Florence

The past few days in Florence has been great. The hostel we're in is really nice and is probably one of the best I've ever stayed in. I think Brenda thought I was taking her to a a homeless shelter...she was pretty surprised with how nice everything is. 

Florence is a really nice city but it's very small and there's not a whole lot to do after 9pm.  Last night we went out to dinner with some people from the hostel and then went to the Duomo steps to hang out and drink, which is apparently what you do around here because everything closes so early. Most of the kids we met are pretty cool...there's one guy that's a total idiot and he thinks that he's better than everyone else, but other than that, we met some nice people. We got up today and visited the Duomo which is a pretty much a stones-throw down the street from us. We were standing in this massive line waiting to get in with some of the people we met last night and we got all the way up to the front of the line when these two Italian women with a child walk right up behind us and totally cut the line in front of about 200 people! They acted like they had been standing there the entire time! Brenda and I just looked at each other! Afterwards we went to a local market that sold all sorts of leather goods and we walked around for most of the day.

We found out today that the public transportation is going on strike tomorrow and we are thinking this may throw a wrench into our plans. We are planning on getting up early to get down to the bus station to see if we can take an early bus to Greve in Chianti, which is about an hour away. If need be, we can always rent a car but it would just be an added expense that we didn't really plan for. I am thinking that Chianti won't have much internet access so this may be my last blog until we arrive back into Rome on the 10th. This trip has gone really fast but at the same time, I feel like I've been over here forever. I just realized here that I'll be returning on September, 10th...so September 11th weekend. This should make for interesting travel on my way back to Philly.