Euro Tour - Florence

After departing Pompeii, we arrived in Florence in the evening.

We had to take a bus, then the metro (which was above ground), then walked to get to our hostel. We got our rooms all set (Very happy with my roommates, I had both dinosaurs in my room!) and had dinner in the restaurant-thingy in the basement of the hostel. After dinner we had free time, but most (if not all) of us just hung out in the hostel. I was with a bunch of people, exploring and after having an impromptu dance party on the balcony of the Brasilian boys' room. Very fun. (They got me addicted to the song "Ih Caraca", if you have time to waste, check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Z-0Gg820s)

The next day, we saw a church (What? A church? That's something completely new that we haven't done 20 times a day on this trip! Oh, joy!), and then the statue of David. And some other random art, but I wasn't really listening. We walked down across the river, and across the bridge with all the jewelry. Then free time(:

I went with Anna, my new travel buddy. First we just walked a bit, exploring. Then we went to buy souvenirs. We ended up spending about a half hour just trying on masks (And yes, I bought one. It is green and gold and amazing). Anna ended up getting 2, because she has a face that masks look really good on, and because she couldn't pick just one. (One of hers is blue with feathers, and the other I call her "Black Swan" mask.) Then I bought some random crap a lovely plate for my mother. We walked down the jewelry bridge then. Almost everything was gold, so super expensive. But we found one shop that was only gold-plated silver, so quite a bit less. I got this pair of GORGEOUS earrings. Then we stopped for ice cream, and The Great Cannoli Search was concluded! Yes, It was delicious. Then checked in with Rotary.

When we split again, I was still with Anna, but we acquired 3 Brasilians. Anna and I wanted to get portraits done (real ones, not charactatures), so we waited. We were debating two different street artists. One was a little bit better, but also 15 euros more expensive. So we went with the other one. I got mine done first. (The Brasilians didn't want to wait the whole time, so they left and came back when Anna was almost done.) I sat for like 20 minutes. It's a really weird experience. Total strangers come up, smile, give you a thumbs-up. (And then there are also the cute Italian boys that get ur attention, say in Italian that you are pretty [or a similar sentiment] and high-five each other, while walking away, after you smile at them.) But it's fun. The artist totally romanticized us. The portraits turned out good, but I don't think mine looks very much like me. Anna's turned out more like her, if you ask me, even though she says I'm wrong. Then the Brasilians came back, and we went about 50 feet. They ran into a Brasilian guy that lives in Italy, so we had to wait and talk for like 45 minutes. Anna and I were laughing at how totally obvious the boys were about checking out random girls. It was funny, it was so bad. Then we walked farther, stopping for us to look at shoes (The boys almost left us behind, but didn't). We got back to the hostel and changed into our swimsuits. The pool was like ice water! I was almost drowned twice, thank you so much Gustavo -.- Then a few of us went into the sauna. Somehow I ended up in there alone with 5 people I didn't know, and two Brasilian boys I did. It was an...interesting...experience. (If you know any teenage Brasilian boys, you will know what I mean.) Then back to my own room for curfew.

We left Florence the next morning, after Rotary getting us lost, not able to find the right bus, going to the wrong metro stop...It took us about 4 hours to get out of Florence. Then we got on our lovely bus, and off we went.

Note: I don't have many pictures from Florence, because I was too busy having fun. (And too lazy to fight with my camera.)