FLORENCE

Florence... hm.

Well we arrived in Florence quite late at night and got into a taxi (yay!) to get us to our hotel. Our taxi driver for some reason was quite convinced that I spoke Italian despite my fervent and desperate "non comprendo"s so he happily chatted with me in the front seat the whole ride there while the girls laughed in the back seat. When we pulled up to our hotel, Hotel Colorado (.......) my new friend gave this look of extreme pity and disgust, at which we were extremely alarmed. Haha. We ring the doorbell while we're standing in the middle of a dark street with a dirty-looking sports bar across the street looking very confused and scared when the door gets buzzed open and we are standing face to face with a staircase. And all our luggage, which is now considerably heavier than when we first arrived in Madrid. We walk up four flights of stairs (Again, floor "3" in Europe, floor 4 in American terms) hauling our luggage the whole way (I think I'm getting buffer on this trip for this reason alone) and when we stumble in, out of breath, a tall, skinny man who I swear could pass for Rasputin (the creepy Russian adviser who aids Czar Nicholas in Anastasia) greets us. We get our keys, chatted for a little on ideas for day trips (just about everything worth seeing in Florence is closed on Mondays, and we arrived Sunday night), found out air conditioning cost extra, and he fell in love with Sarah ("hehe she makes funny jokes!").

The next day we woke up bright and early and were greeted by a Dustin Hoffman look-a-like (and sound-a-like) who was our hotel owner. We headed out in search for the bus station to buy tickets to San Gimignano, a small village in southern Tuscany (as we found out, Tuscany is not a city, but a region... so Florence is actually IN Tuscany, and our "we want to go to Tuscany"s just made us sound like retards). After some confusion and lots of questions, we bought our tickets and got on the bus. Two bus rides and 2 hours later we arrived in San Gimignano! It was such a cute little village, apparently known for its towers (there used to be 78 towers but now there are only 14 or so), but it was basically like Mont St. Michel, enclosed within stone walls and inside little meandering streets with lots of little shops! We walked around and found this GREAT restaurant called Dulcisinfundo, which had the best spaghetti pomodoro and bruschetta EVER. It was so good we asked the owner to make reservations for us again at 7 pm for dinner... and they opened 30 minutes early just for us (they close between lunch and dinner)! In between we walked around and shopped. We found a great gelato place, it's actually award-winning, and I got grapefruit champagne, melon, and passion fruit. Literally the best gelato I've ever had! Sarah got pooped on by a seagull as we were sitting and enjoying our gelato hahaha! Well, it actually pooped on her satchel of steel (supposedly impermeable by pick-pocketers) which was sitting on her lap.. but she said some got in her gelato hahah. Literally a circle of people formed around us-some laughing, some looks of horror, and some looks of pity, and some with all three hahaha. After doing some shopping we attempted to walk around outside of the city walls, but it wasn't very successful since there was a TON of mosquitos, but we got a great view! To be honest it looks a lot like Napa but with less vineyards and more trees. Then we went to a cafe to sit because it was so hot and we were so drained. We asked the waiter for some recommendations and he said: "Me likey the strawberry but I don't know for you! hehe" hahaha anyway, the smoothies were the worst I've ever had... like frothy and just yuck. So dinnertime rolled around again and we went back to Dulcisinfundo. I had the pesto :) and the girls had bolognese made with boar meat (apparently San Gimignano is famous for boar?) and it was delicious as well. After dinner we literally ran back to the gelato place, this time I got melon and peach, before rushing to make the last bus back to Florence. Great day!!! :)

On our first real day in Florence we got a late start because we didn't have that much planned and we had a lot of time in Florence, so by the time we got out and ate and got to the Uffizi museum, it was around 1 PM. Flo also came to visit (you know what I mean, ladies) so I wasn't feeling well at all. We got to the Uffizi and discovered the LONG. FREAKING. LINE. and of course got in it because we had no other choice. Now, had we had the foresight to book tickets in advance we probably wouldn't have had to wait so long, but oh well, it is what it is. So in total we waited in line for THREE. HOURS. yes, people, three hours. I don't even think I've ever waited at DISNEYLAND (my favorite place on Earth) for three hours. But it was worth it because when we got inside and I saw Botticelli's Birth of Venus & Spring I was blown away. Hanna creeped on some Japanese guided tours and translated as much as she could for me until the guide noticed her and subtley inched away :( so then we just creeped on an American tour when he was talking about Da Vinci's stuff, which was equally awesome. After the Uffizi we headed to Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge in Florence, which had a lot of little shops on it, but we skipped it because we wanted to get a good view of the bridge itself so we passed it. Probably better for my wallet that way anyway! Then we headed to Piazzale Michelangelo, which is situated on top of a hill and offers a great view of the city. The climb was in.sane. Hanna and I were totally winded by the time we reached the top, but it was well worth it because Florence is beautiful from above, much more beautiful than from below at least. After this we got some dinner in Piazza della Signora and headed back to the hostel.

Sarah and Saaya were waiting for us at home when we arrived. We made the mistake the night before of jokingly inviting creepy hotel guy (named Dennis) to come out with us on his night off. And then we made the mistake of thinking (aka hoping) he would forget and the invitation would fall through. So imagine our surprise when Hanna and I walk into the lobby and he is standing there, alone, waiting. dot dot dot... AWKWARD. Then we get into our room and see Saaya and Sarah huddling in the corner with looks of fear in their eyes and we dread the rest of the night. It started out not so bad at the dirty sports bar across the street, which had really cheap but really watered down drinks, because Dennis was pretty funny. But then we discovered he was a lightweight and he was drunk and then we got to the club and he started trying to get on Hanna and then me (even though I told him I had a boyfriend of five years, what a CREEP!!) so I eventually had to take one for the team, and I said: "Look, you're really nice but when we go out we like to dance by ourselves. You know, not with boys. Just with each other." And he was like "Well then I am confused like why the fuck am I here?" to which I replied, "well, aren't you having fun?" to which he replied "I understand." and then walked off. But then when we headed back to the dance floor and who do we see sitting in a chair by himself lurking in the corner? You guessed it! Dennis. AWKWARD. After a while he disappeared (thankfully) and we danced the night away.... until we got tired and wanted to go home. Haha

The next day we started out at the Accademia and saw David. Man he was pretty unbelievable! I mean, really big. Like, I imagined him to be the size of a normal human being not like ten plus feet tall!! A beautiful piece of art if I say so myself. After this we headed to Santa Croce, which was cool because it held the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo, but the security guard lady was a raging b-i-t-c-h with a stick up her butt... by this i mean that there were probably at least 10 other people (and this is a low estimate) who did not have knee-length bottoms and their shoulders covered, but did she chase after any of THEM shaking her finger at them? NO, of course not. Just me and hanna. And when I confronted her she denied pinpointing us. It was also super hot out which made it more miserable. But no matter, we took our pictures and went home. We all napped for a bit in the midday heat, and we decided to splurge on buying air conditioning :) then we went out one more time--to getMcDonald's! Then I went off on my own to find an internet/phone cafe to be connected to the outside world. After catching up on emails and trying to make some unsuccessful calls, I headed back but decided to stop at a small cafe in San Marco square right by our hotel for a nightcap: a cold glass of white wine. Yum! It was really nice to sit in the square and sip my wine and people watch by myself... as sad as that sounds haha. When I got back I jumped in the shower and we huddled around Sarah's iPod to watch Grey's Anatomy re-runs before falling asleep.

The next morning we woke up nice and early and made our way for the train station for Roma!!