FLORENCEEEE!

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OKAY guys:
as promised, here's the actual writing for the florence BLog! yayyyy!
insert cheering here.

SO. Florence, Italy!
Well, the first day ended up with me being permanently stuck to a chair due to massive stomach cramps, followed by an incredibly long and heavy thunder storm. So of course, we did one of our favourite things this trip: we napped.
After waking up, Ruby and I headed out to explore and to get dinner.
We immediately realized the differences between Florence and Barcelona. I myself found it to be a lot less "chill". A lot less greeneries, less cafes, less places to just sit and people watch, and less parks. the sidewalks are also soooo narrow that in many places, there's only enough space for people to walk one person at a time...
despite all this, it really does have a quaint city feel.
The buildings are very interesting to look at, and the place is filled with piazzas (this may be spelled wrong - but essentially it means squares) in the middle of buildings where no cars are allowed.
anywayy, Ruby and i find a takeout pizza place, so we decide to try out real italian pizza. and yea, it's different in the fact that the crust is incredibly thin.
so it's not soft like the Canadian kind!

Towards the end of the night, we ended up walking with 2 American girls from our dorm to the Arno River. (River through Florence)
There we saw Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge with a large variety of jewelery stores all along the side of the bridge. We then went over to a neighbouring bridge and with a bottle of wine, we all sat on the ledge of the bridge drinking our wine (which sucked. and ruby and i ended up discarding - ew. wine), and watching the sunset.
It was a gorgeous sight!
We then went to the courtyard of the hsotel and chatted with some other backapackers there.

So our hostel, Hostel Ostello is a fairly large hostel with mock famous paintings and sculptures all around. It gave it a cheezy feel, but still bearable.
The rooms were hurggeeeeeee, and outside the breakfast room is an incredibly peaceful courtyard, complete with grass, flowers, a seating area nicely shaded by a wooden veranda. What's good about Florence is that after Barcelona, Ruby and i have learned to take a more relaxed approach to touring. No more shoving things in to do, and more relaxing and just enjoying the atmosphere of the city.

That night though....
the snoring follows me to Florence from Barcelona...
Since we share a 9 girl dorm...yea... it sorta sucked.
While in Barcelona, I shared a room with only one snoring culprit, in Florence, i shared a room with TWO guilty snorers!!! (girls shouldn't snore. the end.)
Here's the thing though:
One of the snorers made the Barcelona snores sound like whispers. It literally sounded like a powersaw.
The other inhaled air in such a way as to sound exactly like Darth Vader.
And of course, OF COURSE, the two snorers happened to always snore in an alternating fashion! so they would never breath in at the same time, and exert their hideous sounds at the same time, BUT they ALTERNATED malign sounds!!
arggg...
so quite simply put, with the two sounds together, it sounded like Darth Vader operating a powersaw.
Perfect.

June 8th:

Already midway through our trip, time is flying! but for some reason, each day still feels so long. Probably because we do soooo much in one day, that each day seems like a week's worth of activities!
we walk around SOOoooo much, but, good thing is, all this walking has probably made me lose weight, cuz my capris are pretty much falling off my hips! All the walking has also created a soreness in my calf muscles, so i MUST be gaining muscle there!
And yea, our feet are gaining more bruises and blisters by the minute.
lastly, i'm so brown.

Random note: the ambulances' sirens here in Italy are SO annoying. They sound liek a mixture of bagpipes being played badly and those horns that drunk guys blow into during sports events. annoying.

So today we woke up to a very nice free breakfast of bacon and eggs (which in England are a veerrry appetizing bright orange colour).
Afterwards, Rubes and i went to the city center area of Florence which contains the Duomo (otherwise known as the cathedral), the Campanile, and Baptistry.
As we walked closer to the area, the duomo came into view and i automatically felt like Harry Potter who just entered Diagon Alley! The buildings seemed to be from another world! One pair of eyes didn't seem to be enough anymore, i wanted 3 more!

I know i said i was floored before while in Barcelona, but this time, the feeling of awe surpassed anything i have ever felt. I felt so unbelievably tiny surrounded by these massive buildings, and i felt so blessed and privileged to be able to see all of it!
The design of these buildings (esp. the duomo and campanile --> aka tower), were incredible.
I've always been a fan of architecture that manages to incorporate colour into its design (hence why i loved casa batillo in barcelona), and the 3 buildings in florence definitely didn't disappoint.
i took as many pics as i could, but pics just don't compare to how i feels standing in front of these magnificent buildings and staring up at them in complete and utter wonderment.

Ruby's take: "It's cool. i guess."

We then headed inside, which paled in comparison to the exterior.

Afterwards, we headed to Piazza della Signoria, which is a square filled with statues. It used to be a part of Florence politics. But, rubes and i didn't' care about all that, we saw statues, and immediately decided to have our fun! the pics are self-explanatory.
And yes, we know, we are university students, but it seems as if maturity has not exactly reached us yet!

so we went for lunch at a restaurant called Anita, which was recommended to me by a teacher friend, and even though everything on the menu was written in Italian, we decided to try our luck.
It was nice that our waiter spoke a bit of English, and so was able to explain to us what everything was. For 7 euros (roughly 11 Canadian), we had a 3 course meal. For me, it started with a seafood risotto (which was SO yummy because i miss mussels and shrimp and clams so so much!), but i was scared i would fill myself up with this, so i didn't finish it. I regretted that later because the 2nd course was fish with tomato sauce and 3rd was a zucchini salad. both of which were incredibly salty that there was no way i could have finished it.
Ruby had rice + tomato sauce, tomatoes with mozzarella cheese melted on top, and potatoes.

