The Food Chapter: Florence, Italy - Part Deux

Dear family and friends,

I hope some of you are actually reading this blog because I'm realizing now that it's quite a bit of work to maintain. Regardless, I must press on! I'm in Rome now but I left out some adventures in Florence that I'd like to remember. Our second day in Florence was rather uneventful compared to the first. Brian was without a camera, and (if you know him at all), he loves his artsy photos. We spent the majority of the day retracing our steps and documenting the beautiful views. We attempted to go see the state of David by Michaelangelo, but there was a 3-hour wait, which hardly seemed worth it. I guess I'll just have to go back to Florence sometime in the future. Tough life...

One of our favorite activities, in which we inadvertently partake daily, is people-watching (or creeple-watching, as I like to call it). We decided it would be a good idea to grab a bottle of wine, find a cozy spot, and just observed as thousands of tourists and locals passed us by. Here are some highlights:

My older sister, Lindsay, studied abroad in Florence and recommended that we visit Café Zaza while we were there. I got her message as we were packing to leave, but luckily enough, we had stumbled upon the same café the day before and split a (cheap) bottle of vino rosa.

Brian does not look good in my sunglasses (no offense)...

... And I look even worse in his.

Mint chocolate chip gelato. Yum.

We picked a café by the Duomo to enjoy some wine. While there, we met a wonderful couple, Dr. and Mrs. Hughes. Mrs. Hughes was kind enough to get this picture of us (while telling her husband, in the back right, "Just act like a person...").









After a long day of people watching and exploring the outskirts of Florence, we went back to the hotel and got ready for another night out. This time, however, we actually had a destination. We had heard of a bar nearby that was having a Beatles-inspired night and decided to go.

We went to dinner at an adorable Italian restaurant and had our first tastes of authentic pizza.












We realllllllllly liked it.













After dinner, we went to (the appropriately-named) Bebop Bar and bee-bopped around to some of our favorite songs. It's study-abroad season in Florence basically, and there were about 30 college students from Georgia Tech at the bar. Small world, right?

All in all, I absolutely loved Florence and cannot wait to return (hear that, mom??).

Caroline