An American Girl in Florence: Fiesole, eh?

On Saturday, June 7th, I got to sleep in. Even though sleeping in means waking up every hour on the hour to the glorious church bells in the city until around 10 a.m. when you decide it's time to start your day, but it still felt food to just lay in bed and catch up on SLEEP!

My flatmates Morgan and Madelynn and I decided to take a bus out to Fiesole, a small scenic town on a hill that overlooks the center of Florence. It was so beautiful. The town is small but we went to a local market were vendors were selling their handmade jewelry. I bought a ring for myself and a necklace for my lady love, Hannah, who's 21st birthday was that day. Afterwords we walked around the neighborhoods of Fiesole and admired the view of Tuscany you can see from on top of the hill. Everything there is so scenic. I felt like I was walking into a fictional town straight out of a storybook.

We also went a restaurant in the town square. I had an amazing Caprese L'insalate. Man, do I love me some cheese.

We also ran into a man from Switzerland. He's been living in Italy for forty years now, but he grew up in Switzerland. He told us about traveling to the United States, going to New York and then traveling all the way to Salt Lake City, from there staying in Hawaii, and then going to California. But he only had enough money by that point to buy a plane ticket from New York back to Switzerland, so he had to hitchhike all the way from California to New York. I thought that was so amazing - traveling to a foreign country and just going wherever you felt like. This man travelled in my native country more than I have.

We went home and spent some time relaxing. I usually use that time to lay in bed and try to talk to my friends who are just waking up. But we decided to go to the public library in Florence for Aperitivos. Basicaly, you buy a drink ( I went for an Italian craft beer, Moretti, and it was molto been!) and you get to partake in a buffet of food, including quiche, pizza, pasta, chips, bread, etc. Oh man. I am really loving the food here. Can I just sit and eat forever?

At night Morgan and Madelynn and I decided to test out the Florence night life. We walked towards Santa Croce and occasionally stopped into bars that we thought looked interesting. The most exciting point of my night was meeting some of the locals and testing my Italian translating skills. I couldn't get past the basic small talk, but I was pretty impressed at my ability of translating for my roommates.

Today I'm trying to catch up on homework, cleaning and laundry. Morgan and I are sitting at a restaurant because we got lunch while we studied. In typical Italian culture, I had some wine while I ate. That certainly makes doing homework more fun. Morgan is an art student, and while I typed up and outline for a presentation of Cosimo I de'Medici, she drew my portrait. All I could think of was Titanic and "Paint me like one of your French girls". But she did great.

Since it is so incredibly hot here, I think we are planning to spend part of our day at the piscina. Which is fine by me!

Love you mom, dad, and Fonz. Thanks for the perfecto videos of my little prince.

Also, here are some pictures of me being super artsy.

Michalengelo's David. Absolutely beautiful.