Two weekends ago (March 4-6) I went to Florence, Italy to meet up with my Fordham roommate and best friend Miss Molly Drescher! I was way too excited to see her; it had been too long since I could talk about Rock of Ages with someone who understood my love! I also hadn’t seen her since December, so this reunion had been months in the making! ALSO, in case you didn’t remember, I spent July of 2006 in Florence with Holy Child, and was so excited to go back to see the city again!
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| The Duomo! |
I took an overnight train on Thursday night from Vienna to Florence with a group of friends, and got into Vienna 11 hours later at 6:30 AM! It wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds... I guess. We had more than enough room to spread out, and my friend Mairead and I found an empty cabin that allowed us to both lie down for an hour or so. I think I was pretty positive about the whole experience because I felt like I was in Harry Potter.
When we got to Florence, I found out Molly’s train from Paris was delayed an hour, so my friends Jared and Eric and I walked around the train station, got some (shockingly, awful) pizza (it was microwaved) and waited for Molly. When Molly arrived, the two of us walked to our hostel while Eric and Jared ate breakfast.
We stayed at the Plus Hostel Florence, a really nice hostel in a great location. We were about 10 minutes from the train station, 5 minutes from the San Lorenzo market, and 10 minutes from the Duomo. Our check in time wasn’t until noon, so we left our bags at the hostel and walked around Florence for the next four hours. We were both starving, after not eating at all on our train rides, so we found a place in the Piazza della Repubblica that served an American breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. Delicious! Then we walked around pretty much all of the main area of Florence.
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| The Duomo again - we were so lucky we had such a beautiful weekend. |
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| The doors to my old apartment! A lot more graffiti now than when I lived here. |
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| Molly rubbing the lucky hog. |
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| The inside of my jewelry box... or just some jewels on the Ponte Vecchio. |
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| The Ponte Vecchio! |
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| This is a replica statue of David that replaced the original during the 19th century. |
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| MY FIRST GELATO YUM YUM YUM! |
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| Mango and green apple... it was my favorite in 2006 and is still my favorite. |
After we checked in, we decided to go out again and walk around. We had a DELICIOUS late lunch and drank a little too much wine, and walked back to our hostel to meet up with Eric and Jared. Our night was a short one as a result of the lack of sleep from the train and the wine, and we were in bed by midnight.
Saturday Molly and I woke up early to get a head start on the day. We walked down to Santa Croce to go to the leather school. This was one of my favorite things we did when I was in Florence in high school, and I was so excited to go again. Behind the church, there is a leather school (Scuolo del Cuoio) that is housed in a former Franciscan monastery that sells unbelievable leather goods. We both bought some leather things as souvenirs and went on our way.
We then went to our first meal of the day. Gusta Panino. Michele suggested... no, more like demanded... that Molly and I go to Gusta Panino to get.. you guessed it, a panino - “panini” as we use it is actually the plural form of “panino”. I got a mozzarella, tomato, and pesto panino that was unreal. So. Delicious. We sat on the steps of Santo Spirito and devoured our delicious panini. We then decided we needed more food, so we slowly made our way over to the Duomo area to find a restaurant. We found one in between the Duomo and San Lorenzo called Giannino in San Lorenzo. If you are ever in Florence, GO to this restaurant. Upon our arrival, our waiter asked us, “Where in Amereeka you come from?” I replied, “New York, The Bronx.” I have found when you’re abroad it’s much easier to say where you go to school, and since Molly and I both go to Fordham it was doubly easy. I never, ever, ever expected the reaction we got when I answered that simple question. The restaurant nearly exploded, every waiter came running to our table screaming, “DA BRONX! YOU COME FROM DA BRONX! YOU KNOW MY COUSIN?? YOU KNOW MY FRIEND PAULO??” This was, obviously, very overwhelming. But awesome nonetheless.
Sunday we did some more walking, and decided to go to the Fiorentina Football game! It was a lot of fun. Thank goodness my friend Jared plays goalie for Kenyon College or I never would have understood the game.
I love Italy.
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