One of the best weekends in Florence

Ciao everyone!

As the title states, yes, this was one of the best weekends ever. It all started on Thursday (we were a little antsy to kick it off) when Jeff put his brilliant plan of "Tourist Week" into action. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about what he was trying to do when I received his Facebook invite, but I humored him. I'm thrilled I did so because we had a blast. In this Facebook invite, Jeff explained that he wanted for us to enjoy Florence together before leaving and that he wanted to have the opportunity to take pictures of the typical tourist sites that he had never gotten around to photographing. He instructed us to dress as "obnoxious American tourist" as possible, with maps in hand, cameras around our neck, and sweatshirts tied on our hips. Jeff would play our "tour guide" and lead us around Florence, while we pretended that we had no idea where we were and made a lot of noise.

On Thursday morning, we met in Piazza della Reppublica, and we were all pleasantly surprised to see how seriously everyone had taken this Tourist week. We looked like fools, basically. Jeff had bought old man glasses, wore high socks, high-waisted shorts, gym sneakers, a backwards hat, and carried an extended umbrella (as all the Florence tour guides do to keep everyone following behind). Carla had crazy-looking sunglasses with the lenses popped out, a "Texas" shirt, really weird denim shorts, high socks, high-top converses, pig tails, and a backpack. I did my best with what I had, but I had purposely left all American looking things at home in the US. I wore Paul's Westminster Lacrosse t-shirt, as lacrosse doesn't even exist in Europe. I tied a sweatshirt around my waist and wore a satchel that I borrowed from Maria Pia that had "Swan Tours" written on it. Everyone else looked pretty hilarious too.

We started with Bloody Mary's at 11:00 at this chic cafe in Piazza della Repubblica, Paszkowski. We looked like complete fools and somehow still managed to be asked out by one of the Italian waiters. He invited us to go dancing and his name was Giuseppe Acquafredda, which means "Joseph Cold Water." HA. We never called him. We had a great time making a scene at the bar and being silly. When we left, we followed behind Jeff, asking him where the Duomo was and what country we were in. We took touristy pictures in front of the Duomo and some real American tourists thought we looked so funny that they asked to take a picture of us. We all posed with our hands as peace signs. Most people seemed to understand that we were making fun of tourists, and weren't actually serious. So, that's probably a good thing. We walked around some more and then bought some wine coolers to draw more attention to ourselves. We actually passed by a legitimate tour group that commented "Hey! That group gets to drink on their tour!" I guess they were the only ones that thought we were serious. We had a fun encounter with the Polizia, but I completely forget why we approached them in the first place. Allow me to say that only in Italy can a person approach cops while drinking a bottle of wine and proceed to have a conversation with them. They seemed to think we were pretty amusing, and Carla and Grace got really involved in asking them stupid questions like, "So that Galileo guy... was he important?" After that hilarious encounter, we got lunch and called it a day because everyone (except for me) had a tutoring session. I bought a Universita di Firenze sweatshirt and went home.

Day 2 of tourist week was yesterday, and it wasn't quite as thrilling as Day 1 had been. However, we did see a tourist attraction that we had never seen throughout the year, the Medici Chapel. It was gorgeous, so we were content with our sightseeing experiences for the day. We also made a quick stop in the Accademia to see "David" for the last time. I must also remind everyone that we were dressed like idiots on this day as well. In fact, a very attractive middle-aged American woman thought Jeff was so adorable that she asked to take a picture with him. Jeff has a look that the cougars really go for with those pretty blue eyes and flowing hair. After the chapel, we all bought disgustingly tacky, sparkly shirts for "Eurotrash night," which occurred last night. As usual, I had trouble finding one, but I did get something that worked. It wasn't as awesome as everyone else's, though. I had tutoring from 2:30 to 5:30, and then I went home and changed.

We all met for dinner at Borgo Antico around 8 and had an awesome time there. Carla, Jeff and Grace have become pretty good friends with the owners there because they go so frequently, so we had fun joking around with them. Once we were ready to leave, we walked along the river to the outdoor discoteca, Central Park, to show off our "Eurotrash" looks. It's such an awesome place! I didn't stay very long because I was tired, but everyone else closed the place down. We had such a fun night.

