Ciao Italia : I Had the time of my life

Again I am two days behind on blog posts due to poor wifi and a busy schedule.

Thursday was another normal day of classes and walking around. For dinner Olivia and I decided to take the ropes and make stir fry. Let's just say after the pepper cap falling off into the vegetables..no one will want us cooking for them ever again. No one could eat the meal without their entire insides burning so we resorted to peanut butter and crackers for dinner and nutella. We spent the night in with no wifi. It was a simple day/night.

FRIDAY!!

Yesterday was the best night I have had in Florence so far. My first class was at 1 which was so nice because I got to sleep in! On the way to class I ran into my 2nd cousins super randomly! I knew they were in Florence but the chances of me running into them in a super packed touristy area at a completely random time were one in a million. Everyone was in shock as we hugged and made plans to meet up for dinner the next day. Florence was giving off so many good vibes we just knew it was going to be a good day! After the run in I had to go straight to class. We had our first study tour trip which was the Uffizi gallery. Our tour guide Sarah was awesome. She took us to a few paintings and rooms and throughly described the meaning of them. It gave each painting so much more meaning knowing the story behind it! She definitely knows her stuff! After a few hours in the museum we were free to leave. It happened to conveniently be pouring out when we left so we ran across the street into a little cafe. In the cafe they had gelato ice cream...how could an ice cream fanatic like myself pass that up?! As delicious as it was I still do like American milkshakes better...sorry Florence. We then headed back to the apartment to eat a little dinner and get ready to go out. As soon as we walked out of the apartment to go out we all started freaking out. We had dressed up a little and it was still early so we stuck out even more. The four of us literally ran to the margarita place because of the creepiers and our own personal paranoia. We decided to check out this margarita place because it had 27 different kind of margaritas so we figured it was a good relaxed way to start off the night. The margarita place was empty but we still went in and were soon joined by a bunch of other girls in our program. The margaritas were huge!! By far the biggest margarita I have ever seen. Before you know it we were those loud Americans sipping on margaritas and screaming to Shakira songs. After we all had finished our drink we went out to meet up with the Florence for Fun guys at an American bar called the red garter. The red garter was packed! There was karaoke in the back, dancing in the front room, and a chill area on the side. We ran over to the karaoke stage an knew there was no way we were leaving that bar without going up! We met so many different people from so many different places which was so fun! Before I knew it Taylor was up on the stage belting out spice girls wannabe with another girl from our program Anna. I was screaming to just about everyone HEY THAT GIRL UP THERES MY ROOMMATE! Next up was Natasha and Amanda singing all the single ladies. I knew I needed to go up for my turn soon it was just too funny! As I made my way down towards the stage we meet a huge group of girls studying abroad from San Diego! They were awesome and before we knew it our new friends, Taylor, and I were all up on the stage belting out We Can't Stop by Miley Cyrus. IT WAS AWESOME! All these people in the bar were recording us...still trying to get my hands on that video! After our debut we talked to people from Dublin, London, and Switzerland. The guy we met from Switzerland was hilarious! He was such a funny dancer and we even got him to do the robot. He also helped us to avoid anyone who tried to dance with by saying he was our boyfriend. As 2am rolled around we decided it was time to head out and start our walk home. On the streets we met more Americans how are all from Long Island...seriously everyone is! Of course I asked every single one of them if they knew my roommate at home Kristen. As we continued to walk home we ran into two guys who were attending the NYU campus in Florence and were very lost. Actually they were walking the complete opposite way of their apartment! It turned out they seemed to live in the same area we did so they joined us for the walk home. Feeling better that we were now walking in a pack of 5 (Amanda, Taylor, the two guys and I) we again continued on but once again we got stopped along the way YET AGAIN when we heard a huge group of guys with so we thought British accents. Taylor immediately ran up to them screaming OMG ONE DIRECTION!!! Turns out after faking our own British accents and also screaming 'Arry Pottaaa at them they were not from Britain but actually from South Africa. They tried to convince us to go back out with them but we needed to get back it was now getting closer to 3! As we walked back we learned more about our new found friends one goes to Duke and one goes to William. We promised to teach them what we knew about Florence and it ended up they live like 3 houses down from our apartment. But this walk wouldn't be complete without Taylor daring me to run through the park sprinklers...me actually doing it...and getting another set of creepiers...thank god once again for being with the guys! By the time we made it back into the apartment it was about 3:30 and we were exhausted! When people say studying abroad is the best experience of our life I couldn't agree more and last night proved it! I am so excited for every single day to come!

Ciao!

*side note for any further information of how funny last night was see Taylor Post blog because it was so hard to include everything!

View from inside the Uffizi gallery looking out....