Florence: Where the beer flows like wine

Name that movie.


Getting to Florence was a task in itself. It was an eight hour train ride through Milan and then to Florence. The mile hike to our hostel was well worth it when we saw the palace that was to be our home for 3 days. Not only having a room to ourselves with a bathroom, the hostel itself had a pool, a Turkish bath (sauna), and a restaurant. It has also proved to be in a great location for exploring the sites and getting to great restaurants. We also have a flat screen TV in our room, which happens to have Italian MTV on it. This has lead to us watching shows no longer shown on MTV like “Next” and “Room Raiders” for the shear enjoyment of being able to understand the English being spoke. After we settled in, we looked at our future travel plans and found that we would be traveling on Brittany’s birthday, which is not ideal. With this revelation, we decided to stay an extra day in Florence and luckily we did, because the museum that houses the statue of David was closed on Mondays. Once our extra day was booked with the hostel, we made the trek back to the train station to purchase our tickets to Rome, which was the easiest train transaction we’ve made since we left Paris. After we got the tickets, we made our way to a Japanese restaurant that was recommended to us by our hostel. It may be a bit odd that our first Italian meal was actually Japanese, or gaiponesse (Italian spelling), but it had been a while since we had Asian food. The food was good, but unfortunately we miss judged the amount of food that would be served with each place, so we ended up leaving hungry. (Hungry was an understatement, David ordered a side of fried rice as his main course). Luckily for us, there was a “fast food” Asian restaurant near our hostel, which we stopped at for eggrolls on the way home (and has also served as our main snack location anytime we are headed somewhere and aren’t sure when we’ll be eating).
The first day consisted of exploring the mile long stretch of leather and pashmina tent vendors, and then going to the Duomo, Giottos Bell tower, Point Vecchio, and several other cathedrals and palaces. After having the most delicious lunch, where we found out that wine was cheaper than water, we went to get gelato at a famous store that only serves flavors that are in season, such as lemon, mandarin, and a delicious cookies and cream. As to this was not good enough for David and Alex, they proceeded to buy 8 Euros worth of more fake gelato from some other store, which they actually preferred. The night was topped off with a dinner at another delicious restaurant. Later that night, we had an unexpected visitor stumble into our room.
Some drunk guy- “Umm…” As he stares into the dark room “Are you Ryan?”
David- “NO...Get out of our room.”
As we closed the door and made sure that it was locked we heard the drunk guy walking up and down the halls screaming “Carmen…Carmen…Where are you…Carmen”. The drunk guy tried the handle to our door a few more times and with no avail he decided to pace up and down the halls yelling. This was the end of day 1 in Florence for us. I hope Carmen locked her door, skipped town, or never spoke to the douche bag Dan again.
Day 2 started off with a trip to a pizza place that one of our travel books suggested. We ended up getting there 20 minutes early, but the staff didn’t seem to mind and let us sit at a table while they wrapped up their pre-opening meal (the entire staff was sitting at the back table eating, so I assume it was a pre-shift meal). Once the tasty pizza was put away in our bellies quickly, we made our way to go see our good pal David (the statue). Since Brittany’s last experience visiting David included a 2 hour line, we had high hopes that the time of year we were traveling would prevent such a thing. We were right, and were into the museum housing him within 20minutes of arriving. The staff assured me (Alex) that there was no photography allowed, and I assured them that the camera in my hand pointed at good ole David was turned off, which is wasn’t but I only got off a few sub-par shots of the beastly statue. We were all amazed at the detail and the focus of humanly proportions that Michelangelo had, certainly more amazed at certain parts. We meandered to his bee-hind, which the only seats were situated and stared for a while. Brittany assuring us that we were acting like 12 year olds, said to keep on moving and get out of there, for surely everyone was staring at the 20 and 23 year olds laughing at the statue. Different strokes for different folks, I like a little humor with my art. (We were not making a scene; someone’s a little over dramatic). TIME OUT! I, Brittany, did not tell them to stop laughing. I asked them to quit screaming the word “balls” for they were in utter amazement that David’s (the statue) genitals were not to scale. As I argued, siding with Michelangelo, that the proportions were correct, they started yelling at me not to use my hands when measuring David’s (again, the statue) unit. The day winding down, we found ourselves again at McDonalds. The golden arches of my heart… the gold being Mcplaque in my arteries. They serve curly fries at this McDonalds, super-awesome. After a search for a supermarket, here we are, retired to our room. Train to Rome tomorrow, 10:30 sharp!


Pictures posted friendos