Day 3: Florence

Isn't this a wonderful way to wake up the morning?....a little piano playing by our very own Sarah Lulling.

Our hostel is really super cute, they had a piano for people to play whenever they felt like it and the old guy who runs the hostel plays every night for the guests. In that same common room they also had a computer for anyone to use, which was really nice. You could really only use it for important stuff cause there were always people waiting in line behind you to use it. They also had wi-fi so Alex and I were able to use it with our iPhones. It was quite strange though, we discovered that only one person at a time could use the wi-fi. Isn't that strange? I had never heard of anything like that before. But hey I was just happy to have internet, period.

Michelle was doing the very important task of checking her facebook. What did people ever do without facebook? Oh yeah myspace. Lame.

This is the room we stayed in. It was a twelve person room. They didn't have lockers but I have locks for my bag so it wasn't a big deal and that place seemed really safe so I didn't really worry about it.
It was so nice they had a table for us to put all of our junk on. So much better than all the other hostels where everything is laid out all over the beds. It was so nice!
Britta blow drying her hair. Thanks to Heather for that blow dryer, it has gotten a ton of use. The only down side to this hostel was that they only had one bathroom!!! It would have been fine if it was just the four of us but nope there were many more than just 4. It was a pain for planning out our timing for the day. We would have to wake up really early to be able to make sure we could get ready on time. And the really bad part was I was just getting used to using the TINY travel towel so it took even longer. Let me tell you I am happy to be home and have one towel for my hair and a large one I can wrap around me. It is so much better.
Alex getting ready in the morning. She and I were the ones who took the longest to get ready so we were always up first. I think she took longer than me though :) But she says it is just because she is lazy and she likes to take her time.
Once we were all ready we headed out into the center of the city. For today we had pre-purchased tickets for the Uffizi Museum so we went to print them out at some internet cafe then we walked around until it was time for the museum. These are my lovely friends in front of that river close to our hostel.
Haha Sarah is pointing at the tents. The night before when we were off our path a little (not lost though) she kept saying I saw the blue tents and none of us knew what she was talking about. Then when we figured out where we were, we realized we were no where near the blue (in actuality white) tents so we were making fun of her. So in the morning when we passed by the tents she was referring to I made her take a picture in front of them.

Here is the arch in the day light. Look at the blue sky behind it. I am telling you we got so lucky with the weather.

There were a lot of the three wheeled cars everywhere we went. They were so tiny and cute. Florence also had these little miniature buses that were SO cute and kind of humorous. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of one but believe me they were funny looking.
This was the leather market right in the middle of the city. This was our first encounter with bargaining. We didn't do too well in Florence, but we learned along the way.

Before the museum we grabbed something to eat. We stopped by this little place that had really good sandwich panini things for only 3 euro. They were really good and we were happy we got something cheap. Well we thought it was going to be cheap until we all decided to get soda. Bad idea on our parts. Unfortunately we are used to having to pay the same amount for water and soda in Spain and generally it isn't too expensive. We definitely learned out lessons, because when we went to pay we found out a stupid bottle of coke was 4 euro!!! How ridiculous is that?! It was more expensive than the freaking sandwich. It was very aggravating but believe us we didn't make that mistake again.
That place was weird to eat in because all the walls were mirrors so you pretty much stared at yourself while you were eating.

After we ate we walked around a little more looking for the Duomo, but there are too long of a line to go up in the tour so we skipped it. But the building exterior was magnificent and gorgeously detailed.
Just walking along.....
That was the tour we were going to go up inside of. Oh well, maybe next time I am in Florence.
Then we decided to walk to the Academic Museum with the real David in it. We couldn't take pictures inside though sorry.
While we were standing in line to see the David we started to crave gelato so Michelle and I went off in search of it, but we didn't really find a good so we decided to walk back down across the river to a gelato place that Brittany also recommended.

Down by the river I was able to take all the pictures that I wanted to that I couldn't take the night before because it was too dark.
This is that chain with all of the locks on it. Michelle of course wanted a picture on it.


We stopped on the way to the gelato place to take some pictures on and around the bridge. I was so pretty. I know I am probably sounding repetitive but there really isn't any other way to put it into words.


When we got the gelato I ate it too fast to take a picture, but luckily Britta is a super slow gelato eater so I was able to snap one of her.

I loved the atmosphere that Florence had. I would have been perfectly content just walking around there my entire spring break. The colors, the buildings, the people, it was all so perfect.

After we got gelato we decided we were hungry for actual food so we asked the gelato people for a good place to eat. We ended up going to a place really close by. When we got there we heard a British couple saying you had to make reservations a couple days in advance if you wanted to get a table inside so we didn't think we would get a table. Fortunately for us the outside tables are opening seating and the weather was nice so we sat outside. Sarah ended up going back to the hostel before us because one she couldn't eat anything anyways and two she didn't feel too good.

We asked the server for some recommendations and he recommended this one pasta with pear inside it. I was first to order so I of course got that since I love pear but then the other three ordered the same exact thing. I was really weirded out by that so I changed my order to a ravioli. The girls didn't really know why I freaked out about us all ordering the same thing, but I am just not used to that. I am used to people getting different stuff and we try each others food. After I told Michelle that she changed her order too to a pasta. Well when our food came out Michelle regretted changing dishes cause the pear pasta was so good, but I actually really like my food. Alex and Britta loved their pasta, which was good, but I felt bad that I was the one who put the idea in Michelle's head to change. Oh well too late now.

After dinner we just walked back to the hostel and got ready for bed and obviously went to bed!