Today, we left Cuneo and drove to Florence. 6 long hours on a bus. We had to stop a few times because the Italian government has regulations in regards to driving a bus with tourists for too long. I slept for a majority of the bus ride, until we got to the stops. Even the food at Italian gas stations were fresh and tasted good. I'm not judging anyone who eats the hot dogs at 7-Eleven, but it has nothing on an Italian focaccia sandwich. After our second stop, we had an hour and a half until we got to Florence.
We went to Florence, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and had a guided tour of the city. We went through the entire city and Florence is home to many Greek statues. As the daughter of a former history teacher, I was exposed to Greek mythology and different art periods at an early age. Florence was so beautiful because of the area's respect of Greek figures and their beautiful Modern Renaissance artwork. Florence also had many lavish designer stores and local boutiques so during the tour, I scoped out where I will be spending my free time. The history and the beauty of the area attracted so many tourists, so it was super important to make sure that you kept your eyes on your stuff at all times.
After our tour, we had dinner at a local restaurant. Our first course was a pasta tossed in marinara and topped with cheese. I learned that pasta is the course that comes before the actual meal. The second course was pork and a side of peas with bacon bits. I don't usually like peas, but they were so good. I don't know if it was because I haven't seen a vegetable in days, but I need to try peas at home to see if I actually like them. Our dessert was a panna cottta topped with chocolate powder, followed by an espresso. The espressos in Italy were not as strong as the ones that I get at Starbucks during finals, but I still enjoyed them.
That night, all of the girls and I went to dance clubs to have a girls' night. A man during our tour told me that he knew a fun disco club, so we went. When he said disco, I thought he just meant dancing but they REALLY disco. The club was like Saturday Night Fever mixed with a club that Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte would go to in the 1990's. It was definitely different than the clubs that we were used to, but it was groooovy. We went on Yelp to search for a student club and we went to two other places before we ended up at the Red Garden. It was not like a regular club, but it reminded me of the Rooftop bar that we have on campus. They had a section to dance and a section for karaoke. We stayed there for a majority of the night, until it closed and we took a cab back to the hotel to retire our dancing shoes for the evening.
