Firenze

I'm back in Florence and I'm so happy! Although it has been two years since I was here last, when I got off the train in Florence I felt like I had never left. I love this city! Right now, my mom and I are sitting in Moyo (a trendy, modern restaurant/ bar in the center of Florence) having apertivo and a glass of wine (and taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi). We got here around 2:30 today and spent the afternoon walking around. I showed her where I went to summer school, the apartment that Kristen and I lived in, and our favorite spots around town. We also found where I will be living! Their house is about 3 blocks from our hotel. I saw their name on the buzzer and got so excited! I can't belive I will be meeting them in two days!!

Yesterday in Rome was great! We got up early and went to the Vattican Museum and St. Peter's. It is all so beautiful! We were still feeling a little jet lagged, so we went back to the hotel for a nap. That evening we found the cutest rooftop bar above a hotel down the street from us. It was a very casual setting, but still so nice! There were lamps in between all of the tables and it had a very homey feeling. Afterwards we took the metro to a differnt part of town for dinner. We had the BEST caprese salad!! The mozzarella was amazing!

We were sooo glad to get to Florence and put my luggage away until Monday! This morning was a little stressful dealing with all of my bags again...I know I keep talking about this, but they are REALLY heavy! When we got to Rome, we had the nicest porter help us take our bags to our hotel, so we asked him to come back again Friday morning. Well, 10 minutes after he was supposed to be there and 30 minutes until our train was leaving, we decided we couldn't wait any longer and hailed a cab. When we got to the train station, we had the cutest old man help us to the train (see pics below). When we got to our hotel in Florence, we were expecting to walk straight into our hotel like we did in Rome. Well, this hotel is up three flights of stairs...luckily, the nice people at the front desk helped us bring everything up. It's the cutest little hotel though. The lobby is just like walking into your grandmother's living room! I have to go now, we are heading off to dinner at Open Bar...Burney and Annie, are you jealous? We don't really have plans for tomorrow yet, The Uffizi maybe? Ciao for now!