2nd stop...Florence...

So we arrived in Florence on the 16th and Emily's friend who is studying abroad there picked us up at the train station and we headed to find our hostel. (Let's just say that the roads are cobblestone everywhere and my luggage wheel is starting to bend because I've pulled this thing everywhere). We had written down to stop at a café and someone will be there to meet us. So we find this café and tell them that we are here for the hostel and he calls someone on his cell phone to tell them that we are there. Hmmmm…kind of weird. He says 5 minutes but it was more like 20 and then a woman shows up to walk us to our hostel down the street. We get to this small door and then see the stairs….crap. I have to lug up my like 50 pound suitcase and 30 pound backpack up the smallest and steepest stairwell 3 flights. I was about to die. haha. It’s a little bit sketchy but we got a whole entire room with like 7 beds – we share a bathroom with another room next to us…which I didn’t really know until I heard other people talking right outside our door. But we put our stuff down and then went to go see some sights. We did kind of a walking tour with Catherine and went up to this place – St. Michelangelo’s? and it had an awesome view of the entire city. Of course we ate gelato up on the hill/lookout. We then took our time walking down another way – not the 200 stair way.

Me on top of the hill overlooking Florence

From above looking at the Ponte Vecchio (the bridge)

An amazing gelato place on the Ponte Vecchio

One of the biggest and most well-known sites in the middle of Florence is the Duomo. It’s the 3rd largest church behind St. Peters and St. Pauls. The outside is absolutely gorgeous – words can’t really even express how cool it looks – and it just goes on forever!

Pictures of the Duomo

After that we had reservations to eat at this one restaurant that the AIFS Program in Florence gets food vouchers to – their system is so much cooler and they eat at all the restaurants everyday and get tons more money to eat than we do – anyways, and it was AWESOME! I got the pesto gnocchi (recommendation from Alexis – props to you!), grilled chicken and the house white wine which was great too!!

Pesto gnocchi

I ate some of Caitlin’s spinach and ricotta/mozzarella ravioli with cheese sauce. YUM too. After that Catherine took us to this one bar to get a membership type card – Lockness – for 5 Euro so we could go the next day for St. Patrick’s Day. There was no one – we just got drinks to be nice since we walked in – 2 for 1 special of mixed drinks which was really nice since in Salzburg we NEVER drink mixed drinks. They are way too expensive. After we left, we went home took showers and crashed.

The next days we did lots of stuff too. I'll just try and do an overview - the 17th was obviously St. Patrick's Day so we wore green all day. No one else really was except the Americans, but oh well! Well I guess that that means everyone was because literally Florence was filled with Americans. It was crazy....I heard English all around me which was weird because I'm used to no one speaking English around me but the kids in the program. Anyways, we went inside the Duomo - the outside is much cooler than the inside. We also went to the market all day long basically, but it was awesome. Leather and pashminas (scarves made in Italy) are really popular so I bargained with some and got some nice things!

Mid-day stop at J.J. Cathedral for some green beer

Later that night we went to Lochness to celebrate St. Patty's day - after that some of us then went to Michael Collins. By that time, those of us that were left were exhausted so then we came home.

Catherine and us on St. Patty's day at Lochness

The next day on the 18th we decided that we wanted to see the David by Michelangelo. We stood in line for about an hour and a half, but we still hadn't even moved half way. Ridiculous. We had to meet Catherine then, so we just left. For lunch we ate at Gustapanino which was so delicious! I had turkey, mozzarella, and pesto on mine. :)

Really cool panino shop (panini is plural)

Being in Florence, we knew we had to see the David...so we went back to stand in line again. This time it was shorter, but we made Clayton stand in line while we went back to the market to grab some few last things. By the time we got back we stood there for only around 15 minutes and got in. Let's just say that the statue was much bigger than what I was thinking. It was beautiful as well!!

This is a replica that was outside that I took a picture of since you couldn't take them inside.

We then went to eat again at a different restaurant that night with some of Catherine's friends/other kids on the program. It was really hilarious because 2 of them were from UT. We were doing the whole introduction thing and Caitlin and I said that we go to school there. One of them could not believe it. He asked us if his friends told us to say that and if we were getting paid to....he was shocked when we replied no. It was rather funny considering he could not believe that someone else went there...hello there are 50,000 people...you are bound to meet someone else :)

The next morning we "checked out" (meaning left our key on the table) of our hostel and had some time to spare for our train ride to Rome. We were meeting Catherine by where she lives - Santa Croce - and we find another market!

Santa Croce and the market

We all take turns looking around while others watch our luggage....I find a candy apple making stand!! YUM! I've never had one so I definitely had to get one. It was mighty delicious...if I do say so myself. We basically then just enjoyed the weather then walked back to the train station - back through the cobblestone that tore up my wheel.