Emily and Cody's Eurotrip: Florence, Italy

June 22- 25- Florence
AHHHHH! We are in Florence. The train was smooth and everything was great until we arrived at our hostel.

June 23
Hey mom. Will you ask dad if his wallet was sheep skin or cow skin? And maybe send some pictures of it tonight. Was his shiny or not and was it soft originally or did it become soft after wear? :). Florence has an enormous leather market but after looking at tons of wallets, we got confused. Tomorrow is our last visit to the market. We know we can find a good one. Love you. I have eaten gelato about a thousand times already...

June 23
Gelato is Italian ice cream. They sale it everywhere. The softest wallets they have here are lambskin. The softest they have in cow skin is calf leather. We will look again tomorrow. Is is soft like pliable or soft to the touch...

June 23
We can't find anything with metal on the corners but we will do our best...

June 24
Mom and Dad,

Florence is Great!!! When we got here, we were hot, tired and stressed. After the man on the other end of the telephone told me he had given our room away, we were sent walking to another hotel. This man gave us a nice room with a shower at first, but then when I showed him what we were paying for the first hotel, he made us move our things to a different room. The room is big with a TV (all Italian stations obviously), but it has no AC, and it is OH SO HOT! The hotel I booked had AC. It is also on a very busy street which is so loud it is difficult sleep at night. We have one more night there thank goodness, and we can move on to Rome. Our room is the only thing I dislike about Florence. The first night we were here, we walked around the streets, and came upon The Duomo, which is the giant Cathedral in the center of town. It was truly magnificent. It is covered in pink and green marble, and is one of the most amazing buildings we have seen on this trip. The inside however, is a big cavernous hole. Haha. There is some neat art inside, and across the street is an octagonal shaped building called "The Baptistery"; it is FULL of beautiful mosaics that tell bible stories, and one huge mosaic of Jesus looking down over the pews. It was definitely worth the eight Euro a piece it took to get in. Our first night we also found the square where the original statue of David used to stand, which has since been replaced by a replica. This square also contains many other marble statues, which makes it, pretty much, an outdoor art gallery. Florence is beautiful at night; the weather is cool, there are street musicians and performers on every corner, and not nearly as many tourists. While we were wondering around the streets we ran into Geul, our Korean friend from Venice. Crazy! We continued our walk with her. We discovered the Ponte Vecchio, which is the only bridge in Florence that survived the bombings of WWII. It is huge and covered with jewelry shops during the day. The bridge provides a beautiful view of the Arno River, which runs straight through Florence. We also had dinner in a little outdoor cafe our first night. It was by the giant leather market, and was pretty good, but here EVERYTHING is expensive. By "here" I mean in Italy. You have to pay a cover charge just to sit. You must also pay for water, refills, and any other extra you can imagine. Someone, from here, could come to the US and have an AMAZING vacation :) We slept in our stuffy, loud room, but we did sleep. The next day we decided to get a closer look at all of the things we saw at night. This is when we got to see inside the Duomo and the Baptistery. We also strolled through the market place, down by the Arno River, and to the Cathedral where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried. Then we had dinner outside again next to the Duomo where they were having a special on lasagna. After dinner, we headed to Piazzale Michelangelo where we heard the view of Florence was "SPECTACULAR." It was. It was also quite a hike, but well worth it. There is another replica of David up on this hill. It is green. We were exhausted after our long day, and we stopped by of the many 99 cent stores, here in Florence, and picked up a few things, then headed back to our oven room to sweat and sleep. :) Again, we slept. This morning, we decided to take on the big market, and do some souvenir shopping. It was really pleasant this morning, but the streets quickly filled up with tourists looking for the perfect leather accessory. After picking up a few leather accessories of our own...mostly for people other than ourselves ;) we headed to the Academia Museum where the REAL David is on display. There was a three our line, so we bought reservations for a later time, and grabbed some gelato and a piece of pizza at a place where they charge four Euro a slice if you want to sit down. We have eaten so much pizza and bread because it is cheap, but Cody likes Dominos better. :) We will see David himself at 4:30. It is the last thing on our to do list here in Florence. Tomorrow we are going to Pisa to see the leaning tower, then it is on to Rome. We are excited about Rome :) We are both missing the comforts of home, King and Queen, and you guys. We are ready for Greece because we need a vacation from our vacation. :) I hope everything is wonderful with ya'll. We love and miss you both!

Love,

Emily and Cody

P.S. We still haven’t found our tripe!

June 24
After I wrote yesterday, after seeing The David, we went on a hunt for tripe. We found it, I ate it, and Cody tried it. It was a sandwich which is the traditional way to eat it. It wasn't great. It was a little slimy and tasted a bit like a hot dog. She pulled a long piece out of this greasy stew and diced it up. Then she doused the bun in grease and put some sort of green sauce and salt on the meat. It wasn't great but it was edible. I had to eat it all because she was waiting to see what I thought. Cody took one bite and said "nope." haha. I feel a little nauseous now pray I don't vomit.