Saturday, June 11

We decided to skip the day trip with our group to Siena today to show Sarah Beth and Catherine around Florence. We started the day with a trip to the Duomo to climb the dome, which is over 450 steps!! I can't remember what the exact number is, but it's a lot! The view at the top was incredible! We were up so high, but it really didn't feel like that at all. The city seemed to have shrunk though into a little snow globe. We had so much fun pointing out where everything was in the city and seeing how far away everything is.. we do  a lot of walking here! It makes me feel like I need to be walking everywhere at home too... everything is the same distance or even closer there than it is here but we still drive everywhere!

We went to the San Lorenzo Market afterwords to do some shopping.... We stopped into some real shops as well that were adorable. My favorite was a little stationary shop, where they make all their paper, journals, stationary etc etc by hand. It was a really neat place. There was an older man running the place who was adorable. He loved talking to us and even gave us a demonstration of how they make "marble paper".  It was so cool! I ended up buying a leather bound journal with blank pages. I'm really excited to use it. I've always wanted a journal with blank pages to write in. Somehow it frees up the space a and my thoughts to be able to so whatever I want to with it. Our new friend was so nice to me and gave me a reduced price on it too... how nice! I'm glad I was able to support his business. 

More shopping in the marketplace, where we ran into more Texas friends in town from Spain! It made my day! I got to see Kelsey Mullane, Kendall Mccord, Kristen Kuhn, Emily Anderson, and Taylor Duke! We got a picture right there, which I am so glad about because it hasn't worked out to see them since (yet). We are all determined to make it work though. Regardless, it was a great to see them. Again, the world shrunk.

We took SB and Catherine on our long walk to the Michelangelo lookout point, another favorite thing to do here. When we got to the monastical, there was a bride and groom walking out, so we went up and watched them take pictures. Can you imagine walking out of a church high up with the entire view of Florence on your wedding day?! That's what this bride go to do and we were all jealous :)
Bought a few more items at a really cool ceramic store, where everything is handcrafted in Italy, when we came back down. I bought a 'terra cotta' Nativity scene  from the region of Umbria (where all 'terra cotta' is made here) and a ceramic bowl, painted with great colors and designs. I love them both! I know they're probably pretty boring for this stage of my life, but they'll be special when I'm old and get to remember my trip time in Italy every time I use them! (evidence that I was definitely born in the wrong decade). Then we dropped the girls off at the Accademia to go shower since we'd already done that.

I bet you can guess where we took them for dinner... El Gato!! Another good meal there, where we thoroughly stuffed ourselves with bread, pasta, and a calzone. I don't think we had enough carbs last night... haha. We went to an overpriced restaurant in the Piazza della Repubblica after dinner to get wine and dessert. That was the best part of the night! There is live jazz music every night at this place, so we got a table on the terrace right by the band, ordered a delicious dessert wine and hung out there for about FOUR hours! The band was great and there were some toddlers dancing up front to the music, which was adorable. We ended up dancing the night away up there too, to music including My Girls, some Frank  Sinatra, and other classics that was hilarious! They even played some country music too (tried too at least! ). Dessert was sensational... I got fresh wild berries with whipped cream and vanilla gelato, others got a warm chocolate cake with gelato, and another got a fruit tart. ALL looked and tasted amazing. We dubbed the night "glutenous", or rather ""it's just the Italian way" (ya right) after all that we had eaten. It's funny how you can be so full from dinner, but when dessert comes around, you suddenly have room for it! HA- so the story of my life...

What a fun day and night we had! Possibly the best night of the trip! I think we are going to have to go to that place a few more nights.. the atmosphere is worth the high price!