Firenze!!

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Leather Leather Leather!

Firenze was sooo pretty. A picture is worth a thousand words but there aren’t enough pictures in the world to describe how pretty Florence is. I don’t know how people live there all the time without just constantly looking up at how beautiful everything is. How do they ever get anything done?

We got to Florence at around 6 and we went to our hostel It was about 2 minutes from the train, which was really nice because you know packed 234993248 outfits. This weekend I travelled with Michelle, Liz, Jackie, Natalie, Jason, Brittney, Monica, Megan, Mary and Caitlin. The hostel was kind of weird, every inch of the walls were painted or written on. Mural after mural of copies of famous art, it was cool and a little skeezy at the same time. Our room was pretty nice, we had our own bathroom with shower which was awesome (even though I never showered. People joked on me but I thought my hair looked fine and why risk getting it wet?) The guy behind the desk was named Domenico and boy was I a sucker for his cute accent and blue eyes. He told us where to go to dinner and where he was hanging out after he got off work and I was on a mission from god to go to those places. Something tells me Domenico gets a cut from those places over how many Americans he can sucker into going. Dinner was actually pretty good (even though I ignored on the card that they also have a location in San franscisco.. but I like to think that his brother just got on a ship and opened up some hole in the wall that is like the most authentic restaurant in America.. but who really knows). It was reasonably priced, I had this gnudi thing that was like mushrooms and cheese baked with this tomatoe sauce. Tastey. Then we walked hell's half acre (except it was in Florence so it didn’t matter) to find this bar Lochness that Domenico promised he would be at. It was literally this itty door inbetween all of these restaurants and we had to ring the buzzer and this big guy opened up and he made us give him our names and birthdays (I have no idea why) and then he gave us this card before he let us in. Now we are lifetime members I suppose, I’ll never leave home without it! Despite that sketch detail it was this two for one drink thing which is a really good deal apparently except I only wanted one drink, but you guys told me to save money whenever possible so two drinks it was. I went home around 12ish bc we had early reservations tomorrow morning to see the David. Some people stayed with Domenico, who they thought would take them home at the end but instead he just took them to more bars and they did this like crawl through Florence which they said was fun but Domenico neglected to tell them that they lock the hostel up at 3 am. But they got in and moral of the story Domenico sucks and I'm totally over him. It never would have worked out anyway, his accent would have been too distracting and we would've totally fought over my Lochness VIP pass.. oh well.

Saturday we got up early to go to the Academia to see the David. I feel like I’ve seen the David a zillion times but when you turned the corner and you first see it in person it really is breathtaking. First of all its ginormous, waaay bigger than I thought it would be. And it was just so beautiful! I can’t really describe it because its so different seeing it but I could have stared at it all day long. It was cool that our reservations were so early because for a little bit we were the only ones there, and I sat underneath it and journalled and I was even so inspired I did a little sketch (it looks like Annie could have done it though, maybe I’ll outline it with crayons and tell people an Italian child did it or something) I know it sounds cliché but it was really amazing to be there. I was jealous of the security guards who just sit and look at it all day and make sure no one take a picture (even though I snuck a few).

After the Academia we walked to the Duomo which was SO pretty. Man I really should invest in a thesaurus. Again it is just so humoungous I can’t even explain, it was hard to even get a good picture because I couldn’t fit it all in the frame. All the streets were so narrow too but most of the time you could always see the tippity top of the dome. It was really beautiful at all hours. We went inside and paid 6 euro to climb to the top. 463 stairs and they are not playing around when they say it’s a hike. It honestly feels like you are making your way up a corkscrew. We had to do it though so it was fun, Liz took our picture every 50 steps but by the end I wasn’t camera ready. Ryan said he climbed to the top when he went there but I don’t know how he did it because even I thought I would hit my head once we got to the top. The view was completely worth the stairs because you could see all of Florence and then into the countryside. I got a zillion pictures, as you can see from my blog. I couldn’t help myself, I'll make a flip book when I get home. And look at what a pretty day it was!? I didn’t have to bundle up! I finally felt semi-cute! Finally!