This morning, we all met in Piazza della Repubblica at 11:30 to go to Vignamaggio for the second time with Maria (our Italian teacher) and her husband, Piero, and Gabriella and Alberto (the owners of CLIDA). The curves in the Chianti countryside were a little rough on all of us, as we had had a little too much fun the night before. It was the most picture-perfect day and Chianti really looked like a huge postcard. The car ride lasted about 30 minutes and when we arrived, the owner of Vignamaggio had set us a beautiful table in the sun room, where we ate our lunch. Naturally, just like the last time, the food was fabulous. We had pasta with fresh tomatoes, spinach and ricotta rolls with spicy sauce, crepes stuffed with cheese and artichokes, pork stuffed with fresh zucchini, mini pizzas, codfish, eggplant lasagna, and Florentine steak with onions sauteed in wine. There was probably more on the buffet, but I can't remember it all. For dessert, we had Vin Santo (dessert wine), crepes stuffed with cream, a flaky "sandwich" with cream and strawberries in the middle, and hazelnut coffee-flavored semifreddo. Incredible.

Just before we started dessert, we presented Maria, Gabriella and Alberto with their gifts. For Alberto and Gabriella, we put a group photo of us at their house into a really nice, wooden Holy Cross picture frame. Maggie also made Gabriella an espresso cup in her ceramic class, as Gabriella collects espresso cups. We also gave them flowers and a very heartfelt card. For Maria, we made a photo album with pictures that we had taken together, and also pictures of us students having a great time in Florence. Carla, our little artist, decorated the cover. Inside, we put Maria's card, which had a 150 euro "gift card" to her favorite restaurant. Her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw the gift card. Both she and Gabriella were so moved with the thoughtfulness of our gifts and all the women and girls cried for a good 15 minutes. It was an unforgettable moment. I was so happy at how well they received everything (not that I was worried). On a side note, the "gift card" actually turned out rather annoying to get. Because real gift cards don't exist in Italy, we had to explain our idea to the manager of the restaurant, who wrote us up a little credit on an order pad and stapled his business card to the top. We left the money with him and explained that they would be coming in soon for dinner. That was probably the best idea we could have had for Maria. She absolutely deserved it after all she taught us and all the places she took us.

After lunch, we all went outside and laid by the pool. It was such a beautiful spot, with a little wellness center and amazing hot tub that was inside, looking over the Chianti countryside. We all tanned for a little while and had an unforgettable time. I didn't swim in the pool, but Kevin, Maggie, Carla and Andrea did and practically came out as fast as they had jumped in. The water was FREEZING. So, I'm glad I didn't use the pool. The hot tub was better for me.

Around 5, we drove back into Florence and Andrea, Maggie and I walked around the center for a little while. It was such a gorgeous day that we didn't want to miss a single minute of it. I got my Dad a great birthday present (which I can't reveal on my blog because I know he's reading it!!!) and then we had iced teas in Piazza Santissima Annuziata. We came home around 8:00 and of course, Maria Pia had dinner waiting for us. Thankfully, we had reminded her to go light on the food, so she had made green beans and caprese salad. It was great, but now I have an awful stomach ache. WAY TOO MUCH food today. We've all decided to stay in tonight because we're full and exhausted from a great couple of days.

After this weekend, I feel so lucky to have spent the year here in Florence and to have met such amazing people through my language school. We have really formed an everlasting relationship with these people, and I am so thankful to have been able to spend so much time with them. I could not have asked for a more perfect day today. It seems to us that Gabriella, Alberto and Maria have formed a much tighter bond with us this year than with the students in previous years. They had mentioned that these were the most thoughtful gifts and cards that they had ever received from their students, and we were really pleased to hear that. We're thinking that they took to us so well because this is the first year that the entire group of students is friends. Usually, they break off into little groups of three and have problems with the others. This year, all 8 of us have become really close, making it enjoyable to spend time with us all together, as it's not awkward for Gabriella, Alberto and Maria to "force" us to frequent events as a group.

What a day. :)

A presto!