I'm so behind!

OKAY! Im sorry I've been neglecting my duties as a blogger..... I still havent written about Scotland (which I loved and want to move to the Highlands with the hairy cows) but here is something I wrote about Italy (florence) while i was sitting in the airport for tons of hours.  It doesnt cover everything. but yeah. here it is.
My adventure to Florence started late Thursday night around 11 oclock. I left my room walked to archway, took a bus to Tufnel Park tube station, and then took the tube to Victoria Coach station. Right when I got there a man was locking the door to the station. Great. I asked him if how I was supposed to get to Stansted Airport. He told me I had to go around the back of the station and enter like the buses do. I did that and five minutes later he was by my side again telling me which bus to get on – but I realized I didn’t have cash because I thought id be buying the bus ticket from a machine so I asked the guy if I need cash and he said yes and told me to run down the street to this atm. So I did that and when I got back he was waving me over to a bus and helping me get on. That young man was my savior. Thanks to him an hour later I was entering London Stansted airport which at this hour looked more like a homeless shelter or camp ground instead of an airport. So I picked a spot on the floor and took a seat. There I sat/ layed for many hours. Skip a few hours of boringness and a short flight and I was at the Frankfurt Hahn airport. I tried to check in REALLY early but they wouldn’t let me so I sat around some more. A few hours later I was on my flight to Pisa. YAHOO! I get off the plane and I walk out and I look and look. And I don’t see anyone and then BAM! I see Mike (Anna’s boyfriend) haha so I grab him and then I see Kayla, Kate, and Anna coming towards me! I was so happy to finally be there and seeing them! Kayla, Kate, Anna, Mike, and Erin all took a day trip to Pisa to come get me. So we sat around and talked until our bus back to Florence. There was lots of traffic so I got a little rest. When we got back I went with Kate to her apartment, which is very nice! You walk in this HUGE door (all doors in Florence seem to be made of giants) and walk up some stairs and then you get to this cool outside terrace. From there you go into her apartment. She lives there with four other girls. I liked it a lot! After finally showering and feeling a little more awake we went to dinner at a place called Zazas. I got some pasta which was delicious. They served us bread before we got out meal but it is strange because apparently many places in Florence don’t put salt in their bread so it was kind of dull. We fixed it by putting salt on the bread. Haha. Healthy. From there I had my first gelato Florence style experience. Delicious. I had chocolate with hazel nut. Yum.
Saturday: SLEEP! Then market in the morning / grocery stores to get ingredients to make the big dinner that night. The market was cool and pretty much like the markets in London only the meat section was alittle more intense. A guy was chopping some animal that looked slightly like a lamb with an axe like tool. Gross. Then we took that back to Kayla’s apartment. Her’s is different from Kates but I can’t decide which one I like better. Then Kate, Kayla, Anna and I walked around looking at shops. Florence has lots of leather. Boots, jackets, bags, belts. Just leather. From there I went back to Kate’s to change clothes and get ready for our big dinner and celebrating Anna’s birthday. We headed to kayla’s at around 6. The menu was: yummy bread, eggplant, nucchi (potato balls that are cooked like and taste like pasta, tomato sauce and tiramsu. It all turned out great but my favorite was the tiramsu. Probably no one is surprised that I liked the dessert the best…. Haha. From there we went to a bar/pub and sat around at a table and had a good time. Later we left and went to a thing called a midnight bakery. I guess they don’t have a license to sell this late so you have to like find the only door on the street that doesn’t have bars over it and then you have to be really quite and go in. It sounds really sketchy hahaha but it wasn’t. it was amazing. I got a crossiant with netella in it. SO GOOD! Good end to the night.
Sunday: Slept in. Kate woke up as sick as I was so now we both sounded like men/hell. We hung around and waited for Kayla to get herself together(hahaha if you read this) and then Kate, Kayla, Anna and I went to Fresole. It was a 20 minute bus ride and so worth it. It was way up on this hill and you could look out over all of Florence. About 45 minutes after we got there it started to basically hurricane so we went into this irish pub. We were all going to order food but the guy took kates order first and then went away and made hers without taking the rest of ours so we ended up just sitting around until the rain stopped. After that we headed back to Florence. That night we went to the club house and go pizza and watched a soccer game. It was a really nice restaurant and the pizza was delicious. After Anna and I attempted for a pastry but the place we wanted to go was sold out. Bummer.
Monday: I walked Kate to class early in the morning and walked around for the first time by myself. No stores were open so I literally just wandered the streets. About an hour and half later I went back to their school and picked Kayla up from class. We headed back to her apartment, went and printed my bus ticket for Tuesday, went and found kate at the library, ate sandwiches for lunch at an outside café( SO GOOD! Turket, lettuce, pesto and mozzerella), then we wanted to go see David in this museum. We searched for the building but all the buildings in Florence look the same and they don’t find it necessary to put up signs. Finally we went into a building to ask for directions and the lady said “David happen tomorrow.” Sooooo no David on Mondays. So we decided to climb the Duomo. Such a better choice. There are 400 something stairs to the top of the Duomo and it is all stone and dark and creepy. Lots of spiral staircases and stairs that literally look like you need hiking gear to climb. But Kayla and I made it safely to the top and during the time it took us to climb the dome, it turned into a BEAUTIFUL DAY! It was so sunny and warm and we were up so high and could see everything!!! So pretty! After that I walked her back to class and I was on my own again! This time I went into stores but I also just walked outside because it was so warm. I wandered across the river for the first time and didn’t get lost. The city is so different from London. It seems a lot older but I mean London is so old too. All the buildings look the same and the streets are so narrow. When we were on top of the duomo you could hardly see where the streets were inbetween the buildings because they are so narrow. There are also a TON of vespas and bikes. Also they have TINY truck like things. Pretty cool. After that I went and picked Kayla up again. We were going to go see wolfman but it wasn’t playing after all so we went back hung out and then went shopping. We then met Kate and Anna at this wine bar where they have this deal where you buy a glass of wine and then you get to eat all these little appetizers. So we did that for dinner. After we went and got more gelato ( OH AND early Kayla and I had gotten hot chocolate which was amazing because it really is like liquid chocolate. ) Then we went home and watched dirty dancing with kates roommates and two hilarious Italian guys who were kind of sketchy like all Italian men. Haha. Then went to bed and got up wicked early to catch my bus to the airport. Now I am sitting in Frankfurt again. I have been sitting in the airport for more than 10 hours just today. So much fun. But this weekend was more than worth it!!!


In 7 minutes I am leaving for Austria.  Kelly, karen and I are flying into Vienna and staying there for two nights and then going to Salzburg to go on the sound of music tour!!!! YAY!!!! Then Brian comes in a week!!! YAY! YAY! I will write about scotland and austria when I get back on monday!!!