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Published: November 21st 2011
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Hostel
Dom checking out the Bed Just got back from Florence! After working hard on the olive harvest Dom and I went to visit one of my favorite cities in Italia. We tried to couch surf, but I think it may be a bit harder for a couple to find a place to stay than a couple'a cute girls (aka me and Erika) to find a place to surf. It worked out really well though, we ended up staying about two blocks from IL DUOMO! on via cavour at this really nice and affordable hostel.
The train ride was so beautiful! It was about two and a half hours of italian countryside and we were able to spot the olive trees quite easily. 😊
The hostel had a kitchen so we went to il mercato and got some pasta and wine. Its so crazy the decent quality of wine you can get for 2 euro! After some delicious ravioli and wine we decided not to go out clubbing at Space Eletronica, but instead to get to bed because we were zonked!
The next day we went to do what I had been thinking about since we arrived...cappuccino and un cornetto (kind of like a
crossant). We stood at the bar and it was SO GOOD! I used to have that breakfast every day when I studied there, and I was giddy to be able to do it again. I don't think I stopped smiling the whole day!
After we ate, I took Dom to what he would soon discover would be his most favorite place in Firenze "Il Mercato Centrale". It's the central market in Florence, a huge warehouse where you can get fresh EVERYTHING! Meats, cheeses, breads, olive oil, wine...It's fantastic. We wandered around for a while like kids in a candy store. Dom was really happy.
Then I took Dom to see the rest of the sights, IL DUOMO of course and we went up to piazza michaelangelo where you can see the whole city, saw the Arno River and the Ponte Vecchio. We also went to the Bargello museum where there are a lot of really cool sculptures. We did a lot of people watching and noticed a high percentage of puffy jackets. I wrote a small song about it, still in the works.
In the piazza with the carousel in it there can be a lot of
Gelato!
Even in the winter, gotta have that gelato! street performers. The first day we saw this guy levitating. It was pretty impressive and I'm still not exactly sure how he did it. Dom thinks that it was real and he just floated away when he was done because we didn't see him at all after that. We wandered towards the Jewish area and saw the Occupy Firenze camp on our way. Later we spoke to someone in our hostel who said that he had spoken with them for three-plus hours and that it was very interesting. I wanted to practice my italian, but I was a bit too shy of the hippies, they did have a really cute Canino (puppy) that I petted.
Later on we met up with my old roommate Jackie, who moved to Italy to teach English after studying there. We met her, her cousin and friend for apertivo. Apertivo is a special deal in bars where from 6-9ish you pay a single price (6-9 euro) and you get one drink and can eat as much as you want from the buffet. Some are smaller with less food, but this one was so big that I still felt full the next morning! All different
kinds of pastas, meats, cheeses, fruit salads, kebobs...and they just kept bringing out more and more until we finally had to leave before we hurt ourselves.
Then we retired to the hostel where we watched Bad Company dubbed-over in italian, very weird to hear a white italian guy trying to sound like Chris Rock. We played cards with some fun people at our hostel. It was very exciting to be able to meet people traveling from everywhere.
On our last day we sat out near the markets and watched all these little italian children battle hoards of pigeons. A small girl looking slyly at the birds from on top of the steps of the church, "AHHHH PSSTTTTTTTTHHHH!!!!" she screams. They were really cute and hilarious.
The city crews were hanging the holiday lights the day we left, but they didn't light them yet. Its too bad we were too early for the Christmas markets and all that fun stuff, but it was still such a great time. We'll just have to go back and see them all lit up some day...
We packed up our sandwiches and took the late train back, super tired, but happy
from adventuring in Firenze.
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