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Published: February 22nd 2009
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So, the plan for today was supposed to be to wake up, go to Sienna, enjoy the day, and then come home and relax. Well that's what we THOUGHT was in store for us. After waking up EARLY (we're talkin 7am here) I got ready, packed up my stuff, and even ate breakfast before realizing that MY group wasn't awake yet. So I went and knocked on the girls' door and they reminded me that we weren't leaving with the other group. Ooops!! Oh well. So I got to take a nap until they were ready to go and then we headed out of Settignano. We had to stop to grab batteries for Frank's camera since it had died, so we rode the bus into Florence. We kept passing different things that we wanted to check out...one place was an antique book store...anyway, we kept saying, "oh we'll have to go back there next week." Eventually it dawned on us, that Sienna isn't going anywhere and that we were already off to a late start, so why not just stay in town today? So, we checked out the book store, one of my favorite places so far lol. There were a
bunch of really neat old books and maps, but they were a little over priced so we all decided to pass on them. Oh, and sidenote...the reason we went into this store is because I'm looking for an old book of maps of Italy. I saw someone take an old atlas and turn it into their scrapbook, so that's my plan! Anyways, no luck on the book yet! After that we hit up the leather market. It smells amazing and it's just block after block of leather and cashmere!! It's crazy! We all found stuff for our family members and we picked up some postcards too!! Then, we continued walking until we found a nice piazza to stop and eat lunch in. Frank thought it was fun to feed the pigeons! 😞 Anyone who went to Rome with me knows just how much I HATE pigeons!! Anyways, while we ate lunch we saw the military police marching by in some sort of parade. I still don't know what that was all about, but I'm thinking it might be connected to the random fireworks I saw the other night. I'll have to do some reasearch! After that we HIKED (and I
don't use that term loosely) to Piazza Dei Michelangelo. There was a HUGE hill and about a million stairs to climb before reaching the piazza! Needless to say, we're all going to have sore legs tomorrow! When we reached the top we had the greatest view in the city! You could see the doumo, Santa Croce (the dark brown church), Ponte Vecchio, the Arno, and many other attractions we had visited! It was great! After that we just started exploring the little part of town up on the hill. We hungout for a while on a park bench under a bunch of trees and just talked! We came across a Benedictine Monastary, an OLD cemetary, and a Benedictine Church. They were amazing! Then we headed back into the heart of Florence for mass. When we got to the duomo we had some time to kill so we decided to buy a soda and take a seat (mainly because we needed to go to the bathroom). We ended up at JJ Cathedrals (one of the local American bars) which was empty so we ordered drinks. Unfortunately, ONE fountain soda is 4euro! Isn't that crazy!?! But we sat upstairs on the TINY
girls @ the picnic
me, anica, and elle balcony and enjoyed the view. Then we headed to mass. As soon as we got into the duomo, we were greated by the youth pastor, who asked us to join the youth group there. We're looking into what activities we'll be able to attend, but it sounds really nice! Mass was great, but FREEZING! Those old stone cathedrals are not as plesant in the winter as I remember them being in the summer! And it was nice to see so many other college students at mass too because up until now, we had mainly seen older people, not too many people our age. After mass we met all 15 or so priests who had said mass...turns out 2 were BC grads and one was from Kansas. Small world huh?! The pastor suggested this place for us to eat dinner. He said they offered student discounts, which of course we were excited about! Plus, it trumped our earlier plan of grabbing McDonalds lol. And yes, there are 3 McDonald's in Florence!! And the town isn't even that big! Dinner was fantastic. I'll have to steal the picture of all of us in the restaurant from Anica and add it later. After
dinner, it was FREEZING outside, which was odd to us because earlier today we were taking layers off because it was so hot! Anica even got away with wearing just a light t-shirt. So, we caught the bus and headed home. Today was great! We had a blast, even though we didn't go anywhere "special." I use the quotations because I realize that Italy in general is special, but we didn't venture out of town into Venice or Sienna or out of Italy. It was nice! And we decided that we'd just hit up Sienna some other weekend, probably next weekend!
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