason and I decided at 5.30 pm that we shoudl hustle over to the Uffieze Museum, which was abotu 10 blocks away. We only had an hour till close, but since reservations are usually required, and even then, line waits can be in excess of 6 hours, we thought why not try at the end of the day. Sure enough we made it. By the time we got there, there was only a half hour till close. The ticket seller told us we did not have enough time to see the museum, but we really only wanted to see the famous David statue, so we figured we had plenty of time. We went through the whole museum, and couldn't find the statue. I thought, well, I didn't come here for nothing, and besides, we had to pay a pretty penny to get in, so I went to ask a secuity guard where The David was. In her broken English, she polietly explined to me that The Daivd was not at THEIR museum, he was at a different one. Cripes, I wanted to fall through the floor I was so embarassed. I stuttered comething to the effect of forgetting that fact, and quickly hustled away, to explain to Jason our snafu. I was red at could be and he was rolling with laughter. I think we obviously misread our Italy gudiebook. In any event, going to the musuem taught me that I don't actually care that much about old Renissance art. I found the dark paintings depressing and they reminded me of being in a 19th century parlor. I MUCH prefered the art we saw yesterday at teh Vatican.

Last night when we returned to our hostel in Rome, we had visitors! We had 2 roommates, a man and a woman, as I suspected. They were totally normal and nice. Both from Sweden around age 40 and chaperoneing a group of 18 year old students. I cannot tell you how realived I was with our companions. Made me feel safe and secure. Tonight in our Florence hostel, we have 2 people as well, a married man and woman traveling around Europe by backpage on their homeymoon for 2 months. So I know I am safe again tonight. As Jason stated, this hostel is very young and modern. Incredibly cheap though and BY FAR the nicest, most modern, clean, and up to date hostel we will see. They just finished construction in the last 3 months. We are sitting on computers outside teh hostel's disco, watching the crowd, which is abotu 90% American, rock out drunkenly to Britany Spears. We dont' have a reservation for tommorrow night, which is slightly concerning. we didnt' know it was National Holiday tomorrow (Liberation Day( so most everything is booked up. We purposely planned this trip not wanting reservations, so that we could be flexible and come and go to different places as we pleased. Hope it doesn't bite us in the butt tomorrow. Maybe I will have to use that 5o Euro to subsidize what will likley we an expensive hotel stay?

We went our for dinner and each had some excellent pizza. The waiter brought us what he called hot peppers. They were basically dried miniature red peppers. Like the size of say your small pinkie fingernail. I grabbed about 10 of them and crushed them in my palm, to spinkle crushed red pepper on my pizza. Jason did the same. All was well until abotu 5 minutes into our food when we both started commenting how hot it was. This turned into an intense burning around our nostrils at minute 6, and to help clear the burning sensation, we both inhaled through our noses deeply, drawing the burnign sensation further into our nasal cavity at minute 8. Whiel we both got a good laugh at this, the burning really didn't subside, and everything we touched got that burning sensation. Even now, as I was sitting here waiting for a computer, despite having washed my hands since dinner, I can feel buring in my palm. I forgot about it while reading internet news updates, and put my palm to my face to rest my head on my hands while reading, and yes, my face inexplainably started to burn. For comparision sake, I would say this is comparable to habanero peppers. No joke! Going to the bathroom shoudl be fun!

Thats about all I have. More updates tomorrow, if we can find a place to rest our heads tomorrow.

Love you all!

Lyndsay

PS. Britany, I woudl have thought you of all people woudl have given me daily blog comments. I must say I am disappointed seester!

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