Florence

This past weekend we went to Florence! It was amazing needless to say! It felt a lot more like a small town! It was very quant and it was so easy to navigate! No getting lost for us! hehe! finally!
We left Friday morning at around 7:15 (it was a little hard to get up since we went to Campo di Fiori the night before!). We got to the train station and were waiting for our train and then we realized that we missed it! Yikes! But then luckily we walked up to another train and it just so happened to be going to Florence as well! It was our lucky day! It was very interesting being on the train because our ears kept popping! There were four people sitting in a section, and we were all yawning to get our ears to pop and the one man sitting with us was not doing it! So we asked him if his ears were popping too and he said yes "the train not perfect." So we get off the train and walk in a line through the markets of Florence with our big suitcases. I am sure it was a sight to be seen. Then we arrived at the hotel (Hotel Colomba), but the rooms weren't ready yet! So we dropped all of our luggage off in two rooms and then we were off! (for the LONGEST day of my life). We went to the Uffici museum. Our tour guide was really in to giving us the entire background of every painting we looked at, so it was kind of long since we were so tired. It was very amazing though seeing The Birth of Venus byBotticili. But sadly we weren't able to take any picture. After the tour we headed to dinner! We ate at a nice restaurant outside. I split bruschetta with Kelly (the tomatoes here are divine!) and I got a pasta with salmon! It was so nice to just relax outside and eat our dinner and enjoy each others' company. We asked our waiter where to get good gelato  (because Florence's gelato was not very good compared to Rome) so he sent us to Panchea-No. (sp?) It was o.k. but nothing compared to Old Bridge. I got this fluffy ice cream that was strawberry (I didn't really care for it!) and then I got a cheese flavor of ice cream and that was pretty good! Then we went home and we all retired for the evening by around 10:30! It was great we all definitely needed it!
Then on Saturday, we had the best day ever!! We woke up and had a great continental breakfast. I had yogurt, kiwi, cereal, and a great cappuccino. We all wore sundresses and boarded a bus to go to a castle in Tuscany!

When we got on the tour bus, we had the hottest bus driver. (so we got a picture with him of course!) Then we drove for about 45 minutes and arrived in the countryside of Tuscany. It was so beautiful and everything was just so green! We arrived at the castle where we had a tour of the castle and winery, and extra virgin olive oil tasting. At the oil tasting, the oil was placed in little plastic cups and we had to put our hands around then to heat the oil up and swirl. Then we were told to smell the oil. (At one point I smelled a little too hard and I ended up snorting some olive oil…not a pretty sight!) Then to taste the oil you had to get a lot of saliva and swish it around with the olive oil and then swallow. Very interesting experience to say the least. Then we made our own pasta! (The grandmother who owns the castles showed us her ways in making pasta…needless to say she had to show us a few times the tricks of the trade!) And then we got to eat our pasta and taste several different wines! With our first wine, we had bread with crushed up olives, bread with crushed up tomatoes, a piece of salami and a piece of cheese! They were all delicious. Then came our two pastas and another type of wine! (When wine tasting I learned that you need to compare the color to your napkin, and then you need to look at the “legs” on the glass…so to be able to get a good look you mustn’t grab the glass at the round part). The two pastas we had were a meat spaghetti and one was a veggie spaghetti with an olive oil sauce with carrots, zucchini, and celery. We even got the recipe! Definitely going to try making it at home!! Although it probably won’t have the same feel because I won’t be eating it in Tuscany in a beautiful castle! Haha! After we finished our spaghetti, we got a dessert wine with biscotti. The dessert wine tasted like whisky! It was so funny to watch people take a big gulp and then have a look of disgust on their face! We learned that we are only suppose to lightly dip our biscotti into the wine…that made it much better! After the meal, we all took tons of pictures around the vineyard! And we bought some wine! There were so many pretty views! We said our goodbyes to our tour guide (the cutest shortest Italian man) and then we got back on the bus with the hot driver and headed back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel, it started drizzling a little bit but we didn’t let that stop us!

