Firenze

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We're in Florence! Looking back now I really appreciate Tuscania and am glad that we spent our first week in Italy there. Tuscania really let us get to know what life is like in a small Italian village. We also definitely miss the prices in Tuscania! Our last couple days there we spent wandering around and seeing every last inch of the town. On Monday, we had Italian class in the morning and then went out to lunch with our professors. At night, all of the Bentley kids decided to go to Cafe Duomo (the only place in town to go). On Tuesday, we had Italian class once again and celebrated our last night in Tuscania at one of the nicest restaurants in town. We ate on a roof deck overlooking the entire town and were served one of the best meals we've had here so far. Afterwards, we packed up our stuff and tried to sleep in our sauna of a bedroom.

Wednesday morning we loaded up the bus and took off for Florence. Once we arrived to the house I was not surprised to find that not only did we have to carry our luggage up stairs, we had to carry it up 5 flights of stairs. Multiple 50 pound bags and steep staircases do not mix well. We finally managed to bring up all of our bags and met our host mom, Anna. According to the university, Anna is described as a "hip 63 year old." After seeing her for the first time, that is the perfect way to describe her. Anna was wearing a floor length blue cheetah dress with her blonde hair all done up. She speaks very little English, but luckily there are 5 German girls living here until the end of the week that speak both Italian and English and can translate for us. We unpacked all of our things and were called for dinner, where we all sat at a long table and were fed a giant bowl of delicious pasta, lemon chicken, tomatoes, and bread. We found out Anna was a theater teacher and loves traveling, she's been to New York City and San Francisco. The food was delicious, and afterwards she served us nectarines for dessert. We've spent the past couple of days trying to find our way around the city for the most part, we've seen many sites except we have the next 4 months to explore and go on tours. It's also very very hot every day, and as much as we want to see everything we start sweating as soon as we leave the house, can't wait until it gets cooler!

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