utensil birds: Ciao Bella

Friday around 2, Carla and I headed out to meet at Porte Maillot where the buses to the airport were. An hour later by bus, we were at the Beauvais airport which is a tiny airport with only 4 gates. The monitor said we boarded at 6:45, so we got some food and waited. At 6:30 we went up to check out the monitors again, and next to our flight number was "Cloture" flashing in red. We realized that 6:45 was when our plane departed.. whoops. The gate was already closed, but we ran out right before the plane closed its doors.

A 2 hour flight, and we were in Pisa. We took a bus out to Florence, which took another hour or so. Carla's friend Mickey is studying in Florence through NYU so we were going to visit her. Carla's other friend Sophie is studying in Madrid this semester, but she came in for the weekend as well. They picked us up and walked us back towards the Duomo which looked like this:

It didn't look real at all. Mickey's apartment which is massive, is right by the Duomo which is in the city center. 8 girls live in that apartment. A few of the girls were out for the weekend in Rome and Milan, so I slept on one of their beds. Carla slept on the couch, and Sophie took the loft in Mickey's room which you had to climb 2 chair stacked on top of each other stacked on top of a desk to get up to. We got pizza to go (Eggplant) and I went to sleep that night. The other girls went out, but I was too tired.

Originally, we had planned to go to Rome for the day but that would have been too tiring as we'd have to wait all night until the trains ran again at 5 in the morning.

We got some Gelato on the way for breakfast (I got mint chip and pistachio)

Then we went to the food market to pick up some food for a picnic. We got dried fruit (coconut, kiwi, pear, strawberries, cherries, bananas, pineapples), giant pears, and cheese

This is the fake David in front of the museum with the real david inside.

We walked along the river

And hopped over the bridge onto one of these.. dangerous and illegal, but whatever.

We got a pesto cheese with pine nuts inside and this other cheese that looked like a little hamster. It was hard to open

but I managed to break it apart

Then Carla and I went to the Duomo

Climbed all the way up, lots of traffic jams, as part of the narrow stairwell was shared for entering and exiting. But it was well worth it.

We went back to Mickey's apartment & went out to dinner at Dante's. I had a spicy ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta, and we had some wine. Afterwards we went to a bar

Then to another bar, on the way we found this lovely horoscopic light display

then to a club called Space which was wild. To get in you got a card and you used the card to pay for everything including coat check and drinks and you paid the total on the way out

Italian men were very.. forward. A lot of them grabbed my butt and one even put his hand up my skirt. It was like swimming in shark infested waters. We'd move somewhere and a bunch of men would follow and circle around us. At one point, a guy came up to me and said that his friend was in love with me and to please please talk to him. He was really cute but I said I wasn't interested, and he said "you're too pretty for him anyway". Haha. Later I saw the guy who wanted to talk to me screaming at the guards because he didn't want to pay, saying that he needed his insulin because he was a diabetic and if he wasn't let out he was going to die. Classy.

In Florence, it's illegal to sell food after midnight. So to remedy drunk munchies, there are underground bakeries! We walked to one

And waited outside for an hour at least. A bunch of guys with scooter helmets came to talk to us, they didn't speak english, but Sophie started speaking Spanish, to which they responded and continued a conversation. They asked to see my tattoo, and all of them screamed in awe. I later asked Mickey if it was uncommon to have a tattoo in Italy, but apparently everyone does and I'm not sure why they were so awestruck. One of them then started asking if we'd go over to their house, because it was around the corner. Apparently they knew that the bakery had closed for the night and didn't tell us, because they wanted us to stay there and talk to them. I screamed Pasta party?? and the guy was super excited and tried to bring us over to their apartment. But our mission was to get food, so we found a pizza place, and then two of the guys came to find us. One of them said "Pasta party!" I said "No sorry, my friends don't want to go" they said "Why don't you come by yourself then?" at which point I ran out of the door. They watched us bolt longingly from their apartment door.

It was about 6am when we went home. At 9 in the morning, Carla and Sophie burst into my room. I was already up because it was so cold I couldn't sleep and NYU in florence housing only supplied tiny thin little blankets for each of its residents. I was so hung over, and we were already late for the bike tour. We got dressed in 15 mins and ran out the door, running through Italy, attracting strange glances.

We drove in a van for an hour out to Tuscany where we toured and wine-tasted

And saw some sights

Before jumping on a bike for a 13 mile bike ride. My bike was named Harry Potter

Then we all had lunch together. I got penne with tomato sauce. The couple sitting across from Carla and I were newly weds, this was part of their honeymoon. They said that in highschool, the girl played an online game and was matched randomly with her now husband. For years they dated long distance before she finally moved out to New York for him, and now she works at HBO.

Mickey tried to put her helmet on backwards, and a girl just stared at her and said 'yeah I was watching you but I didn't say anything'. Mickey also took a wrong road and got lost. Sophie wasn't allowed to bike ride so she had to take the van.

After this all day debacle, we headed back around 6 or so, got gelato for dinner. We got it at the best gelato place in Florence which happened to be very close to the bakery from the night before. While we were standing on the corner, I noticed one of the guys (Carla and I called him "backpack" because he wore a backpack) from the night before come outside and I said "Oh my god oh my god don't look". He saw me and went to the window of his friend's apartment where they wanted us to go the night before which was right across the street and pointed to us. Then we ran away. I read my Jung book while everybody else did homework. We were going to go out but having only slept 3 hours before such a long bike ride, we decided it would be better if we didn't.

Next day we had to get up at 9 or so because the house keepers came at 9:30 and if they knew there were overnight guests, Mickey would be written up. Apparently overnight guests are not allowed.

I saw dese bebes

Florence is the home of Pinocchio

I had a honey wheat croissant and a green tea

Museums were closed, we wanted to check out David. But instead we saw this guy

Then Mickey picked us up at the bus station and took us over to the NYU in Florence campus which was... gorgeous. Fig trees, olive trees, hills..

Carla picking figs

After we went for our last italian pizza. We got one with pesto, and another with tomato sauce

I had so much fun, Florence is easy to navigate since it's so small that it's completely walkable. Also, everyone speaks English. The problem is that if I lived there I'd get so fat, also there's not much of a cultural experience because it's so touristy.

Then Carla and I went to the airport but we had some extra time so we ended up exploring Pisa for an hour. Carla asked a few people where the leaning tower was, and in Pisa barely anyone speaks English so they didn't understand. Carla put her hands up in the air vertically, then tilted both of them to one side, and then people would laugh and understand what it was we were saying. Haha!