Public transportation is so annoying. We met at 7am to catch a 7:29am metro to the train station where we were supposed to catch an 8ish am train to Florence but we were on the wrong platform without realizing it until it was too late. We all boarded the train, put our bags away and got comfy in our seats, and then people started coming who had duplicates of our tickets. That's when we saw our train pulling out of the station... So we got off and Steve and Kyle were figuring out what to do and they told us to just get back on the train and sit in empty seats because the train wasn't full. But it's a pain to "squeeze" 25 extra people onto a train. I sat beside some random strangers and the man next to me had horrible breath and I was getting motion sick and was just completely nauseated. I was so miserable when we finally made it to Florence and we trucked about a mile to our hotel with our luggage and then couldn't even check in yet. The hotel was on the second floor of a building, called Hotel Colomba, and the people running it were so nice. We had free breakfast in the mornings which was really yummy and the rooms were really spacious. It was so homy, kind of like staying at a bed and breakfast. Anyway, so when we got there we left our stuff with the hotel people and they said they would watch it and a group of us went to lunch- me, Lori, Alissa, Kelsey, Mariel, Laura, Mary Katherine, Katie C., Katie S. I got spaghetti which was delicious and a Pepsi. The bread was free in Florence but it didn't taste good. It was stale and bland. Rome's bread is delicious though, not free, but so worth it. I felt so much better after eating. We got cappuccino and then headed back to the hotel to get our rooms.
At 2:30 we had a tour of La Galleria Degli Arazzi. It's an art museum in the heart of Florence with famous works of Michelangelo, DiVinci, and other famous artists that I wasn't as familiar with. Our tour guide was so incredibly boring though. We were all so exhausted and just weren't into it. She was so knowledgeable about everything, but assumed too much of us. She thought we were like art history majors or something so she did a crappy job "guiding" us. It was all completely over my head. And it sucks that I didn't get more out of it because I was genuinely excited to see work from famous artists that I've heard about my whole life. Oh well :( Oh and there were people all over the streets posing as full out statues and I don't even know what...they were so creepy and weird.
So the day hadn't been too great as you can tell...but after that dreadful tour it got a little better. Our group broke off into smaller groups and me, Lori, Katie C., Lauren, and Mariel went to Zara's. It was my first Zara's experience..I had been hearing a lot about it so was excited to check it out. It's basically a huge department store but only in Europe and maybe one in NYC? Some of it was pricy but other stuff was more reasonable. I got a lacy shirt. After that we found a little cafe for dinner and ate outside. It was so good, and better yet, cheap! I was craving a sandwich, like a real sandwich, and sure enough, this place had them! I got ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato AND mayonnaise on foccocia bread! Mmm it was the first sandwich that I had gotten in Italy with lettuce and some sort of sauce!
Since we were so exhausted and we had an early day Saturday for the castle tour (which we were all pumped for) we all wanted to good night's sleep, so we were in bed by like 10 and it was the best sleep ever.
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| STATUE OF DAVID |
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