After Munich, we really had NO IDEA what we were going to do the next weekend. We initially planned on going to Florence, Italy but then we found out that Italy was having a train/ public transportation strike from Thursday night until Friday night! Why? Who knows! What was my teacher’s answer? “Because they are Italians…” Hmpf. How insightful -___- So then we were all frantically trying to find other places to go but our tentative schedule didn’t leave us with many places we could go. So we decided that maybe we will just bite the bullet and leave early Saturday morning and just try and squeeze as much as we can into a day and a half. Not ideal, but better than not going anywhere for the weekend…. But then one of the Whitney’s had a genius idea of asking for class off on Friday… and it worked! Brinberg was so impressed by how well we have behaved so far and not only did we get class off on Friday but Thursday afternoon as well! Yipeee! So in about a day and a half we planned our whole trip AND wrote our 5-10 page midterm… hello fabulous students!

On Thursday after school, we hopped on the train to Florence! The train ride wasn’t bad at all and we ended up getting to Florence at a reasonable time. When we got there, luckily I printed out directions to our hotel or we would have been lost for HOURS! Finally we get to the location and we learned that our hotel was actually a 2 bedroom apartment which was perfect because we had 14 people…. We got all situated and then went to a restaurant that was recommended to us called Il Gato, and it was PHENOMENAL! We had a family style dinner which included grilled vegetables, cold cuts and three different pasta dishes…. Oh and UNLIMITED WINE (ugh college kid’s dream!!) After dinner we grabbed our €2.50 bottle of wine (seems to be our go to drink) and headed back to the apartment to hang out before going out for the night! Then after the apartment, I don’t remember much (oops… sorry mom and dad) but supposedly we went to a club called Astor and had a lot of fun! How did we sleep 14 people? Four people on each of the two king beds and on the pull out couch and unfortunately two people were sent to the floor… talk about using resources wisely!

 The next morning, after I tried to piece my night together and pick up the shambles of my life (such a freshman Katie move), we were off to see the beautiful city of Florence! We first walked to the Duomo (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore), which is the Italian term for Cathedral, in the center of the city. It is a huge, outstanding building which was beautiful inside and out. After seeing the inside and snapping lots of pictures, we started our trek to the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo’s famous David. On our way there we saw street market upon street market, and the boys wouldn’t let us go shopping L (ahhh the torture!!!) So when they finally tore me and a few other girls away, we kept on walking to our destination. When you first walk into the museum you see paintings and small sculptures but then you walk into the main room and turn right and there he is! It actually surprised me how big the statue of David was and it was mind-blowing just because I was not expecting it at all. The detail of the statue is so intricate and it is wonderfully made. I did snap a photo (which I got yelled at for, but SO worth it) and then we headed out to our next destination! We wanted to find a certain castle that we had heard of from our Italian teacher, so we walked all the way across town to find out it was CLOSED for a fashion show. So as you can imagine, I was DYING, I wanted to go in sooo bad, but €30 to go in by myself didn’t seem like much fun so I teared up a little and walked away….. Before going into the Uffizi, which was our next stop, we decided that we should eat so we found a small restaurant near the Uffizi. The deal was 12€ for a pasta dish, meat dish, side dish, ice cream AND a bottle of water or a glass of wine…. Can you say perfect?? After our delicious meal, we took on the huge Uffizi gallery! The Uffizi gallery contains hundreds upon hundreds of paintings and sculptures and other important art and names such as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Giotto, etc. can be found there. Unfortunately I just don’t appreciate art as much as I should, but seeing all of this work was still impressive. After the gallery we walked to the Arno River and saw the Ponte Vecchio, which is the bridge crossing over it. Oddly, the only shops on the bridge were jewelry shops, which were a tad out of my budget unfortunately… L After the bridge we made our way back to the apartment to get ready for the night! We all did our own thing for dinner and met back at the apartment to hang out before going out to a club called Twice. It was full of your typical Italian men (don’t know if ‘Guido’ is the correct term) but one guy (who Tara loved) looked legitimately IDENTICAL to the Situation…Weird. Italian men are definitely different than American guys. Finally I hit a point where I just couldn’t stay awake anymore and needed to go home and sleep! I can’t believe I was this tired and it was only the second night!