That's My Middle Name!

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I was busy fulfilling one of my dreams from when I was a child of going to Florence. Of course, when I was little I only wanted to go because it was my middle name and felt I deserved to go simply for that reason. But now that I'm much older, wiser... and no longer have aspirations of being a boy baseball player or construction worker I wanted to go for the beautiful landscapes and historical richness.
We left on Friday morning, well, we started on Friday morning. You see, the bus times are like an airplane time, they are when the train leaves. Also, there are more ways to get to the platform than the stairway that says your platforms number. Long story short, it said our train would be leaving from platform 9 and platform 9's entry was boarded up with the only sign in all of Termini station that was not in both Italian and English, but only Italian. After running through the station and beginning to sweat, we eventually missed our train by 3 minutes (nothing leaves on time here... other than that one train) and exchanged our tickets for the next train, which was only half an hour after, and we didn't have to pay anymore.
Eventually we made it and it was beautiful there. It's a lot smaller than Rome and definitely made me realize that I made the right choice by coming to Rome, but it was gorgeous. We got these amazing panino and fries and sat near the Duomo eating them until we started the trek up the 400+ stairs to the top. Totally worth it. It was probably high 60s and not a cloud in the sky and the view was breathtaking. We could see the whole city and beyond.
We then felt we deserved to check out the Firenze Chocolate Festival and got some waffles dipped in chocolate fountains and tried everything from coconut white chocolate, to chocolate rum and beyond. That same night we walked to the top of this hill to watch the sunset over the city and went to an old church to hear monks chanting. Random I know, but it was a really cool experience.
A bunch of us made probably one of the best lasagnas I have had to date and we sat around feasting on brie and baguette as we cooked it. I even tried chopped liver... nom.
The next day we woke up and went to see the David statue in the Academia and then went on to the Uffizi Gallery where we may not have looked at all the statues in the eyes of artists, but had a really good time making up stories and admiring the works. I realized that my 2 favorite types of art are ceiling paintings (they are always so amazing and elaborate and really hard to do) and sculptures. All the statues butts and abs were really nice.
That night we went to a restaurant that supposedly has the best gnocchi in all of Florence. I'd agree. They gave us the biggest plate ever and it was basically the mac and cheese equivalent and had truffle oil on it. Basically amazing and let me tell you, I did WORK on that plate. We all passed out for an hour and a half nap when we got home because we were in food comas and it just was so rich we couldn't handle.
The next morning I just woke up and got coffee with one of my sorority sisters who happen to be visiting Florence too and went back to the chocolate fair. Then we spent the rest of the day walking around the leather markets, leather shops and city squares until our train at night. We refused to miss this train and did a great job of making it on time.
Now it's back to the grind of school till Thursday and I'm excited to stay here this weekend in order to get a dress for Carnival (and a mask), relax and hang out with some of the friends I've made here. Buona Sera.