Round 2: Weekend in Florence

WELCOME TO FIRENZE!

After a full day of a Kepner-Tregoe workshop and learning how to make decisions, we headed off to Florence for another adventurous weekend. Luckily, our transportation arrangements were already set in place as one of the CIMBA students organized a bus for about 50 of us to take all the way to Florence. It was only about a three hour drive to Florence, and wasn't too bad considering there were so many of us going so we all kept each other entertained on the way there. Most of the students booked rooms at a hostel called Plus Florence, so it was simple to just follow the crowd to where we needed to go. Plus Florence was a nice hostel mainly because it was very "amercanized": clean, dorm rooms, indoor pool, area to play Wii, pool table, etc.

We checked into the hotel 10pm and my friend Ally and I made our way to our 5 bed female dorm, just us two. So aka we were in a room with 3 random people. It wasn't bad except every time we came back to the room, our roommates were sleeping..but we both decided from now on to get a private room instead.

Anyways, our night consisted of walking around the freezing cold streets of Florence trying to find somewhere to eat and get warm. Unfortunately, we settled for some good ole Mcdonalds but after walking so much, none of us were complaining.

After our gourmet meal, we walked around trying to find a bar to go to and stumbled upon the Duomo di Firenze, aka the Cathedral of Santa Maria. It was unbelievably big and overpowering even at night. Mike, Lauren and I met up with some friends at this bar called "Rex" which ended up being a very local Italian hangout in my opinion. In other words, Lauren and I were terrified because of all the people just staring at us, obviously knowing we were tourists. It was probably quite a scene since me and Lauren shuffled our way through the crowd squeezing each other's hand for dear life while Mike acted as our body guard. We only stayed for about 10 minutes, but it was quite an experience.

The next day, we got up early and ventured our way to find a diner that apparently served American food! The streets in Florence were much like New York City streets, yet it was still a very beautiful city. We explored a little and somehow ended up finding the diner. After looking at the menu, WE WERE IN HEAVEN. A little pathetic that we already were craving American food but that's besides the point.

French toast, eggs, omelet, toast :)

Leaving the diner, we were extremely content and ready to start the day. We made our way over to the tourist spots and had plenty of picture opportunities with statues, buildings, and scenery. Florence is a beautiful city with plenty of architecture to see and enjoy. We had to negotiate on what museums we wanted to see and enter because some of them cost money to enter and we all knew that our money was verrry limited. Below are just some of the sights we were able to see throughout the day:

Street view outside our hostel

Us girls posing around the city!

Basilica di Santa Croce- contains the tombs of Galileo, Dante, Michelangelo 
and many other famous Italian figures

Ok, so story behind the locks besides me being super artsy. Apparently, couples come here to this bridge with a lock and key. They put the lock on one of these strands and throw away the key, signaling their love for one another...how cute!

Sweet castle/church

Pretty cool architecture..another artsy pic maybe?

The real Statue of David!

One of my favorite places we saw was the Statue of David. I had one of those "WOW" moments and had to catch my mouth from hanging open too long...it was unbelievable. The size and presence of the real Statue of David doesn't hardly compare to see it in pictures and on postcards, definitely a moment I will never forget. Maybe also because our group got yelled at for taking pictures inside when we weren't supposed to :)











 Probably even more amazing than the Statue of David was the view overlooking the entire city. On Sunday, despite the cold and the drizzling rain, we made our way up to the top of the city to a place called Piazza Michelangelo. The view of Florence was incredible and being able to say we walked through most of it was very rewarding. Even more rewarding was being able to make it to the top after so many hills and stairs haha.

Never ending stairs up to the Piazza Michelangelo

View from the top

Oh hey Florence!

After taking in the view, we made our way back down and across town back to the train station. It was a long weekend, yet very satisfying. The weekend ended on an exciting note however, as we experienced first hand the train strikes that are happening across Italy. So instead of paying a 3 euro train ticket back to our bus, we ended up having to take a 45 euro taxi..not cool. All in all, Florence is an amazing city, although I will say that I enjoyed Venice better so far. Florence has more museums and monuments to see, but in general, I thought Venice is a far prettier city.

The girls and I are now planning our trip for our first long break which is coming up in about two weeks. We have booked flights to take us from here to Dublin, Ireland then to London then finally to Amsterdam. We are soooo excited and cannot wait to travel to all these places.


But that's all for now...gotta run to finance class! Yaaayy
And HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I LOVE YOU BELLA!