Calm Week In Florence

You know you are living the good life when you can describe your weekend as "uneventful" when you spent it in Florence, Italy. I was baffled when that realization hit me, I am truly living in Florence if I am able to have bored moments of just sitting around because I'm not just a tourist. Anyways, that was my thought process today while I sat around eating peanut butter that I brought from home :)

So I just bought all of the flights, trains, and hostels for Spring Break 2012... holy sticker shock. I have to keep reminding myself that I was also paying for Shannon's tickets so really the price is doubled right now. And even with that doubled price I am still under the travel budget I gave myself so that's calming. But the spring break plan is to show Shannon around Florence for a little while, then we are going to hit up Paris and London before doing a quick stop at Pisa and making our way back to Florence. I'm so excited!

mmmm chocolate strawberries

Chocolate Gucci Shoes... (no joke)

Other than booking trips and sitting around eating peanut butter this weekend me and two of my friends here decided this would be a good weekend to really explore Florence. There is a chocolate festival going on right now and the chocolate in it is to die for! There were samples and tons of hot chocolate because it is still freezing outside. Naturally I got dark chocolate covered strawberries -- they were delicious. This festival had everything made in chocolate though. There were chocolate shoes, animals, tools, and more. There was even a sink just spewing hot chocolate. I'm licking my lips just thinking about it. 

Jersey Shore Pizzeria. Yummmmm

After wandering around the festival we decided it would be a good time for some dinner so we stopped at O'Vesuvio for dinner. For those of you who aren't Jersey Shore fanatics (and I pray most of you are not... it's a stupid show) that is where the cast worked when they came to Florence for Season 3. It was cool to recognize an American hot spot with an Italian atmosphere. Not to mention amazing Italian pizza!!! I'm so obsessed with all food here. With our bellies literally stuffed to breaking point we began to meander through the city again. Eventually we froze so we stopped back at my apartment to warm up and I went to upload my pictures to my computer. Then Sara and I decided we wanted to take a little bit of a hike up a fairly steep hill (put that hill in Siena to shame...) to Piazza Michelangelo because it has a very scenic view of Florence. After panting our way up this hill, literally such a struggle, we finally make it to the top where I realized.... I forgot my camera's memory card in my computer!!!! All that effort and I wouldn't be able to show people our scenic pictures because I currently can't upload them to my computer from my camera. Oh well, we decided to go back on a sunnier (and hopefully warmer) day with Kristi and Kendall so no worries blog followers, there will eventually be scenic views of Florence on here. It's a promise.

After that we pretty much ran down the hill, with how steep it was walking wasn't really an option. We had to stop half way down and laugh at how ridiculous we looked running in sync with each other down this hill with our arms flailing wildly... I don't know what it is about my friends here and steep land but we don't seem to handle it very well.

Next weekend I'm going to Venice for Carnevale!! It's supposed to be a little bit warmer next weekend but raining, hopefully that forecast is wrong so I can get some sunny pictures of me on a gondola and in a carnevale mask! I can't wait!