Firenze and My Birthday

I've just gotten into this writer's block of sorts. I'm really trying to live in the moment, which forces me to neglect my writing and just soak everything in. Basically, that's an apology for not blogging in a while.

While I was busy not blogging, I was enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of Florence. Florence is an absolutely gorgeous city, kind of like the in between of Genoa and Rome. There weren't as many tourists as Rome, but the streets were definitely more crowded than Genoa. We stayed in a hotel just a little ways from the train station, which was a little more on the quiet side of town. Within the first few hours of our stay we understood the basic layout of the city, and by the third day we were pros at finding our way back to the hotel from the main action of downtown Florence.

Within the city limits there were several piazzas that housed restaurants, markets full of colorful vendor booths, and beautiful,sometimes ancient, architecture. Out of all the places I've visited I did the most shopping in Florence. It was almost unavoidable because of the vast amount of stores and little boutiques. One of the coolest places we visited was a perfume shop which has been in existence since the 1500's. It was featured in Hannibal (I have no clue why since I've never seen it) so that's pretty interesting. It smelled great and expensive. I felt out of place walking around in there in my flip-flops, jeans, and t-shirt. I guess I can't justify spending 80-150 euro on a small bottle of perfume, but people do it and I have no qualms with that. You'd smell super nice if you did.

Florence is also home to the David. As you might have seen on my Facebook, I snuck a photo because our tour guide said it was okay. Apparently taking pictures was only banned within the last 15 years so as to keep tourists interested in coming to see it, as well as to not take away from the business of vendors selling post cards and other memorabilia with David on it. It seems like that is the case in any historical place we visit, but as long as you act like you were ignorant to the fact that you weren't supposed to take pictures, they let you keep your photo.
  David was absolutely spectacular and impressive in person (he's also got a nice butt). David is also a good example of why Italians hate vandals--especially Americans who blatently disrespect their history. David used to be an outside sculpture, but after his middle finger was cut off he was brought inside for greater protection. Mind you, they are totally fine if you mark up the sides of buildings with graffiti, but if you touch the statues, you pay. Also, if you try to flip over a police car like some American students did, you probably won't be to popular. The moral of the story is: do unto others, and don't act like a snotty, disrespectful American.

I can't seem to find a good transition from vandalism to my birthday--they thankfully have no correlation--so I'm just going to move right along and write about something completely different. The day before my birthday we went on a winery trip and it was AWESOME. We got to taste fancy wines and munch on cheese and bread, my two favorite foods. Fun fact, they dip their cheese in honey, and Italians don't actually dip their bread in olive oil and vinegar. I did buy some wine, so a lucky few of you will be able to sample some authentic Italian wine with me. Also, dessert wine is not Moscato or Riesling as we commonly call it here. Dessert wine is thick, with a raisin and honey taste to it. Really delicious and a little overwhelmingly sweet. But still good. The Tuscan countryside is unbelievably beautiful, the movies can't even do it proper justice. The pictures are only a glimpse of the beauty I saw. And our your guides were pretty great too.

On my actual birthday we traveled to Siena, the home of the Shewolf. We toured a church, ate some pizza, and stayed for a couple of hours before heading home. The bus ride was long. I slept and woke up to drool hitting my arm...it was my drool in case you were wondering. Real attractive, but I'm not ashamed. I sleep hard.
When we got back we freshened up and hit the town for some shopping and dinner. We hung out in this cutesy cafe and drank beer and wine and had a merry good time. After dinner we walked down to Gelato Fest. Yes, that's right folks, Gelato Fest 2013 was possibly one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me. My favorite part? Gelato Cocktail. Imagine Bailey's, coconut, and gelato all mixed together to create creamy alcoholic goodness--it was heaven. We sampled some other good gelato, but it was so filling we couldn't even use up all our tickets so we decided to come back later. Sadly, we never made it back because...
   Wine Fest 2013. Live jazz music, lots of hipsters, and an open booze law all rolled into one created a perfect distraction from eating my own weight in gelato. We also walked across the famous Ponte Vecchio and took beautiful pictures looking out onto the water. It was one of my favorite nights ever on this trip. Thank goodness for good company and good drinks :)

The day after my birthday we traveled to Venice. It's beautiful here and is the most aesthetically pleasing city we've been in thus far. More to come about here, but I think this is a pretty substantial blog for right now!