Florence (fourth stop on our taste of Italy tour)

We arrived in Florence in the afternoon and rushed quickly to our hotel, only to find a sign that said something about going to a bar to get a key. After going to the wrong bar we finally got the right bar and asked for Lorenzo like the note said. However, Lorenzo was not there but a lady gave us our key and told us how to get to our hotel room. The room was an old apartment and was up many many flights of stairs. We dropped off our luggage and rushed back to the train station to head to Pisa for the rest of the day. The town of pisa was not very impressive but the leaning tower was pretty cool to look at. I was not sure if you were really going to be able to tell it was leaning but you could definitely tell, especially at the base. After taking some pictures and walking around the grounds we stopped to eat (we were starving). The pizza that we got however was awful. We were hungry enough though that we ate it. We just complained the whole time.








The next day we slept in. When we left our hotel we ran right into a protest that was marching down the road. After getting through the crowd we headed over to a Museum to see the David. David was huge. (The picture is of a replica because you cannot actually take pictures of the statue). After walking around bored in the Museum for a few minutes we headed over to the Duomo. By this time all the churches were starting to blend together, but it was big and beautiful like all the others. We then caught a bus to a place called Chianti which is famous for there wine and is out in the tuscany region. The ride out there was hot however calm compared to the ride home. While in Chianti we went on a hike straight up a hill that was about 2 km. From up top you got a great view of tuscany and all the vineyards. We then headed back to catch a bus. This bus ride was very entertaining. There was a school group of about 30 girls from Sweden on it. They all piled in sitting 4 in a 2 person seat. There was a bus strike that day and so there was not very many buses running so there was lots of people on the bus and those girls that did not make it in a seat were on the floor. The bus driver must have been in a hurry because he was driving very fast through all the curvy roads. A baby was screaming the whole time which started the yelling. A lady went to help the mom with the baby and then started yelling at the bus driver to slow down. Then one of the girls passed out and they had to stop the bus and left her and a teacher on the side of the road. At this point half the girls were crying as well. In an attempt to calm the baby down the girls all started singing twinkle twinkle little star (I do not know what language it was). Kevin and I could not help but laugh at how emotional things got on the bus when there were lots of girls. But we all survived and made it back to the main station.









Following the crazy bus ride Kevin and I went to see the bridges and walk around the city a little more. We stopped at a restraunt and had a nice sit down dinner, however the pizza was still not very good. Thats when we decided the Pizza in Tuscany is not very good. I was exhausted by this time so we went back to our hotel and checked our email and such. When I checked my email I had a message from the Principal at Madison Jr. High (I had interviewed with him before I left) asking me to contact him asap. I downloaded skype on Kevin's Ipod and contacted my mother so she could contact him. She got a hold of him and he just said he had some questions to ask me. I emailed him and got his cell so I could call him Saturday when we got to Foggia.