~Florence, Italy~

May 12

On the sixth day of our trip Jeff gave to me... Six hours of sleep! Florence (or Firenze/Tuscany) is home to the statue of David, great shopping and, if you can't guess, more cathedrals! Only this cathedral is the largest one in the world. In an effort to save money and precious time, we figured we'd prebook and pay for our hotels in advance. Not only guaranteeing that we had one, we'd be motivated to move across the country, and that it was also paid for when we got there. Last night as we were arriving in Florence and desperately searching for our hotel we couldn't seem to find it and had to stop many times to ask friendly Italians where the heck we were. We'd been driving past the same hooker a few times, and finally decided to stop and ask her, as not many other people are awake at 2am. When we rolled down the window to ask directions, she answered with the deepest, most booming voice we'd ever heard. Wow. I've always had "Ask a French man that is now a woman living in Italy for directions" on my list of things to do, and gladly I can cross it off now.It took forever to see the statue of David, and please don't tell Michelangelo but I'm not sure I'd do it again. Yeah, yeah it's the world's most famous statue, but does he really deserve his very own museum? Just kidding. You're not allowed to take photos, but for what we paid and how long it took to get it, I figured... Driving through the Tuscany countryside. I would like a little villa like that! This little guy was enjoying the display pizza they set out. He'd probably eat yours, too. After we left Florence we made a slight detour to see the town of Pisa. It was, again, another beautiful city. The houses along the river could've been straight out of a magazine. I loved the water fountains they had there. We were pretty thirsty, but not thirsty enough to guess if this water was drinkable or not. Not the kind of thing you want to guess with on a road trip in a foreign country. Thank goodness Jeff and I got there when we did. Apparently the early Italians didn't mind their building almost toppling over and we had to save the day. Although I am not sure what they did once we left. I mean, we can only do so much...