Despite not having reservations and a few people from our group having to sit on the floor of the train from Milan to Florence, we all made it to Florence (together for a change) and checked into our hostel just before dinner. Since it was late and most of the sights were closed we decided to get ready and head out for the night.

We went to Klitsch for dinner which was a bar with an apertivo buffet. Basically, you order any drink and you get all the rice, couscous, roasted vegetables, and some hamburger helper looking thing you can eat. While I think most of the locals go for a light snack and a drink, we acted the American way and turned it into our dinner. I had about three plates full. In typical Tyler Prichard fashion I ended up getting lost when going to take a walk around the block real quick. That entertained me for about an hour and a halfbefore Whitney and I managed to find the restaurant again. While on our brief adventure we managed to buy beers from what basically looked like a garage full of alcohol being run by a group of friendly Indian men, and we also met a few random American students who were walking the streets of Florence. When we came back to the restaurant we happened to run into a local who we had talked to earlier in the night. He then escorted us around Florence in hopes of finding our friends, who we actually did end up finding in a random bar near IL Duomo. We spent the rest of the night hanging out with the rest of the group who had been on a bar crawl.

The next day we got up and went to head out to see the sights. When I got to IL Duomo I pulled out my camera to take some pictures and realized my battery was dead. Bad planning. This is what the Duomo looks like when people have functioning cameras:

IL Duomo in Firenze is much different than the one we visited in Milan. I found the outside of this one to be much prettier because of the different colors of the stone and marble that was used and also because of the designs on the outside walls. The inside was empty though compared to the one in Milan. It seemed like it hadn’t been used in a long time and the fact that there were no massive organs cost them a few points in my book. Overall, the Duomo was an awesome sight to see especially when I saw it for the first time on Friday night.

After leaving IL Duomo, we walked around the stores of Florence and saw the Ponte Vecchio, which was beautiful even with the overcast conditions.

After checking out the jewelry shops on the bridge and consoling the girls when they realized there 150 euro they had on them wasn’t going to get them even half of an ear ring we went to check out a few more shops. A very persuasive leather jacket salesman was able to put on a performance Billy Mays would have been proud of and convinced two out of the five of us to buy a jacket. I figured I probably would have gotten kicked out of my fraternity if I came back with one so I held back and treated myself to some gelato instead.

The rest of the day consisted of heading to the David and the Uffizi, an art museum full of sculptures and other works of art that were way over my head. Seeing the David in person was an awesome experience since it’s such a famous sculpture. One interesting thing about the David is that he has some massive hands and a pretty big head.

A picture of the David. This website does not endorse pornography of any kind, including persons consisting of stone and marble.

After a long day, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner and another night out.

That night a few of us broke from the group and headed to a little restaurant for dinner and had some awesome pasta and managed to make a couple friends who hung out with us the rest of the night. Another re-occuring theme of this trip. We met up with the rest of the group in our hostel and then headed out for the night. Strangely enough for the second night in a row I ran into someone from Virginia Tech. Small World.

The next morning we grabbed some doner kebabs on the way out of town and caught the next train back to Lugano. It felt good to be back in Lugano and the Montarina is really starting to feel like home when we come back every Sunday night.