With twenty of my best friends in tow, I spent this past weekend frolicking about the streets and sites of Florence, Italy. As you may have guessed from previous posts (notably my first), I have a difficult time packing lightly. Therefore, I showed up ot the Ryanair gate with three bags. As anyone who has flown Ryanair in the past could tell you, they are extremely strict about their one bag per person policy. However, I just couldn’t bear to part with any of my clothes for the weekend, especially not knowing the weather that awaited me in Italia. After a lot of distraction and successful attempts at hiding the fact that I had an excessive amount of luggage, I miraculously made it on the plane. My friend Quinn and I had the brilliant idea to spread out our bags along our seats in an attempt to have a whole row to ourselves. To our pleasant surprise, it worked, and we harbored the only open seat on the flight so we could stretch our legs and give my surplus baggage some room to breathe.
Once we touched down in Pisa, a union workers train strike made getting to Florence seem almost impossible. (On a side note, the strike was only from 9 a.m.-5p.m. What kind of bada**-rebels plan a strike to the hour?) We talked to some older women about sharing a limo until we finally found an open bus that would take us into the city. Arriving that night in Florence, Quinn and I walked through the streets, passing the Duomo and noting the beautiful architecture and quintessentially Florentine red roofs. Our hostel was on Via Ricasoli, just left of the Duomo, and was a thousand times more luxurious than the lodgings I have previously mentioned in other posts. Our room was two stories with a chandelier in the middle, and we each had our own lamp and bedside table (#itsthelittlethings). There was also complementary wine and pizza upon arrival. For 56 Euros for the whole weekend, it wasn’t too shabby at all.
That night we dined at a famous restaurant in Florence called “Il Gatto y La Volpe” with some of our friends who are studying in the city, as well as others who had come for the the reunion. The restaurant was family style, and we started with a dish of roasted vegetables and a delicious caprese salad smothered in olive oil and basil. Then out came the pasta. There were three tubfuls of different types of noodles and sauces, including penne with vodka sauce (my personal favorite), tortellini with pesto and bowtie with spicy tomato. The noodles were so soft, and I could totally taste the absence of gluten … well done, Italy. They also served us complimentary wine. I’m not sure if that is an Italian thing or if that was just the Guido waiter’s way of being flirtatious. Either way, I liked it. Spain could take a few hints. Afterward, we hit up club Twice and ended the night dancing on tables surrounded by strange Romanian men.
The next day was one of my favorite days abroad thus far. We decided to take advantage of what little time we had in this historical city to soak up all the wonders it had to offer. We started with the leather market, quickly followed by the Italian foods market. While the leather market was nice, the foods market captured my attention on a whole other level. There were juicy and plump olives everywhere, fresh pasta sauces in the making, meats galore (even some with their heads still on), freshly baked breads and biscotti taste testers. Then we climbed to the top of the Duomo. What a win of a morning.
The rest of the day was spent getting cultured, Italian style. We ate paninis, gelato and crepes all within an hour and then saw the David. Does life get any better? The David was fascinating, and I don’t believe it’s possible to fully comprehend the statue after just one viewing at the Academia. Its huge eyes were the most captivating, but the realness of his extremities was extremely impressive; I could actually see the veins protruding from his arm. From there, we visited the NYU campus where several of my friends are studying. The campus was surreal, as if someone sketched the most perfect view of the Italian countryside and then stuck a few picturesque buildings in the center.
That night we celebrated my friend Naughty’s 21st birthday and rang it in with a bang, first at a bar called Slowly and later, the ever-so–American-named Shot Café. Naughty’s dad was there to help celebrate so he bought a round of blowjob shots for the girls. What a “killa,” as Naughty would say. Shot Café was full of nearly all American students, but it was nice to have a semblance of normalcy before returning to my culturally-immersed Spanish lifestyle in Madrid. The night was a success, apparent by the nudity of several of my friends as they were passed out and snoring alone in their beds and by the addition of another friend Lindsay who decided to sleep with me instead of returning to her hostel.
I seem to have a knack for pseudo-lesbian encounters.