OY!

Duomo, the big cathedral in the middle of the city center in Florence.

We stopped our photo shoot today in order to take some pictures of the cool stuff.

This actually went off and I almost peed my pants. They had the best outfits ever.

The merry-go-round...one of the highlights of our Friday.

I just put Gigi on a train to Milan and then to Paris. I am very sad but we had an amazing time together. Yesterday after escaping our hostel (we literally ran in, grab out bags, stole some hardware and ran out in 30 seconds flat) and checked into a hotel. I under the virtues of hostels when traveling because you do everything not to be in them. We found our hotel and expanded-- suitcases went everywhere, clothes went flying and we jumped on the bed so thrilled to be rid of the David Inn. After a nap and some regrouping, we left to again wonder. Deciding that we had enough pictures of cool stuff, we dedicated our day to taking pictures of ourselves (see Facebook for the final results...and that is just about half of them). We shopped, we explored, took pictures, had cocktails and ate for most of the day.

About 6pm, we both hit our wall after a night of no sleeping fearing for our lives at the David Inn (yes, it was that bad) and went to take a nap. Post nap, we did what any good American girls would do in beautiful Florence-- go find pasta. At the recommendation of one of Gigi's friends who studied in Florence, we ended up at a little pasta restaurant across the river. We ate some soup to warm up, had a bottle of wine, more pasta and Tuscan salami. After dinner, we walked around staring at cute Italian boys, giggling, rode a marry-go-round, picked up a bottle of champaign and headed back to the hotel at midnight for our earliest night in since meeting each other. with a set mission to Skype. It was essentially a wasted day, but wasted in beautiful Italy with wonderful company. Plus after not sleep and too much fun in Rome, we needed a day to not go crazy.

This morning we missed breakfast at the hotel by 10 minutes. We got up and moved me into my new hostel. When we found it...after about an hour...we kicked ourselves repeatidly for not staying here in the first place. Its clean, its huge, secure, people are nice...everything our first hostel was not. We had our last supper at a restaurant we had gotten directions at earlier. We sat outside and had a pitcher of wine and for the first time in days had a meal that didn't consist of pasta or pizza. We went inside the Duomo after lunch, the big cathedral in the middle of town and then saw a parade complete with firing cannons. We walked along the big bridge with fancy jewelary stores and then in honor of her departure...had some more cocktails before sending her to the train station.

I don't think I will ever go back to Rome again because there is no way in hell I could ever have as much fun there as I had with Gigi. Florence was a great town as well, less touristy, although we wondered if there were anyone in Italy that were actually Italian. The two of us succeeded in our mission of making complete fools of ourselves, laughing our asses off, making the most out of our short time together before she spends her year in France teaching English and finding the true meaning of the line "when in Rome...". Now, after five days together, we have mastered our Italian accent ("we really need to stop immitating Italians while in Italy"), realized that everyone around us can be used for our own entertainment and to never ever ever stay in a hostel that is only 15 euro a night because you get what you pay for.

Thinking of going to Venice for the day tomorrow but laundry desperatly needs to happen before I head to Barcelona. Can't wait to see my mommy.