Dana, Kate, and I left to hit the markets! Because you know Florence is known for its leather! It was so fun looking at all the purses, wallets, scarves, and leather jackets! Everyone was legit a salesman! By the end we learned that we could barter them down a little bit! So that was good! I ended up getting a new sidesatchel and a scarf! I am very happy with! But when I got back to the hotel and saw everyone’s new leather jackets it made me want one so bad!! (maybe I will get one when I go back with my parents!) Anyway, while Dana, Kate, and I were out we also went to this store called Zara (it is pretty big here in Italy!) and there were so many corals so naturally I wanted them all!! But I held off! Then on our way back to hotel, we stopped in for a slice of pizza (I got mushroom) and then  we headed to Hotel Columba!

We just relaxed back at the hotel  because we have legit have had no down time. Then it was time to get ready for the evening! I had friends studying abroad in Florence right now…so I was hoping to meet up with them…but nothing really seemed to be working since I didn’t have my computer and since we don’t have phones it becomes kind of difficult! So we decided that we were going to go to this place called Astro. So as we are on the way there we see a guy with a group of friends pop out of this restaurant. The guy had a shirt on that said “the commons” which is an apartment complex at JMU so we decided to yell JMU!!! And of course they turned around and turns out he was with one of my friends and they were heading to the same place!! How crazy is that!! So we ended up heading with them to Astro, and they had decided that they were going to do a pub crawl…so we were like what the heck! SO we did it too! It was way more fun this time because there were so many JMU people and it just seemed less sketchy. It turned out to be a fun filled evening!

            We woke up the next morning and got a wonderful breakfast again! Then we were on our way Pisa (simply to take the photo with the leaning tour). We took the train there and we ended up sitting next to this guy who had been backpacking all around Europe since April. (wow!) and he only had one little tiny backpack (not even a backpacking backpack…just a little school one) We were in shock!! He turned out to be a really cool guy from Seattle who had just graduated and is planning on going to law school in fall. I feel like he knew he was going to have no life in law school  because you have to study all the time so he probably wanted to take advantage of the freedom! Then when we got to Pisa, we walked to the leaning tower. On the way, there were two girls going in between our group with their umbrellas. And it seemed a little fishy to me! Turns out that they were trying to pickpocket some of us! But luckily nothing was stolen! One girl felt her bag being touched so she whipped around and caught them! And another girl turned around only to find her wallet half open! Yikes! I was lucky cause I had my satchel inside my rain jacket! (it was a pretty rainy day! L) I was so thankful that nothing got stolen! Then we made it to the Leaning Tower! (by the way…Pisa seems kind of dingy…not like anything I have seen in Italy!) Then we took our pictures holding it or pushing it! It was such a touristy site! It was hilarious seeing people pretend to hold it up! Because obviously at some angle when I was looking at them I couldn’t see it being held up but the person taking the picture could see it. So It was just so funny to see people holding their arms out! We got lunch there (I got a calzone!) and then we headed back to Florence! Then while we were waiting for our train in Pisa, they guy comes up to Logan and goes “are you girls from James Madison University” so turns out he is from JMU and just graduated from grad school this past semester! Crazy! Florence turns out to be such a place to make connections! Haha! Then we heading back to the hotel. Then Alissa and I really wanted to go to the top of the bell tower by the Dromo. So we trekked the rain to the bell tower. We only had to pay 6 euros to do this! And it was AMAZING!!! There were four levels and each level we went up we got to see more and more of Florence! It was soo cool! So we were on the third floor (where the bells are located) and they started going off! I almost started crying I was in so much awe! Here I was standing in a bell tower while they are ringing and I was looking out over all of Florence! God does some amazing things!!  (the only sad thing is that my camera was dead…so I wasn’t able to capture any of the wonderful views of all of Florence. But Alissa’s was partially working. We would turn it on and take a few quick photos and then it would say “battery exhausted” and then we would go the next level and snap a few photos and then it would turn off again. It was actually pretty funny!) It was actually harder to climb down we felt like because our legs kept getting shaky! I was so happy that I did it though! That was definitely my highlight of the weekend! Then we got Subway (sad to say but we were just craving a legit sandwich) then we went back to the hotel and then it was time to head back to Rome! We got on the right train and we made it back to the hotel by 12! This made waking up Monday morning very difficult!