Day #2 - Getting cultured in Florence

Today was yet another pretty relaxed day, thankfully. :) I think our goal of not burning ourselves out traveling is working out well so far. We slept in today, and then took a walk back around Pisa to look for souvenirs, but since it was Sunday morning not much was open. We also stopped for breakfast at a little cafe that Michele recommended, but were in for quite a lesson in Italian cuisine when we ordered lattes, and were given glasses of steamed milk! Definitely won't get that mixed up again from now on... :) My croissant there was AMAZING though - it had some sort of marmalade in it, and powdered sugar on top! Almost as good as the croissants in France. :)

We decided to leave for Florence around noon today, which meant the excitement of validating our Eurail passes and taking our first train. However, this turned into quite the experience, since the train we thought was supposed to come at 12:01 never showed, or the one at 12:29, or at 12:54... Since all the signs were in Italian, we were quite confused, and had to ask around to figure out the train wasn't coming until 1:54. So, we spent around 2 1/2 hours outside waiting for our train. And, may I mention - it is 45 degrees and raining this week in Pisa - and I definitely didn't pack for it, since I was expecting 70 degree weather like in Rome! Plus, I hear that it was 78 degrees in Ames today - so not fair!

Anyways, we made it to Florence finally and found our hostel right by the station. It was around 4:30 so we thought we'd try to get into the Accademia before it closed, since we heard there were long lines. Well, the lines were still pretty long, and but we made it in about an hour before it closed and still had plenty of time inside to admire Michelangelo's David...from every direction. The statue is so huge in person, I couldn't believe it! The Accademia also had a lot of other cool Florentine art from the Rennaissance - so like from the 1300s. We also saw rooms full of busts, and some cool old violins and pianos in a special musical exhibit.

We went to dinner tonight at an awesome restaurant we just found on the street - we were STARVING since we're still not used to the whole eating-at-7:00 thing. In fact, most restaurants here don't even open for dinner until 7:00 or 7:30! We enjoyed my favorite part of Italian restaurants tonight - the tourist menu! That means you get bread, primi piatti (first course), secondi (second course, with meat), a side, dessert, and a glass of the house wine, all for 13 euro! I had some pasta with meat sauce, roast chicken, the first salad I've had in FOREVER, and some fresh fruit. We were stuffed, to say the least. :)

However, after dinner that didn't stop us from finding some gelato! Florence apparently has the reputation for having Italy's best gelato, so we had to find out for ourselves. Tonight I branched out and had pistacchio and nutella gelato, which was actually really good, since they were both nut-flavored they went together well. We took a short stroll around Florence and found the Duomo, some busy city squares with lots of street performers, and the high class shopping district. We're taking it easy tonight though, so we came back to our hostel, and now it's time for bed! Buena sera, everyone! :)