Il Duomo

The main building in Florence is a church called Santa Maria del Fiore, and it's nicknamed "Il Duomo" because of the giant red dome on top designed by Brunelleschi in the 15th century. The inside of the dome has a Last Judgment scene painted by Vasari. There are 463 stairs to the top and I climbed every last one of them, but the view was worth every Sweaty Betty moment.

Firenze

I went to Florence this past weekend and it was a success, but just like all my travels, there were some hiccups. First of all my friends and I purchased the cheapest tickets money could buy, which meant we were going to travel on the local train. It took 4 hours to get there instead of 2, the only problem was that the local train doesn't come all the way into Termini (Rome's train station) So we stood around for a while asked about 8 people where to go and finally had to run down to a random side track. We didn't miss it though!


We got to the hostel, if you can call it that, it was one floor of a random building and we had t call a phone number to be checked in. There was no reception, when the guy on the phone came he gave us our keys from a cabinet and yelled at me and my friend for not having our passports. Luckily I always travel with a copy, Vivi had to call her husband in Wisconsin to fax a copy over. So we didn't exactly receive a warm reception. The room we stayed in slept 5 people and one of the beds was occupied wit a Romanian guy who had been living there for several weeks. He told us his whole life story and showed my friends certificates from his high school. When we got back from touring around the city the next day he had washed my friend Lindsey's pants. And he asked us to pick him up some shampoo the next time we went out. I like to think of him as our creepy agoraphobic housewife.

Besides that we had a great time in Florence. Things to know about the city: It's small so you can walk everywhere. There's a lot of gelato, Chinese restaurants, leather, and Irish pubs. They love Dante, seriously they can't get enough of him. All of the museums cost money and you're not allowed to take any pictures, but there is art everywhere! Including this guy who just started drawing on the cobblestones:

Buon San Valentino

As a special treat for Valentine's Day, I would like to invite you to experience heaven, if only from a far. I learned while visiting Florence this weekend that euphoria can be purchased for €1.60. Brace yourselves:



But with every amazing chocolate experience comes a bad one. I also learned that you must ask how much a gelato is going to cost before asking them to scoop some because you can end up paying €8 for something you inhale in 5 minutes. I felt as if I was being robbed at gun point...I won't be buying gelato for another week or so to fix that mistake.