Firenze...

We're in Florence!

As I type, I’m currently on a train from Rome to Florence. We woke up at around 9 and packed up the rest of our things and headed out, exhausted. Genna and Lizzy are across from me asleep, Lizzy’s head keeps nodding a bit and I really hope that her neck doesn’t hurt too much from the position she’s sleeping in.

When we got to Florence Lizzy’s friend Rachel met us at the train station with a boy Matt that she knows that we actually go to school with in Ireland. It seems like the bigger we make our world with all this travelling, the smaller it actually becomes! We headed to her apartment where she had good internet access so that Genna and Lizzy could sign up for classes. We dropped our stuff off and headed first to the market since it was closing soon. It was unbelievable! Unlike anything that I have ever seen! There were stands upon stand of meat, and fruit, and vegetables, and pasta, cheese, dried fruit and vegetables! Everything you could imagine was right there!! It was AMAZING! We got mozzarella, pasta, chicken and tons of dried fruit and cashews, pistachios and almonds. Can you tell we were craving nutrients? Sure we’ve been eating some great food in Italy but we have been lacking a bit in some departments - hence why we were so excited to eat the salad in Rome too. We went back to Rachel’s apartment and the girls signed up for classes. While they did that Rachel went out to get wine with Matt and Jackie, her roommate who actually knows Lizzy from home. To get wine, you bring empty wine bottles in canvas bags to this place called di vino or something and they fill up your empty wine bottle and cork it for you for only 2 euro. 2 euro! For Italian wine! I wish I liked wine I could appreciate it a little more I think! Lizzy and Rachel cooked dinner while we hung out and chatted. I skyped mom for a bit in the hospital, which was nice because I haven’t gotten to talk to her in awhile. Then we headed to our hostel, Jackie called a cab for us since we don’t speak any Italian unless you include Prego and Grazie. We were pretty surprised when the woman opened the door to our “hostel.” We expected a room with 3 beds and a private bathroom. We got our own apartment. Not too shabby for 30 euro a night! There’s a full furnished kitchen, and it has more plates, dishes and pans than our apartments in Cork do! There is an eating area, a living area, a TV, bureaus if we wanted to unpack our stuff. It is just unbelievable. I love it! It’s no Ritz Carlton, but as far as hostels go, this is basically the Ritz Carlton of cheap hostels. We took showers and set up our internet. Thank God for wifi! Lizzy got in contact with a few of our friends from Cork/Umass who actually are in Florence right now also. They didn’t come out with us because they had to be up by 6 to catch an early train to Venice for the day, but we chatted for a bit and planned on meeting up to hang out the next night. Lizzy’s friend Rachel met us with her friend Mo who is from Florence. First they took us to a bar with live music. The guy had a great voice but it wasn’t exactly good bar music, it was really depressing. Then he started singing Music of My Heart – Nana’s song – I looked at my friends and said, “Ok, time to go.’ From there we went to a discoteca called Space and since Mo works there he got us in for free and he got us in VIP, which means you get to hang out in the VIP area. It was pretty sweet, I’m not gonna lie. We were there until the wee hours of the morning, and were probably the last people there. The others talked about going to another club, but I was so tired, all I wanted was to be pointed in the direction of the hostel. Luckily Genna is amazing with directions and took us right back there. Currently it’s 12 and I just woke up and the girls are still sleeping. I think we needed it! I’ll catch up with you later!