Italia

We are at an Internet cafe where for onehour a dayyou canget free Internet if you buy a drink. So I have thirty minutes to write as much as possible. I amdrinking a lemon soda in case you were wondering it is very good. So today is our last day invenice and our last day in Italy.

On our last day in Florence we started the day by going to see the accademia gallery. We got toskip the line because we had our pass. Anyway the accademia is
small andits main draw is michelangelo’s sculpture of David. It is amazing, andso realistic. Joanna and I were obsessed with the detailin the right hand. Then we walks around forence taking in the sights one final time andbrowsing the shops/stalls. We also had to get my ticket to la spezia for the next day. The first time we went we waited in line and then were told that my eurail was invalid because I had one date written as the first of septemberrather than the 31st of august. Apparently the man is supposed to enter all that stuff when he validated our eurailsbut he told us to door. The teller said that I would haveto pay 30 euros to get it fixed. I said no thank you, left, and changed it myself for free. We left andcame back later to get the ticket just to make sure I wouldn’t get the same guy again.

That night we went to a one act opera with salvatore, maddalena, and their middle daughter francesca. It was only one act, which was good because we were really tired and we had to wake up early the next day.

The next day was ci que terre. It is beautiful and really touristy on the beach andinthe first town. On the hiking trail there are way fewer people. Anywway it is really beautiful and thewater is really beautiful and sparkly. Each sparkle is really big and shaped like a star if that makes sense. Anyway we hiked all through the five towns. The last oneidls supposedto be really short and it ended up Taking forever for some reason. We barely made it to the hostel before seven which is the latestyou can get there. We got there with two minutes to spare. I was so tired by then that I went to sleep right away.

The next day was mostly travel. We had to take a ton of trains to get to Venice. There was one from riomaggiore to la spezia to Pisa to Firenze to bologna to Venice. Then we had to take an hour boat to lido where we are staying. Ahh like in death in Venice!!! Anyway these past few days we’ve been riding a lot of vaporettos. We went to two famous churches. Salute is famous because the venetian plague survivors built in thanks for their salvation. San marco, which is so incredibly touristy and crowded is famous for it’s incredible mosaics. We also went to murano the glass blowing/crafting island and the Jewish ghetto. We love Venice butthere isn’t a lot of sites, which is nice in our last few days. We have mostly been enjoying the bridges and the water everywhere! Ok well I have only a little time left so I’ll wrap up. Tomorrow we leave early, spend a couple hours in Paris and arrive hope. I’m excited to see if I remember any French after being surrounded by italian for so long. Today there these really cute little French girls on the waterbus with us. They had memorized the name of every stop. It was so cute!! Hahah ok time to goo! Goodbye Italy!!!!!

First thing I’ve got to say is: I am typing this on a computer! But it is really weird…all the punctuation is in the wrong place..

Anyway, so today we decided to do yesterday’s perfect day. We went first to breakfast at the usual pastry shop. I had a pastry and a cappuccino :) Then we went to the Bargello Museum. The highlight was seeing Michelangelo’s first “great work.” It is a sculpture of the drunken Bacchus which I think is the Roman version of Dionysus. Anyway, after that we went to the Santa Croce, which is a church that houses a lot of famous peoples’ tombs. The unfortunate part was that the main altar and front section of the church was under restoration. We saw a picture of what it was supposed to look like and it seems amazing. The one cool part is that we got to see people repainting or “restoring” some of the paintings. They didn’t really seem to be doing much, however, so I came up with the theory that they are just paying people to look like they are working on the restoration, just so that the tourists don’t get too mad. After the Santa Croce we went to the train station so that I could get my money back from yesterday and so that we could get our tickets to Cinque Terre. I realized, though, that I had left my eurail pass in my locker so I couldn’t get mine. But I got my money back!!
Anyway then we went for lunch. The place that we wanted to go to closes at 3pm everyday, and we got there at 2:50 so the kitchen was already closed. We ended up going to this other place which was very nice. I had the gnocchi with tomato sauce because I wanted to change it up, but I have never really liked it that much. I did try Priya’s that day in Boston with Nick’s family though, which I had liked. Anyway, the point is that it was okay but not my favorite. After lunch we attempted shopping. We went to this market area where they have a ton of leather goods and stuff. Unfortunately, I suck at haggling, and now every storekeeper knows it and I’m afraid I’ll be blacklisted or something haha. So after that we went to get gelato at the place near our hostel that Salvatore said was their favorite of the “bridge places” (gelato places by the river Arno). We had already been going there which was cool. I had melon (which is too cantaloupey for my taste), chocolate, and tropical mix, which tasted like the passion fruit one I had a couple days ago. It was good. Then we headed back to the hostel.

Today I am wearing my I heart DC shirt. As we were walking back to the hostel there was a man wearing an I heart NY shirt walking in the opposite direction. There was hilarious moment when he finally realized that we were wearing similar shirts. (Joanna really wanted me to add this in here)

Another random thing is that Joanna has had a huge blister on her heel for a long time now. Today it finally popped. She had bought some batman band-aids a while ago, but they don’t stick very well. We had to go to the front desk and ask if they had any. While we were there, there was this hilarious british guy who had lost his receipt. He needed his room key and all that stuff. When he saw the band-aids, he wantd some too. He was like “can I have some too for blisters and things?” Then the guy gave him some and he was like “oh yeah and some of the dot ones too?” (Joanna wanted me to add this bit in as well. She thought it was hilarious).

So anyway, we had Indian food tonight. We went to Haveli. It is in a sketchy part of town, but the actual restaurnt is very nice and fancy. We just got take away though, because we weren’t hungry since we had a really late lunch. Anyway, the food was very good. I had a naan, rice, and vegetable korma. Joanna had a vegetable biryani and naan.

Okay, that’s it, I think. Tomorrow is our last day in Florence. Oh yeah, and Maddalena, the mother in that family, invited us to have dinner with them to meet the middle daughter and then go to the opera…wow? They are doing a lot for us….

Okay well bye! Talk to you all soon!

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