Andiamo a Perugia!: Firenze

I am still playing catch up with all my blogs so bear with me just a little bit longer!

Two weekends ago, my two friends (Asia & Alex) and I went to Firenze (aka Florence) for the night. It is one of those major cities that you have to see while in Italy. We didn’t do much of the historical Firenze (i.e. the Duomo, museums, etc), we did more of the markets and hit up a discoteca! Within a 24-hour time period (Friday-Saturday), we managed to fit a lot into our days. We stayed in a very impressive hostel and went out for a nice dinner on Friday. We had a delicious dinner of pasta with a lovely glass of wine outside overlooking the main center in Florence. After, we sat outside at the Uffizi with a bottle of wine and just took in the scenery. It was early to go out to the discoteca (which doesn’t really get going until close to midnight) so we got some gelato and just walked around and took in the nighttime scenery. We ended up at this place called The Irish Pub-most depressing bar I’ve ever seen! The bartender looked and talked like Ray Ramano! He just seemed so down that we were itching to get into the discoteca.

We finally made it to Space, a discoteca our waiter had recommended to us. At first it was just a bunch of American students, most likely studying at the University of Florence, so we stuck out like sore thumbs. However, once the dance floor (the upper part of the club) opened up things got crazy!!! My first discoteca experience was pretty awesome! I danced the night away-obviously one of my favorite pastimes!

The next day, Saturday, we hit up the markets, which were insane! Vendors throw themselves, and they’re merchandise, at you constantly! We shimmied our way down the streets managing to pull over and look at pashminas/scarves, jewelry galore, and LEATHER! I bought two pashminas and a leather wallet! My goal of going to the markets was to find a wallet and I lucked out! By the end of the day I hadn’t found “it”, but I knew I would probably come back to Firenze again. However, just when I gave up I came across the perfect wallet: a beautiful red leather wallet! I am in love with my new wallet! I keep smelling the leather (one of my favorite scents) and admiring the “Firenze” printed on the front of it. Now I’m in search for the perfect pair of leather boots…:)

Saturday was also a day of firsts for me-I held my friends’ hands as they went about getting tattoos! Me. In a tattoo parlor. In Florence. With a man named Gus. WHAT?! Well, it happened and I can now check this off my bucket list. It was quite the experience, but as weird as it sounds, in the back of my mind I have always wanted to hold a friend’s hand when he/she was getting a tattoo…mission accomplished!

Something very interesting is that everyone spoke English, which is weird for me because everyone in Perugia speaks Italian. I would start ordering something in Italian and the waiter would see right through me and start conversing with me in English. In Perugia, I am forced to try as hard as I can to speak in Italian because a fair amount of locals just do not understand English.

However, Florence is a beautiful city! As touristy as it can be, it still captures the essence of Italy!