After our dinner, we waiting ages before going to pay the bill because we were debating whether or not we had to tip. In our travel books, it had said that no tipping was expected - but for us Canadians, that's a foreign concept! So after a debate, we decided that being poor university students was justification enough, so we left, rather awkwardly, without leaving a tip.

We then headed to a gelato shop called Vivoli's Gelateria, which was supposed to have the best gelato in the world. Ruby and i......................disagree. completely.
we were sorely disappointed. because it was extremely creamy, and it ended up completely melting before i could finish eating it! so i ended up drinking my gelato. weird.
After some shopping, we heading back to the hostel to...........NAP.
Afterwards, we met up with 2 americans that i met the night before, Joe and Evan, and heading to Piazzle Michalangelo.
This was an area ontop of a mountain which gives a high up, full view of Florence. The climb was pretty steep, but worth it! this is because there were some steps at the top where ppl sat waiting to see the sunset. And it was filled with tourists and natives of the city, all just sitting around, chatting and drinking wine on these steps. so it made for quite a lively atmosphere!
unfortunately, the guys we were with weren't exactly the most talkative, so we ended up getting slightly bored and we missed tremendously the ppl we met in Barcelona.
We watched as the sky turned pink, and then set in the horizon. What i never noticed before was that when the sun sets, well, it sets unbelievably quickly!
Within a few blinks, the sun was gone.
In Canada, i never just sat down and watched the sun disappear, so having it vanish before my eyes at such a fast speed was a surprise!
When the sun was setting, everyone was watching it intently as if we were watching an intense competition where we were all on the edges of our seats and cheering the sun on. In fact, when the sun finally disappeared beyond the horizon, everyone clapped and cheered in joy, pride, and even relief as if we were worried that our sun would never set!

We then met up with 2 other Americans and we headed to a bar along the Arno River. What was amusing was that along the river there was a wall, and everyone from the bar, instead of sitting inside (where u get charged for sitting there), they just took their drink out and all sat along the wall! coooool.
At the bar, with the Americans, minus Evan (who went back to sleep), Joe came alive, thank gosh!
and turned out to be a pretty interesting guy to talk to!
We ordered a Floretian drink, the Negroni (gin, martini rosso, and bitter campari), and after finishing half, it was already in my head, and i'm sure my face was radiating red!

At night, Darth Vader continues to operate his powersaw.
I slam my head up and down on my pillow in a desperate attempt to knock myself unconscious.

June 9th:
All the days of bad sleep, walking, and crap food put in my body finally catches up today, and i wake up tired, grumpy, and irritable. And of course, both Ruby and I are like this at the same time.
Unfortunately, we have to check out by 11 today, so no sleeping or lounging in bed today!
So we go to Mercato Nuovo, which is an outdoor shopping center filled with random booths. We buy some souvenirs, then wait in line for the Uffizi.
The Uffizi is the oldest art gallery in the world, and so we were excited!
We end up being tooooo tired to enjoy it (we kept sitting down every few minutes), and it also ended up being a lot smaller than we had expected. On top of that, it only housed older types of paintings which we weren't exactly the most interested in!
There were famous paintings, such as The Birth of Venus, but even so, we paid wayyyyy too much for it.
So. we were disappointed.
We then went to take our train to Venice. And like other times, when we get to the train station, we realize that we're at the wrong one. So with our complete lack of understanding of the Italian language, zero phrase book, and less than 20 minutes, we attempt, once again, Amazing Race-esque, to find our way to the train.

Before leaving Florence though, i get a McDonald's meal, which ended up being something that i have never seen in North America! so that was pretty cool. It was a breaded chicken fillet, wrapped with a pita type bread (with bacon baked into it), lettuce, and some type of sauce, that i can only classify as a variation of a chinese garlic sauce. It was the most bizarre combination! of course ,i still ate it.

And so, after all our rushing, we once again luck out, and find that our train has been delayed. And we end up arriving to our platform hyperventilating and in a sweat from all the rushing, only to wait on the platform for 20 or so minutes till the train came.

In the train, we pass out.

VENICE NEXT.

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Photos

Tiny tiny cars
SO cool!
It only had 3 wheels!

Duomo area
Enter the magical world...

Yea. We're mature.
@ Piazza Del Signora

Yea. I'm mature.
Squishy.

Bahhh...
Sleepy. Grumpy. Crampy. and in Line to get into the Uffizi.

PDA.
Statues in the Uffizi.

Comments

[Jdawg]

Hey, gee.. haha yo, I really like those pic. especially the one with the squishy ass, that’s my fav. =D. aw so the adventures of backpacking is over, now how am I going to meet my daily reading quota. so you and rubs had to go your separate ways, did you cry, you can tell me I wont tell anyone. haha so yah, I can’t wait for the more stories so hop to it. signing out jee

[k]

that mcdonald thingy would be that stupid snacker thing rihgt? for $2 here? i hope u didn't pay for that 1 euro for it lol