Day 27

       Today was our last day in Firenze. This morning we took our Italian language final, which surprisingly was not too bad. For the first time ever, I was really sad to end class today. Even though, Italian was difficult, I really enjoyed getting a taste of it. At the end of class, we thanked all the staff at the school and showed them our appreciation with small presents. You could really see how much the staff cared about us, for they were all sad to see us go. The feeling was definitely mutual and felt across the room by both parties. While, I am very sad to leave Firenze, I am starting to get excited for the Euro trip I am about to partake in. About 5 of us from the program will spend an extended two and half weeks in Europe, hitting 3 countries and 6 cities. I have a lot of exciting things ahead of me!

        For my last day in Firenze, I made sure to get a grande cup of gelato and indulge in a nice grande pizza. Hopefully, I will still have room for our farewell dinner tonight hosted by the school. This pretty much sums up my day.

        I wanted to take the time in this post to thank everyone who has actively been reading my blog this past month. I would not have a successful blog without the support of my followers. Ya’ll kept me going and made me eager to write more! I hope I kept ya’ll entertained and interested in my life here in Firenze. Unfortunately, this will be my last post being that I do not know when I’ll have internet access over the next few weeks and/or much time to write a blog everyday. I will try to leave updates on Facebook when I can. Thanks again for everyone’s support! 

Regina and I with our homestay mom, Signora Anna! 

Day 26

       Today was our last official day of Italian class. Over the past few weeks I have really grown to love my professor. The Italian language itself, is another story… I already have difficulty with languages, so the class was fairly difficult for me. However, my professor was great and always willing to teach/tell us all about Italian culture and relate it to real life occurrences. I am glad I got the experience I did in that class. After class today, we had the afternoon free, so a group of us decided to make the trip to Pisa and snap a few pictures with the leaning tower. It was about an hour-long train ride and a 30-minute walk from the station in Pisa to the actual tower. The city of Pisa was kind of ugly and sketchy. There is definitely a reason people do not stay there too long. When we got there, it was very exciting to finally get to see the leaning tower! I am pretty sure we spent roughly a good hour taking pictures with tower, making sure we got the perfect angles in each picture. We only stayed in Pisa for an hour and half, but I was really glad we made the trip! It was one of those things that you just have to do in your lifetime. I can now officially check the leaning tower of Pisa off my list! Sadly, tonight is our last night having dinner with our homestays. I know that I will really miss these amazing Italian dinners and the company that comes along with it. Hopefully, I will not lose the little Italian I picked up, for the next time I come back! Tomorrow marks our last day in Florence, this trip has been way too short. However, I am walking away with great friends and an experience of a lifetime! 

The Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Day 25

         Today was a field trip day! It brought me back to the elementary school days… However, this time it was a high class field trip to Siena and San Gimignano. Our day started in Siena with a quick tour of the city. Siena was small and cute, very medieval timesish, I really liked the city itself! The best part may have been that it was far less touristy than Florence. I felt like all of the shops, café’s and restaurants were homey and not designed to bring in tourist. You could tell from the smell of food walking down the streets, that everything was true homemade Italian food. For lunch, we went to a kid on our programs, family friends restaurant. I personally, did not enjoy it too much and wished we walked around the main piazza and had lunch at a café there instead. I might be too spoiled from my homestays mom’s cooking, to enjoy anything that is satisfactory. Afterwards, we boarded the bus to San Gimignano, where Italy’s best gelato is found! The entire day all I thought about was this gelato, so I was very relived to finally be able to taste it. The city itself was so tiny; it felt like there was only one main road that consisted of the entire city. Although, the city was gorgeous! I couldn’t believe that Sam Gimignano actually had residents, it didn’t seem like there were enough resources for the city to be livable, but they did have the BEST gelato and I could possibly live off that! Speaking of gelato, I made sure to get a huge cup with pistachio, yogurt and hazelnut! It was so delicious and definitely worth the trip!

        We made it back to Florence just in time for dinner with our homestays. I was so full by the time I was back in Florence, but I knew our host mom had cooked a huge dinner and expected us to enjoy it all. With that being said, I managed to eat everything served to me, but did feel like I was going to die in the process. It was a good thing I took off my belt before dinner, needless to say. After dinner, I had a huge pile of laundry I was planning to hand wash. Now, let me tell you, that is some hard work. I have so much respect for anyone who ever has to hand wash their clothes on a regular basis. That was definitely a new experience. 

Voted Italy’s best gelato!

Day 24

         This morning I definitely had a case of the Monday’s. I was struggling getting out of bed for my 9:00 class this morning. Today, Italian class flew by. I honestly do not have much recollection of it at this moment. That means either I did not pay attention the whole class or I just absorbed every single bit of information and cannot process a brief summary. It’s probably the first one. Anyway after class today, I met up with an old friend from Dallas, whom just moved to Florence to go to school. We went to a restaurant near the Duomo for lunch. It was so nice seeing a familiar face and getting to catch up with here. It definitely brought back some great memories from when we were younger! Towards the end of lunch, she had mentioned that there was a Gucci Museum in Florence, so needless to say that was my next stop. Because I had the rest of the afternoon free, going to the Gucci Museum was a no-brainer. This museum contained everything that depicts my image of a perfect museum. I would best describe it, as Gucci puking all over a three story building, it was Gucci everything! As I walked in, I was greeted by the nicest man, whom was wearing the official Gucci uniform, a black suit with a brown tie. When you see that combo, you know it is Gucci official! The museum was three stories, which showed the history of Gucci itself. I was fascinated by it all! It was so interesting to see at what point certain Gucci trademarks made their appearance into the Gucci signature look. I had no idea that Gucci was so diverse. Besides designing bags, luggage, clothes and jewelry, Gucci also created sports gear, dishes, furniture, etc.  For some reason, I really enjoyed seeing the Gucci of the 1970’s, some of the bags that were displayed, our definitely something I would wear today. However, one of my favorite exhibits was the red carpet attire. There were four dresses designed by Gucci that were all worn at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. It is one thing to see these red carpet dresses on TV, but to see them up-close and observe every single stich and Swarovski crystal (yes one dress was made with Swarovski crystals) embedded on the dresses, was absolutely incredible. Overall the entire exhibit was fabulous! I loved living in the Gucci world!

