The nice thing about Florence is, we don't have school on Fridays. We still had to get up though because there was orientation at 9:30AM. We had a map and an address, yet our group from Hotel Bonifacio was still the last group to arrive.
Our morning was pointless. We had to listen to, not even all, the professors talk about their classes. Like in depth. It took almost 3 hours and the only reason they didn't continue with the rest of the introductions was because they had only booked the room until 12 so we had to leave. Praise the lord.
Once we got out of there, our lovely group decided to wander back to the place us girls had limoncello the previous night, to get some lunch. Allie's boyfriend Alam wasn't there (bummer), but lunch was good. We made plans with the boys to meet us in front of our pensionne at 6PM because they wanted us to show them were the laundry place is. So from around 12:30PM until close to 6 we wandered around and explored Florence. Around 5PM we realized we were super close to the laundry place and considered just getting our laundry then. But we remembered we had promised the boys we would take them there, so instead we walked home. As we were walking up to our building Connor came out of nowhere. He proceeded to tell us that Gunnar and him had already taken their laundry to the place so we didn't have to show them anymore. We about strangled him right then and there. At that point it was 6PM and we had already walked into town and back 3 times so we decided to just get our laundry tomorrow.
We got down to the Ponte Vecchio right as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful view. There was a ton of tourists around, but we managed to get a pretty cool picture on the bridge. Our group of 16 decided to head to the other side of the river, towards the local side. We knew we were going to have a hard time finding a place that would let all of us in. We wandered awhile and asked a few places if they could hold us, but got turned down each time. It was already dark by the time we found this other place. It looked like a good size, but again we got told no. As we were standing in the middle of the street deciding how we were going to split when a guy from the restaurant came out and told us if we could eat in an hour (we had to be out at 9 because the tables were reserved for then) we could eat there. We got split into 3 different groups, but hey we were getting dinner. I ended up with Connor, Billy, Nathan and Pat. Connor spent the first five minutes apologizing about the laundry mix up, after that dinner was good. I had spaghetti al pesto and it was delicious. It was the only thing on the menu that I knew what it was. The entire menu was in Italian, thankfully our waiter knew some English so he told us what some of the words were. Still, I stuck with the spaghetti. Billy got tortellini with rabbit sauce and surprisingly, it was amazing. We all decided we have to go back, in smaller groups of course, because it was amazing food for a good price. As we walked around, we came to realize everything is cheaper on the local side of the river. Note taken.
Gemo had heard of this $1 gelato spot up a few blocks, and even though we had just had dinner, of course we jumped on that. This place had at least 20 flavors, and for $1 they gave you a ton. We sat on the Ponte Vecchio, eating our gelato, feeling Italian. We were in the heart of the city having a blast.
Even though it was only 10PM, Erin, Allie, Connor, Gunnar and I decided we wanted to head back and watch a movie. Last night was just too much and we needed a night in. So we left everyone else and came back to Bonifacio to watch Just Friends. For the first time we managed to find our way home without a map. We are becoming locals. Slowly. Our clothes and speech make us stand out, but at least we aren't carrying a map anymore.
Friday, September 16th
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