After the duomo we made our way down (almost as tricky as going up because it was getting so crowded) and we sat at a little café and had lunch. Our waiter was really weird and he kept going West Siiiiiiide and making the symbol with his hands, I don’t get why. I have a picture of him, you can tell he isn’t the brightest around. After that we kept on wandering, eating gelato along the way. We went to the ponte vecchio where I hope to return one day to pick out my engagement ring and other fine jewels. We kept popping in and out of stores and Kate would have been in heaven because there was leather leather EVERYWHERE! And Fleur di lises (I spelled that wrong but you know) and on every single corner there were artists painting city scenes and things for sale, it was so cool. There was this one artist who did these beautiful watercolors of people holding on to really colorful balloons, I wanted one but it was a little pricey, but we looked at a ton of her stuff and she asked where we were from and we said Virginia and then she goes “oh I’ve been there, I studyed art in Roanoke.” Random. Who knew Roanoke, VA was so worldy? We sat in the Piazza de Medici and rested our legs and people watched until one girl started feeding the pigeons and I freaked out and booked it out of there. Ew. Then we wandered back to the hostel and our legs were soooo tired because we had been out walking all day long but it would be sin to stay in in Florence so we decided we wanted to go have a nice long dinner. We didn’t know where we were going obviously but I was joking about how we should go take the second right and then the first left and then the first right, and we did (and there wasn’t a restaurant there) but on the next block we stopped and had the BEST meal! It was this little hole in the wall and the waiter was super nice to us and recommended all this wine and talked about the grapes and was joking around with us about our Italian. He gave us this delicious like mushroom and cheese soufflé appetizer for free (it was SO good) and then I asked him to order for me and he brought me this fresh torillini with really fresh seafood in it which was delicious, and we eached ordered something different and everything was SO good. Britney got this chocolate ravioli with wild boar which sounds gross but it was so good and Natalie got these Florentine crepes and Jason had this really good pork. And the wine was sooo good too. He gave us his card and home number on it for us to call him if we came back and he would set up a wine tasting for us if we brought back more people! I really really hope we get to go back! I think we all had such a good time that we might go on the way to Rome when we go. I can’t wait. And then Antonio (my new best friend) gave me the cork from the wine we were drinking and made me a key chain (he was a very talented man). We had to order more and more wine so that everyone could get a key chain, naturally. It was really fun. We got 3 desserts to share and then Antonio gave us this tiramisu thing for free. Bellisimo! Then Antonio recommended this bar for us to go to that was really cool because the walls were all covered in Mosaics and there wasn’t a fellow hostel guest in sight. And I told the bartender Antonio sent us and he kept giving us free strawberry shots (or maybe it was my blonde hair?) it was really fun. I really like Natalie, she is fun to go out with, I was glad to have her there because I LOVE the people I travel with but they are a little too sober sally’s sometimes. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but we are in Florence, we have to drink wine and be merry, don’t you agree? We ended up sitting at this table with these Florentine’s who were a little old for us but they were nice and we were having a really good conversation and Natalie had been talking for a while and then one of them said something to the other one and he goes “I can understand you and you very well” and he pointed to me and Monica and then he pointed to Natalie who has a stronger country accent and goes “her, not so much” We thought that was really funny because she had been talking forever and he goes “there is something different with her voice that our ears can not understand” it was funny. Maybe you had to be there.

Sunday morning we woke up early and went to the Ufitzi which was beautiful and I recognized so many things from my art history class. It was actually surprising how much I remembered. Liz and I shared one of those audio guides and we kept giggling because we looked so silly. It looked like we were doing this weird shuffle dance because we both had headphones on and would be standing right next to each other and all of the sudden we would both just walk to the left and then turn around. It was hard though because some of the time we would think we would be looking at the right picture and then they would say something about the Madonna and we would be looking at like a landscape or something. And of course one of us would confuse our lefts and rights and we would get all tangled up with each other. Afterwards we shopped around, a lot of the girls wanted to get boots, but since I already have the best boots in the world (I seriously wear them almost everyday.) I went off by myself and wandered through all the sketch vendors selling fake sunglasses, leather belts, shoes, gloves, cashmere and fake cameo jewelry and the ghetto girl inside me was in heaven. I bargained for a bag (I was proud of myself) it was originally 150 and I got it for 65. Woo hoo! Who knows if that’s still a rip off, I really like it and that is all that matters. I’ll send a picture of it.

We never made it to Pisa (the woes of traveling with a bajillion people) but it was still so busy in Florence I don’t know how I would have handled Pisa too, even if it just is a tower on a slant. I bought some Florence playing cards in a gift shop while people were trying on shoes for the thousanth time so we played cards the whole way home. Past the time well and the pictures on the cards made me think about how much fun we had all weekend. We were back in Lugano by 8:30ish (booo, I miss Florence!) I already made plans for next weekend though which should be fun: Munich with Raleigh, Melissa, Emily and Kayleigh (all of who I’ve never traveled with before) and Liz (who I love). It should be fun, Raleigh already had the reservations and she had two extra rooms so we jumped on it, and I want to travel with Raleigh because she is my room mate and its her birthday on the 26th (just like Kate!) Others are going to Geneva, so it worked out well. We are getting a midterm tomorrow—an 8 page paper for consumer behavior on god knows what. Blah I already can’t wait for the weekend and its only Monday! Too bad they don’t celebrate Lee Jackson King day over here!

In conclusion it was a great weekend and I had a great time. I wish you all could have been there (to foot the bill) JUST KIDDING! Every place I’ve gone so far I wouldn’t mind going back so you guys are going to have a lot to choose from when you come!! I hope everything is going well at home, keep sending me emails I love reading them!!!! And look at my pictures I have posted them on my blog (well I’m in the process right now) and a shortened version of this email will there too. I love you and I miss you!!


Liza

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Photos

lochness
sketchh!

stairs
almost there!

David
no cameras allowed so most of my pics are blurry because i was nervous

streets
duomo in the distance