buongiorno!

greetings from florence! my program in london ended on thursday, and so early (early!) saturday morning i left foggy london town and headed to rome to meet up with kristen freethy! getting there was no easy feat though... i almost missed my flight due to TWO incompetent taxi cab drivers ("alitalia is terminal one!" "no, it's terminal three!"...no, actually, it's terminal two guys). then i enjoyed the exciting task of finding my way to termini station from the airport, and then locating freethy at one (of the many) mcdolands inside. eventually we found each other though (i have never been so relieved to see such a familiar face!) and picked up where we left off over some french fries and chicken mcnuggets. we hopped on the train to florence, where we have spent the past 2 and a half days battling the heat and temptation to stop for gelato at every turn. here are some pictures. but if you're hungry...you might not want to scroll down!

artichoke, mushroom and olive pizza in piazza de la republica

duomo

to. die. for.

sunset on the arno river

more sunset

prettyyy

me and freezepop. notice that stain on my dress...yes, a bird pooped on me as we were watching the sunset. freethy had just commented on how romantic it was...and then BOOM! i was hit from above!

night time on via calzaiuoli

we decided to skip the city heat, and head out to the coast! we took a train about an hour and half outside of the city to the cute town of Viareggio.This is a silly video we took on the way in the early morning.

the water was amaaazingly refreshing.

for a small fee, we rented two lounge charis and an umbrella and relaxed alll day in the sun. such a nice break from all the sightseeing! and to top it all off, we found a crepe place for lunch and indulged in our favorite--nutella (mine with banana!) crepes.

my wet feet, proof that i went in the ocean :)