Florence, Italy

We arrived in Florence via train and walked to our hostel - Plus Florence. When we walked in the hostel it really seemed more like a hotel.  They even had a pool and sauna! We never used them but still. Florence was a lot of walking around and sight seeing.  It was an extension of our vacation.  However, one night we were sitting in our hostel on the roof where there were a lot of tables and couches and got talking to two girls named Karen (25) and Carmen (20).  And they told us the craziest stories.  They met in Croatia on a sail boat tour to Greece and various islands.  Karen, who was from Canada, had taken a gap year in high school, went to school for one semester, didn't like it and decided to travel the world.  She tested the waters in London for a week, decided she liked it so much, went home bought a backpack, figured some things out, and was gone two days later.  She's seen basically everything! And she met Carmen who was doing the same thing! Not that I'm getting any ideas. I don't want to live in hostels for 6 months which is about how long they are gone for or not have laundry machines at my disposal at any time.  But the week long sailing trip in Croatia is definitely on my bucket list.

a wall of one dollar bills... who knows? 

the twins in Florence!? 

Then we walked up MORE stairs....

David? no just kidding.

Hello little otter friend! 

some street art

our hostel

Then we walked up ANOTHER tower to the top of the Duomo.... they don't have elevators in these things. I wasn't exactly happy to do all of this on vacation.  But remember those kids I told you I met on the flight to venice who went to Notre Dame? Well we were standing in line to walk to the top of Duomo and some kid behind us noticed we were American students and explained that he had just got separated from his friends. I asked him where he went to school and you can probably already guess but he went to Notre Dame! So I had to ask if he knew DJ and Taylor (one of the guys from the plane and their friend that the other St. Thomas students met) and that just happened to be who he got separated from! What a small world! I wish I could say we ran into them in Rome but no such luck. 

Obviously I needed some replenishment after all this working out so I got a fresh squeezed juice.

And since we were in Florence we had to get florentine steak.  But let's just say their idea of medium is RARE and their idea of rare is basically raw. 

And on the last day we finally got to see the real David! My mom told me I had to and I'm so glad I did. It was nothing like I'd ever seen before.  It was magnificent! And you weren't technically allowed to take pictures but I snagged one. shhh don't tell! Usually I would follow those rules but I didn't use a flash and I didn't understand what a flash would do to marble anyway.   

Another david!?  I swear these replicas were everywhere.

And before we knew it we were looking at the Trevi Fountain...