wednesday 12 may 2010 - florence

today we headed into florence. it is not as touristy as venice, but there are still a crapload of people here! [even though its raining again!]

we went and saw a leather making demonstration, and i bought a cute little wallet for 16 euros [i wanted a handbag, but at 250 euro it was a bit pricey! and none of them sang to me, so i didnt impulse buy] [singing items in shops are things that jump out at you and pretty much say ‘buuuyyyyy meeeeeeeee! and before you know whats happening your credit card is out!].

zsofi then took us to meet up with a local guide who has lived in florence her entire life, and she took us around and told us about florence and its history, which was pretty cool. we learnt about all the sculptors and the renaissance and stuff.

we were then free for five hours to stroll around florence and check out whatever we wanted, we lined up to see the real david, but the que was about 80mins long, and we couldnt be bothered waiting, bad i know, but the replica is almost the same, and im not too cut up about it. we ended up just cruising around and looking in shops and catherdrals, and just enjoying the florence scenery.

we stopped at a flash coffee shop, this is the cheapest way to use toilets. you buy a coffee and drink it standing at the bar and its only $1.20 euro and then you can use their toilets for free or if there is a cleaner its 50 cents. if you have a coffee sitting down its $5.50 euro! we enjoyed a tiramasu cake for $1.20 euro and a strawberry tart for $2 euro :) YUM!

the boys got tired and sat down to chill out, so me and ashley took the opportunity to go down leather lane [the road with all the leather shops] and just window shop. i found the most amazing shoes! they are so pretty. so i bought them! $101 euro! but now i can say i have italian leather shoes :) i wanted the boots but they dont have my size, so i got the sandals instead.

we headed back to camp for a snooze and then went out for a tuscan meal with the group. the food was very average, but there was alot of it, so everyone was stuffed full! then we headed out to the discoteque and boogied for an hour and taxi’d home. the bar was pretty dead due to it being a wednesday night, but we still had fun, and this crowd of very young looking italian guys turned up, trying to dance with all of the girls, but there were about 8 of us girls and about 15 of them, so their mission failed.