          Afterwards, Gucci had inspired me to shop! This was great for me, but not too great for my credit card. I did make a couple great investments today. I learned you have to go with the classic neutral accessories. If you are going to buy something nice in Italy, you want it to last a lifetime, so classic and neutral is the way to go! Today definitely ended up being way better than what I had anticipated it to be. I cannot believe I only have 3 more full days left in Florence. I don’t want this experience to end.

“Quality Is Remembered Long After the Price Is Forgotten” – Aldo Gucci

Gucci Museo!

Day 23
         Great news! I woke up this morning feeling a thousand times better than I have the past week! So today got off to a fantastic start. Around 11:00 in the morning, I met up with one of my professors and a student on the program. We ventured out to find the Synagogue in Florence. I was not expecting the Synagogue to be that big! It definitely took me off guard. The three of us went inside to see the museum and the actual Synagogue itself. The synagogue was built back in the late 1800’s, roughly 150 years ago. I felt that if I just touched something, it was going to break. The synagogue was very pretty; I found its dome structure to be the most interesting. Supposedly, the Jews of the late 1800 era, wanted a dome shape to signify that it is a holy place within Florence, similar to the churches here. Next to the synagogue was a small kosher restaurant, where we decided to dine for lunch. I will be honest, it kind of smelt like the dinning hall at the Jewish sleep away camp I attended for many years. However, the food was way better than the perceived smell. I ordered a salad, which was not anything too special, but my friend and professor both had falafel and pita, which they thought was pretty good. It was definitely an interesting experience. Later, on I had my daily stop for gelato. However, this place was AMAZING! This time I really think I found my favorite gelato place! The place is called Grom and everything is advertised to be all-natural! If anyone knows me, they know that I am all about organic and natural products. The flavors were so true to their original origin, that it almost tasted like eating a crushed up version of that food (fruit, nut, etc.), without anything else added. On my last day in Florence, I have already decided that I am going to get the large cup with 4 flavors! Just talking about it, is making me hungry. The rest of the day consisted of a stop at the San Lorenzo market and an attempt to get some work done for class tomorrow. Today was pretty low key, but hopefully tomorrow will be fun and interesting, considering we have an entire afternoon free! 

 Synagogue in Firenze! 

Eating kosher in Firenze

Day 22

        Today started off late, being that I wanted to sleep in and try to sleep off my sinus infection. In the early afternoon, a few of us went shopping in the markets again! I wanted to buy a few more gifts, however I ended up finding a bag and splurging a little on myself… that’s basically my life story. It happens. After the market, we had a couple hours to kill before going to our cooking class. With that being said, I took a nice long nap! I can’t remember the last time I took a nap and yet alone that I decided to take one while in Italy. Anyway, around dinner time about 12 of us from our program went to a cooking class in someone’s home. It was so cute! It was an Italian woman, who taught us how to make homemade pasta. Initially, I thought it was going to be very crowded and frustrating with all 12 of us in a small space, but it turned out great! We all had such a fun time making the pasta! Between the 12 of us there was enough pasta to serve about 20 people, therefore it was the perfect amount for all of us! We made regular pasta, tricolored pasta, long noddle’s, bowtie! Just about everything! While we were making the pasta the chef (teacher) began to make two sauces. One was a basic marinara, with canned tomatoes, olive oil and garlic. The other one was a butter sauce with some seasoning that I cannot remember. Both were so good! I fully enjoyed myself tonight! After dinner, we made a stop for gelato. I decided to make the best of my gelato and I went for a cone with 3 different flavors. It was worth every penny (or euro). I will post pictures of our cooking class. Words cannot really define how good it actually was!

Cooking Class!

Day 21

       We had an early start today with Italian class at 9:00AM! Today consisted of four straight hours of Italian. Fortunately, our teacher took us to the market half way through the class to learn and enjoys the foods. The market was America’s version of a Famers Market, but with fruits and vegetable that were a thousand times prettier and fresher! I wanted to buy and eat everything I saw! Inside “the food court” there were pasta, meat, fish, cheese and pastry shops. I had never seen food look so good before. A majority of our class got some fabulous paninis and I got a small piece of carrot cake on the side. Both were worth every bite! After Italian, we had our leadership class, where we presented our second group projects of the semester. Both classes would have been a lot more manageable if I didn’t have a sinus infection… Oh ya, today I finally did something about my “cold”, which has been bothering me this past week. It was my first experience going to a doctor outside America. He was English speaking, so there really was no difference at all. However, I was surprised how fast the pharmacy gave me my prescription after the doctor prescribed my antibiotics. It was in a matter of seconds and I am not even exaggerating.

          The best part of the day was eating dinner with a group of friends on top of the Michelangelo Piazza that overlooks all of Florence! We all went to grocery store and picked up bread, cheese and wine to dine with as we watched the sunset over Florence. It was little foggy out, so I am sure it could have been prettier, but the atmosphere and the people I was with made it a great night! We all sat their eating, drinking and laughing. It might have been my most enjoyable night yet! 

Piazza de Michelangelo!