Florence!

I'm obviously behind on the blog, so I'll try and update everyone on my time in Florence as much as possible. Here goes:

First of all the train ride to Florence from Venice was BEAUTIFUL!!! Tuscany is just as gorgeous as everyone raves, and it was just like the scenes in 'Under the Tuscan Sun' with Diane Lane. I saw the most goreous golden yellow and green fields and traditional Tuscan homes with the beautiful tiles on the roofs. Tuscany isn't crowded in the slightest bit, and as Aunt Karol said - it looks as if God manicured each of the fields individually. AMAZING!!!

After I arrived in Florence, I made it to the hostel I was staying in and met my two roomies, Vanessa and Rosie from New Zealand. They're 20 years old, attend the University of Auckland, and are on a 3 month tour of the world! They've been everywhere from Thailand to Malaysia to South Africa to all of Europe. The stories they had were amazing and they said they've seen some of the most beautiful places on earth - they're a contributing factor to my recent bout with the "travel bug" and now wanting to travel the world for longer! HA!

That first day I decided to skip the famous art museums (as I'm not an artsy fartsy person really....) and go to see the Ponte Vecchio bridge and the surrounding area. WOW - a really neat sight to see! I got some really great pics with the bridge reflecting in the river below and went into some great shops along the bridge where I bought souveneirs for many of you back home! :-)

Then Vanessa, Rosie, and I took the train to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower of Pisa. OF COURSE we all posed for the totally cheesy tourist photos of us "holding up the tower" - HA! We were dying laughing while posing and had a couple of guys that were at the hostel with us take some pics of us as well. Then we enjoyed some DELICIOUS gelato (italian ice cream) out in the sun and then took the train back to Florence. By the way, I could eat my weight in gelato on a daily basis I believe - it is SO good! (Everything you said was right, Tasha!)

That night after we got back in, the three of us went out to dinner at an outside cafe and had pizza, spaghetti, and cokes and a good chat. Right about the time we were leaving, we saw a bunch of police lights and police officers starting to line the streets, and religious music started to blare through the speakers on the streets. I asked one of the policemen what was going on. Apparently it was a Catholic holy day in Italy (when is it NOT??? HA!) and there was a processional making its way from the church down the street to the famous square in Florence. We thought it was great and took some pics of all of the monks and religious figures, but decided to stop when they gave us dirty looks....Oops! :-) After that we called it a night and went to bed!

The next day, Vanessa and Rosie left to head to Germany and I roamed around the city of Florence for hours, going into shops and visiting the famous churches and squares. I literally walked for miles and miles! For dinner, I went to a small restaurant in a square near my hostel and started chatting with two women from England when they saw me pull out my Union Jack coin purse. As it turns out, one of the women used to be married to a gentleman from Orange, Texas and both of her children were born in Texas! She and her sister were in Italy for her daughter's wedding near the famous Ponte Vecchio Bridge. They were really nice though and told me all about their travels as well, which was interesting considering they had finished off a bottle and a half of wine between the two of them - HA! ;-)

And that about finishes up my time in Florence...had a blast, but I was ready to move on to Rome!