LEANING TOWER OF PISSAAAAAAA!

Ciao Bella! Sorry its been so long since we last blogged...we have been trying to see the entire city of Florence in 2 days before we leave for Berlin!! We got here on Wednesday afternoon, Alli's Birthday, and now we leave on the night train to Berlin tonight! We'll make another list because that seemed to be pretty popular among all of you stalkers on our last post :)

1) Florence Fashion: So let's just say we are absolutely OBSESSED and in love with the city of Florence. It is a lot smaller than Rome and everything is in much closer proximity, but it is soooo much cleaner and the people are nicer as well. It's not as touristy which is a nice change and we don't have to ride the metro anywhere which we are definitely happy about. The first day we got here we did some shopping and sighseeing with the group and discovered the Italian Venders. There is this stretch of road that seems to go on forever with just tons of venders selling everything you can think of! So we bought some nice scarves, ties, Italian leather bracelets, etc. for not too bad of prices. We also were nearly attacked by the alley-way designer purse venders! It was crazy because they are all just hidden in an alleyway and one of them will come out to the street to try to catch you and ask if you would like a Louis Vuitton, Prada, whatever designer purse and if you are interested they take you in the back where they have an enormous stash of all of these illegal purses they have stolen. Now don't worry...we didn't go back there...we heard the story from another girl on our trip who actually bought one. But wow...kinda scary! Anywho, let's just say the fashion here in Florence is out of this world, but we have been good...we haven't gone too out of control! :)

2) Wine & pasta & chocolate & coffee, etc. purchases: So we found this one store that had every kind of Italian wine and food you could imagine! So we contemplated buying some stuff for a while and then decided that we're only in Italy once and we just HAVE to bring back some of the goodies for our family and friends. So we proceeded to buy 6 bottles of wine between the two of us, a ton of pasta, Italian spaghetti sauces, biscotti, chocolate, coffee, spices, olive oils, you name it. Please don't ask us how we're going to get it all home, but we'll figure out some way. Either we're going to have to buy another suitcase and check it, or ship it home. We're thinking shipping it home may be the best bet since stuff tends to get lost in Europe when you check it on the airplanes.

3) The David: Yesterday we went to the Academia and saw The David. We were in absolute AWE at his massiveness and beauty. Now as you all know, we're not the artsy fartsy love to just sit and stare at a piece of art kind of girls. But this 14 foot statue by Michelangelo really made our mouths drop and we stayed looking at it for probably half an hour. The emotion in the figure's eyes and the details of his body are incredible and unbelievable. Next to the Sisteine Chapel and seeing the Pope, it was probably one of our favorite historical parts of the trip. Even though you are not supposed to take pictures, we were able to sneak a couple on Alli's phone camera. :)

4) Leaning Tower of Pisa: As we speak we are actually in the city of Pisa which was about an hour long train ride from Florence. We had the afternoon off today, so we decided we HAD to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa before we left Italy. Haha it was well worth it and an absolutley hilarious sight to see. It's exactly how it looks in the pictures! Of course, we took the obnoxious tourist pictures of us trying to hold the tower up or of us pushing it over and they turned out pretty dang good. Can't wait to show you guys once we get home.

Now we just have to catch a train back to Florence around 5 tonight and then we meet for dinner as a group for our last meal in Italy at 7. Our night train to Berlin leaves Florence around 10pm and then we arrive in Munich around 6:30am Saturday morning. Then we have about an hour layover until we depart for Berlin which is about another 6 hour train ride. We should get into Berlin at about 1 or 2 in the afternoon Saturday and then we check into the Youth Hostel we are staying at. It will be a much different experience than the nice hotels we've stayed at in Italy but it should be fun. We'll update again in the next few days once we are settled in Berlin. Hope all is well back home! Miss you all very very much!

Ciao!