Florence

After another dreary day of travel, we arrive in Florence, Italy! We set off to meet up with Kelley at our hostel; and after trudging through the rain, we arrive! What a nice hostel it seems, too! It comes with free internet, towels, sheets, and seems very legit. The only part that was unfortunate was that we had to take roughly 41 different secret stair cases to just get to our room. No worries. We made it!

So we catch up with Kelley before we eventually head out. We end up finding Piazza San Signorina Square where it has replicas of all the famous statues~ an outdoor museum if you will. But on the way we stopped at yet another gelato shop! (Of course) and this has to be the best gelato yet!! The choices were endless, and the gelato itself was stacked roughly 2 feet high in the cases! It was unreal!! and the owner was really nice... Gave us a back massage HA. Not sure why seeing we don't speak Italian, but after that awkard moment we finished our gelato and continued to explore before grabbing some dinner.

Well dinner was good, minus the fact I doused my pizza and pasta with too many chili spices and couldn't eat my food without tears welling up in my eyes. Sad.

But now the weather was finally clearing up as the sun was setting, and we went to see the church where Gallileo and Michaelangelo were buried... Five pounds and ten minute later, we left. It was interesting; but probably not worth the money in my eyes...

So the next day was April 2, (I realize I am very far behind...) and that means its JAY WALT'S Birthday!! Happy Birthday Dad... J-Dubbs... J-Dizzle Nizzle! Now since I wasn't able to see or talk to him; I decided to celebrate on his behalf with a Tuscany Day Tour. What a good daughter I am, right???

This was fantastic - started at 8:30am where we met up with our tourguide Sandra pronounced - S-aooonn-dddrrr-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. and our bus driver Emeliano pronounced - Eeeeee-meal-eeee-aaaahhh-nooooooo

But the tour started in Sienna where it is just beautiful! We explored a town square and probably my favorite church yet (even though I don't even know the name of it...), then we headed off to a vineyard for some lunch and a wine tour.

Wow. what a lunch - Everything they gave us was homemade and organic from their own farm/vineyard. We even got to see some of the cows that we were eating for lunch hahaha but lunch itself was unreal...
It came with -
Bruschetta, bread with oil and parmesan cheese, pasta carbonnara, ham, salami, an assortment of cheeses, biscotti, and 4 different bottles... yes bottles, of wines - chianti, chivellis, pinot, and a sweet dessert wine that tasted like another mix of tequila and vodka mix. uck.

Besides the dessert wine-lunch was amazing! The view outside was amazing as well... The place where we had lunch overlooked acres of the vineyards as far as the eye could see. It was breathtaking. It was like what you would see on a postcard... Too bad we had to head out yet again...

Then we arrive at San Gimignano - adorable. It was a little town that apparently had the "world's best gelato" (although I personally didn't enjoy this gelato as much, it has won numerous awards). But we go exploring and found a little castle that overlooked more fields and vineyards above the rest of the city.

How can one place be so beautiful?! Everywhere you look is just another image you never want to forget. The way this place is "put together," it's just...perfect. No other word can really come to mind how to describe it. The way the Italians preserve the history in their architecture; mixed with the welcoming ways of the people, and the ways in which they live such a simple, fulfilled life... it's almost too perfect!

Again, it's time to leave yet again to head out on our last leg of our tour - Pisa!

Well Pisa is what you think it is... a tower that is leaning and people from all over the world trying to get a picture "holding" it up. Basically that is all Pisa has to offer outside of hundreds of men attempting to sell you knock-offs of anything and everything! Purses, watches, sunglasses, etc.

So we did the typical tourist thing attempting to "push" the tower straight again before we headed out back home. A long and tiring day to say the least; we just wanted a time to relax... but this didn't happen.

We get to the hostel and are sitting in a common area when we are shortly greeted by a large group of French guys... we begin attempting to converse with one another; but obviously I speak only a little french, and although they all spoke atleast a little English, only one, Frederic, spoke almost fluent English. This was quite entertaining to say the least. But we made friends and after a bit of convincing; we all head out to a club...

But before TK and I headed out, we ran upstairs to change, when we were greeted by a French woman who started yelling at us threatening to call the "policia." Not exactly sure why this came about since we weren't even talking and although we attempted to tell her we don't speak French and had NO idea AT all wht she was saying... she continued getting mad at us for standing there? No worries... time to leave.

So we head out and get a little lost, get a little beat box session from one of the French guys with braids, and then rougly an hour later we arrive at the club. Seemed like a fun place; good music, fun crowd, and interesting atmosphere.

But TK and I kindof just go off in our own little world trying to just have fun. I think the best part of the night was when we were trying to "get away" from the group of French guys and took safety on top of a speaker! The guys tried to join us up there, but were quickly pushed away by bouncers. Oh life is good! and to make things better; we saw our friends yet again from LAX who are studying in London again!! But thank goodness we did because we basically used them as an excuse to get away from the French and ran to them for safety Ha. Thanks Steve and Ben! The French guys didn't really enjoy this; and all headed out except one who we made the long trek home with us. Too bad he spoke the least amount of english...

After roughly 4 hours of sleep, we were up again to go do some final exploring of Florence... We first went o Accademia to see Michaelangelo's David before we went over to a hill over looking all of Florence and found an amazing view. We also lucked out with some "nicer" weather. While up there, I got free lunch, we saw roughly 53 chinese weddings, and the most beautiful Ferrari ever. Future car for sure.

Another decent day, and only a few complications when trying to get our train to Rome. Thankfully everything eventually worked out and we said Ciao to Florence, and Bonjourno to Rome!