I stayed in Florence this weekend for one last mellow weekend before my crazy two months of traveling takes off. Thursday night was Tiger Dinner, naturally, and the boys made us some delicious chicken fettucine alfredo. We drank our favorite frizzante wine and headed out fun-filled night of shots and karaoke. Friday I was very productive. I cleaned the apartment and did all of my homework (a concept I've been unfamiliar with since arriving here for "study" abroad!) I also decided to stay in and get a full 12-hour nights sleep for once. I'm really trying to keep myself healthy while I'm over here.
Saturday morning I went to Santa Maria Novella to meet up with Danielle (one of my sorority sisters), Tricia (my partner in crime from Orientation last summer) and their roommate Laura. They're all studying in Brussels at Clemson's satellite campus and are backpacking through Italy for their spring break. I was so happy to see some familiar, friendly faces in Europe! This was also the perfect opportunity for me to do touristy things in Florence. I spend so much money on our weekend trips that I never want to spend money here. I walked them to the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, Piazze de la Republica, Marcato Centrale, and the Ponte Vecchio. I actually surprised myself with how much I knew about Florence. I really feel like I live here :) We crossed the famous bridge and went to Gusta Pizza, known as the "best pizza in Florence" by virtually every study abroad student. It was a little hole-in-the-wall type of place and absolutely delicious. Afterwards, we toured the Pitti Palace. Luckily, my roommates came and Jacqueline was there with her art history knowledge to tell us about the Medici family and what all of the paintings mean. The outside of the palace isn't incredibly spectacular, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the inside, but it was so over the top and ritzy. I still can't believe that people LIVED in there. Having overloaded ourselves with artwork for the day we got gelato at Perche No (if you're ever in Florence, I HIGHLY recommend this. It's a tad pricier than our gelato boyfriend, but definitely worth it). Next I took them back to San Lorenzo so they could browse the dozens of leather stands and grab some souvenirs. We had dinner at Palle d'Oro, the first place I had dinner in Florence and still one of my favorite restaurants. Definitely the most authentic one I've ever been to here. That night, we went out as a huge group with my roommates and some other friends, and ended up at a new (to us) bar named Rex that was entirely full of Italians. From there we went to a small club that was also exclusively Italian, but one of Jacqueline's friends from class knew someone who knew someone who let us in. Soo fancy. Cocktails there were TEN EURO and I am the cheapest person on the face of the earth so we eventually decided to call it a night.
Sunday we had a few more things in Florence to see, but realizing that we saw almost every free sight there is, we decided to meet up with my roommates in Viareggio for the afternoon. We got up early and walked up to Piazza Michelangelo, easily my favorite spot in the entire city. It was a beautiful, surprisingly warm day!
Viareggio is a small beach town on the west coast of Italy, famous with locals for having the biggest and best Carnevale in the country. Venice is the touristy Carnival, but this is the real deal. I didn't know about this reputation, so I expected to find a tiny festival that could never live up to what I experienced last week in Venice. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We were in our own little corner on the train, so we never even noticed the hundreds of people dressed in outrageous costumes on the train with us. When we got to Viareggio, the entire train emptied into a mob of masked and costumed people on the binario. It took us almost ten minutes just to get out of the train station! We also realized we were the only geniuses wearing "Carnival masks." Everyone else was dressed in borderline-halloween fashion. It seemed to be a "wear anything really, really weird" theme. We followed the crowds of Italians until we hit the beach and came across the most outrageous parade I've ever seen.
It costed 15 euros to get in, so we were skeptical, but having come all this way we figured it was worth a try. If I could go back tomorrow, I would pay 30 euros, if not more to experience it again. It was basically a long street with tons of huge floats circling around, and streets filled with people partying, singing and dancing. There were infants and there were ninety year olds, and every single one of them was smiling and throwing confetti. The floats were mind blowing. Most of them were so strange we couldn't even figure out the meaning of them. Each float that came by was filled with people dressed in crazy costumes singing, dancing, and throwing confetti at you. Between each float we were able to stand in the middle of the street and basically dance with the street dancers. In the U.S. there would have been huge barriers and security guards everywhere. In true Italian style, there would be one guy telling you to back up approximately 20 seconds before you were at risk of getting run over by a gigantic float. I'm honestly struggling to even write about this right now, because it is one of those experiences that is indescribable. Maybe a few pictures will help:
I still don't feel like these pictures can fully describe it. Just imagine this live, with loud Italian music (and sometimes American jams like YMCA and Let's Get Loud by J.Lo?), tons of Italians dressed like psychopaths surrounding you, and a bottle of bubbly wine in your hand. It was literally the perfect day, and all we could keep saying was "I'm SO happy right now." The floats only continued to get weirder. As we were walking and dancing and throwing confetti, I saw this GIANT float with a fairly familiar face coming towards us. I had to do a double-take, and then a tripple take, and then about five more takes until I said "Guys, is that Obama?" There he was. The president of the United States dressed in a bright yellow magician's outfit with an entire circus, complete with Hillary Clinton to his right.
Don't worry, it gets better. As we're standing there in complete shock yelling to each other "is that really Obama dressed as a magician?" clearly pegging ourselves as the only Americans at the festival, we noticed one more minor detail to his ensemble. Drum roll please: There is a terrorist in his hat.
Apparently Italians aren't Obama's biggest fan. I'm hoping this fun fact will put my father more at ease about me living in Europe. After staring in awe at Obama for a solid fifteen minutes, and after being pulled into the American street dancers in front of him as soon as they realized we were American, we decided to go see the beach. This was my first sight of the Mediterranean! It was the perfect temperature outside, and you could see snowcapped mountains so close by. Just another reason why it was the perfect day.
I have a very busy week ahead of me in Florence: planning my entire itinerary for Paris (thank God my Mom trained me in how to be a mini travel agent), applying to five or six summer internships, and oh yeah, preparing for midterms. I'll be back after my first big trip to Paris!
Au Revoir
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