After sleeping in and eating a pasta lunch, Bethany and I met Maria, Megan, Lydia, and Kelsey down on the Arno River. Literally, on the Arno. There's a little spit of gravel that sticks out about halfway into the river that we laid out on. There were a lot of other people out there either having picnics, reading or just sitting around talking and enjoying the warm sunshine like we were.
When Bethany and I got there, the other girls were already laying out and they told us we had to jump down this retaining wall to get where they were. So we did. I lowered myself down the side of the wall and dropped the last six or seven feet while Bethany did the same and the girls laughed at us. Turns out there was a pathway hidden about twenty yards down the river that the other girls had walked down. But whatever. We made it in less time than they did.
We laid out until dinnertime, then went in search of a pizza place Lydia and her roommates had gone before and said was really good. I got a margherita pizza (as usual since it's always the cheapest) and it was pretty good, although not the best that I've had in Firenze. And the guy at the counter kept playing with my hair while I was reading the menu, then when I turned around, he looked away like he had no idea what was going on. Nice. Italians are so handsy. It's going to be weird going back to America and not having to worry about being groped everywhere we go.
After pizza, we wandered around the shops on that side of the Arno for awhile, then got gelato at a little place right by the river. I had pistachio and dark chocolate gelato and it was FANTASTIC. Pistachio is seriously my new absolute favorite ice cream flavor. Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever seen this in the States, so I may have to get my fill while I'm here.
Our group split up after the gelato (we ate it sitting on the edge of one of the bridges overlooking the water). Bethany and I went to Palazzo Piti while the other girls either went home or went shopping.
Bethany and I wanted to visit the famous Boboli Gardens attached to Palazzo Piti, but they were closed by the time we got there. The palace was still open though, so we went in there and got to see where the Medici family lived while everyone and their brother was trying to kill them (they were really unpopular since they controlled ALL the money in Firenze back in the day; as Erika once put it, they were bankers who lived underground until they had everyone's money, then they came up, announced "We run this shit" and proceded to treat Florence like their own personal playground while the rest of the population became peasants and died... For real. So you see why no one liked them very much).
The palace is ridiculously opulent, naturally. It's filled with the many of the most expensive paintings and sculptures in Italy, the walls are covered in gold and crushed velvet, there are gold/diamond chandeliers hanging in most of the rooms, it goes on forever, and I can't imagine how anyone could possibly live there. Except, that's not entirely true. The house holds multiple rooms for everyone in the family and all their friends, multiple chapels, ballrooms, dining rooms, billiard rooms, music rooms - essentially everything you need is in that house because it had to be. Many of the Medicis lived inside that palace and never left because of how dangerous Florence was for them. So they needed to be able to live their entire lives inside that one building.
When it started getting dark, Bethany and I made our way back across the Arno and back to our apartment, where we're just hanging out now. She, Erika and I are currently deciding whether to go out tonight since we have to get up early tomorrow for Siena.
This is shaping up to be another excellent weekend in bella Italia.
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