I have a hard time thinking of clever titles

On the itinerary, for our first day incflorence:

Visit Duomo, the Baptistery, Opera del Duomo, and Bargello Museum (closes at 2 p.m.) Afternoon visit of San Lorenzo (Medici tombs and Laurentian Library). Santa Maria Novella for Masaccio’s Holy Trinity fresco.

So we knew we had a lot cut out for us (especially since our hostel is a 20 minute walk away from everything, so there's a 40 minute walking time guaranteed every day).
The duomo was huge, and impressive, but there's an awful painting on the inside that makes the scale seem weird. Hopefully I'll get to climb up to the top on our free day, so then I can see how huge it is. We saw the baptistery, where every florentine is baptized up until a few years ago. I was able to take pictures in there, but I didn't do many- I think Florence is my favorite city, but I just haven't been doing too many pictures. Blogging, either. I'm just experiencing.

We didn't do Bargello museum because we started the day with Santa Maria novella, which took a while. Side note: we don't get continental breakfast in our hostel, so everyone went to the grocery store. I ended up getting these fiber bars that taste like churros. So delicious, and so lucky. Moral of the story, it packs easily, and that's pretty awesome. We had some free time to get lunch, and we ended up at this nice little diner on the top floor, so we could see everything from the patio. My lunch was expensive and awful, but the service was great. She was super friendly, and asked us where we were from, and even told us how to do things so we didn't have to be the dumb Americans- where to pay, if we should leave tip, etc. she even gave me a doggy bag, which they don't really do over here. Another thing I don't think I've mentioned; everytime you go out to eat, you pay a table charge for bread and silverware. You also can't get separate checks, so we're all getting really good at math.

I'll take this time just to talk about money, I guess. A euro is worth 1.3 American dollars, so when you buy a 5 euro sandwhich, it's 6.50 dollars. Stuff you need to remember. Also, they hate big bills here; they would much rather you spend a bunch of extra time looking for exact change rather than giving them a 10 or 20 (this is very inconvenient when the ATM gives you 50s. At the same time, you want to get as much out as you can at once to avoid mas many bank fees as you can.) euros come in cents, in a one euro coin, a two euro coin, and then bills- 5,10,20, etc. so you end up carrying a lot of change, which is pretty heavy and jangly. Also, it's just kind of an awkward dance when you're trying to fish out 2 euro and two twenty cent pieces to pay for your gelato,and then try to get the receipt back in and any extra change and get your gelato out of the way. Weird skills you learn to do as a team.

Anyway, after lunch we went to the Medici chapel and palace and their tombs. The Medici were the rich people of Florence that ran the show- maybe there are lots of good things to be said about them, but from the things I saw, they were mostly big duesches. The tombs were huge and ornate, with big scary statue versions of themselves by Michelangelo staring down from overtop of them. It was insane. There were no photos, or I would have gotten some just to show the ridiculousness of it all, but I'm sure you can find some online. I know they did a lot, but it just seemed way over the top.

We decided to go shopping after all the scheduled activities were over, and theres a cute
Little market where you can barter for nice leather goods and fruit and spices and anything else. We were just looking from afar, because they tend to get a little aggressively eager, which is exactly what happened. Katy ended up getting dragged down an alley so a man could take her to his shop and meet his sister so she could try on leather jackets. I have so many feelings and thoughts about the ordeal that I'll have to wait and share with everyone once I get back. He thought I was Ukrainian (shout out to my big, here!) and Megan was German, which she's been getting a lot. Basically after a lot of touching and hassling and fawning, he realized we weren't going to be getting a jacket, and got really rude about why we wasted his time and why we came to his shop, to which Megan replied that "we didn't, you literally dragged her down here." that was when she and I got thrown out. We had Katy's wallet though, so after some cussing and yelling she came out and he stormed off. His sister came back and apologized, but it was all just very bizarre.

We stopped at h&m for some retail therapy that was closer to home and what we were used to, but didn't find anything good. We decided to go to dinner at this cheap restaurant the profs had told us about. I got spaghetti and the house red wine, which was alright. The wine here knocks me off my ass, so I try to keep pretty light with it, but a quarter of a liter is still a lot. The spaghetti wasn't great either; I know this is probably wrong, but I'm in italy and all I want is my moms perfect spaghetti. Well, and the freedom to put my own cheese on. However, if anyone wanted to learn to make 4 formaggio spaghetti for me when I come back, there would be no complaints.

I forgot, my big news!! I was on the google machine looking up places to by sunscreen, and I came across a site with some important grocery stores noted. One of them was this ethnic cousine store, so that you old buy things that were common in other countries. I tracked it down, and it was a dumpy place in the middle of no where, but it was a dumpy place with PEANUTBUTTER. So I am the happiest of all the little American girls.

We comeback to the hostel for some quiet time, and ended up having a hair braiding party, which was cute. I met some of the new guys that moved into our hall- high schoolers from London that were here with a class to just tour. So cool. They werent particularly interested in us though- I'm learning a lot about style here, but there are still middle school girls that look more put together than most of us do. It's pretty intimidating, but fun.

So that was Florence! Supposedly the toughest day, I guess well see. It seems like this week is going to fly by though, and then well be back in Germany!