Andiamo Italia!

"My bday weekend!"

 Ahh Italy, I have been dreaming of going here for many many years. I mean I even took 4 years of Italian in high school in order to go on the class trip, which I ended up not going on because I visited my sister in England woops. Anyways Therese, Radhika, Claudia and I headed off for our Italian adventure. Also just as an FYI this weekend was my birthday weekend!

First stop for the weekend was Milano!! Oh Milano, fashion capital I mean what else could a girl ask for?! We landed in Milan and headed straight to the Duomo to meet up with Alison's friend Christina. Stepping off the train, the first thing we all saw was the Duomo. Oh my god! I was completely blown away by how amazing the Duomo looked. I mean all of us just stopped talking and were in a state of awe. After basking in the sunlight and exploring the market by the Duomo we headed to an art museum. 

The museum was cool and kept us warm inside for a bit. We were pretty hungry before going into the museum and our attention spans started to go downhill. The best part of the museum was the interactive art pieces, like the one where it was a box with mirrors and lights (soo cool). After the museum we headed for food! Christina recommended for us to get this thing that is pretty much a deep fried calazone. Umm it was delicious!! So warm and ooy and gooy, seriously wish I would've gotten more than 1. 

 We met up with Christina and she showed us around the city. Since Claudia, Radhika, and I were only going to be in Milan for a day we had a lot of sight-seeing to pack in. First on our list was going inside of the Duomo, it was way cooler on the outside. Christina showed us around the glass shopping center with the original Prada flagstaff store, the main shopping district, and seeing Armani's home. Christina knew so much history about the city and the different designer stores we were passing by, it was like having our own personal travel guide. She also let us stay at her apartment for the night and took us out to dinner at our first antico restaurant. The deal with these restaurants is that you pay 6 euro for a drink and then get access to the buffet of food... Seriously why isn't America doing this?! It was an awesome day in Milan, wish I had actual money to shop here, but off to Firenze!!

Next on our weekend getaway, Florence. We took a train from Milan to Florence to meet up with Radhika's friend Emily. It worked pretty awesome for us this weekend, knowing so many people studying in Italy. Emily let us drop our bags off at her place and then took us around for the day. First we went to see the Duomo. Now this is THE actual Duomo, Duomo in Italian really just means cities central church. But the Duomo in Florence is the world famous one. 

 

Then we headed for lunch at All'antico for the best 5 euro sandwich in the world!! No joke it was soo tasty. What separates this sandwich from any other sandwich? Well it's served on fresh focaccia bread, with your choice of meat and spread with only the freshest tomatoes and arugula. It's also a family owned restaurant with only two locations, both directly across from each other (the line was crazy long). We took our sandwiches and went to sit along the river looking out at the Ponte Vecchio. 

We were exhausted from the past two days and went to our hostel to just chill for a bit. Getting to our hostel took a bit longer than we expected, but that just made napping at the hostel that much more rewarding. For dinner we head to this place called Dantes that had a wonderfully need unlimited wine special. Thank god for wine, right?! The 3 of us enjoyed each others company (and the wines) and talked about all the crazy things we've done throughout the trip abroad. 

 

We meet up with Emily and her friends at a bar after dinner. Now this is where the night gets a bit fuzzy. Claudia and I sat at the bar and ended up ordering the house beer (which was 13 proof).... Funny story an American guy comes up to us, me assuming he's hitting on us, and starts asking if we will tell the bartender he order our beers so he could get a free shirt. Me being the kind and nice person I am, straight up told this guy that "I honestly don't care". Ha the real me comes out in Italy, I suppose or maybe it was just the wine talking?! Who knows but the night ended in a blur of Claudia yelling at a bunch of Spaniards and Radhika trying to convince a police officer to drive us to our hostel...

The next moving we were all very very slow moving. I'm pretty sure I decided to celebrate my birthday a day early. Um, really I have no idea how the night ended up being so nuts. I blame the wine and beer... As we headed out to start sight-seeing for the day, I honestly thought I was going to get sick. We stopped at a McD's so I could try and eat something and ended up yelling at a homeless boy asking for money. I mean he was trying to take my chicken nugget.... Umm Don't Take My FOOD!! Anyways it was a very messy day (no one got sick, but all 3 of us were struggle busin hard core). First on our list was checking out the leather markets for some Christmas and on my part Birthday shopping. I got a beautiful brown cross body leather bag for myself!! Yay :)

We waited for Emily outside the Duomo and Therese finally met up with us from Milan. Today we headed up to the top of the Duomo. It was a definite struggle walking all those stairs to the top of the Duomo, but so well worth it. The view was amazing, you could see all of Florence. Once we made our way down we headed for a quick lunch and went to the Piazza della Signoria. This was my favorite Piazza in Florence. It was surrounded by a bunch of old statues and was the perfect spot to stop and eat lunch really quick. 

 Next we hiked up to Michalengo's look out. This was another amazing view of the city. We could see everything and made it just in time for sunset. Up here is where the green David is located. There are "fake" David's all over Florence, but the real one is at the Uffizi where we will be going to tomorrow. Florence has so much richness in art and architecture I feel overwhelmed being here.

Again we were exhausted from the day and headed back to the hostel for a nap before dinner. We went to a big dinner with a bunch of people Emily was studying with abroad. At midnight I officially turned 21, but like I said we got a little too crazy the night before and headed home to get some sleep. It's our last day in Florence tomorrow and we still have soo much to see.


We got up bright and early ready to have an amazing day. Like I said today was my birthday! So it was filled with well wishes and great sights. Today we went inside the rest of the Duomo, we didn't get to see everything yesterday. Then we went to the Uffizi to see the David. So the David was okay I guess... Totally kidding it was AMAZING! Never knew someone could put that much detail in a sculpture. He makes every other male look insignificant.

After checking out David for forever. We all went to get a sandwich from All'Antico again. Therese hadn't gotten one yet and we decided they were too good to only have once. We took our sandwiches and sat around the Piazza della Signoria. Claudia and I went around taking a ton of pictures in front of the different statues before we all headed to the Boboli Gardens. Along our way to the Boboli Gardens we walked along the river to the Ponte Vecchio and again stopped for some amazing photo-ops.

We almost didn't make it into the Boboli Gardens, because they were closing soon. But, birthday luck prevailed and we made it into the gardens with only time to spare. The Gardens were so beautiful, even on an overcast day. They were the gardens of the once royal family and we spent about an hour exploring. We honestly could have spent the entire day in here, there was just sooo much too see.

Us at Boboli Gardens

Boboli Gardens

We pretty much got kicked out of the Gardens when closing began. We walked back along the Ponte Vecchio, because the view at night with everything lit up was spectacular (and another great photo-opt). 

We all went to the leather market one last time and hungout at a cafe to warm up. It was surprisingly cold in Florence this weekend and we were outside for the majority of the day. Once we were all warm, we went out to dinner at an Antico restaruant for my birthday dinner!! Love these places, and my first drink as a newly legal 21 year old was.... A cosmo!! hahah thought it was the perfect girly drink

Once we were stuffed from the buffet, Radhika, Claudia, Therese, and I ventured to a local pub Emily recommended to celebrate my birthday. Now turning 21 in Europe is not a big deal, but celebrating a birthday is always a must. We had to get up super early the next day to make our train to Pisa so we couldn't drink too much. The pub we went to was actually an Irish pub and was the perfect place to celebrate my birthday. The bartender Lorenzo was so nice to us and gave me all my birthday drinks/shots for free. Therese and I even came up with our own shot, "The Chicago Fire" shot. It sucked, we are working on an improvement. But today was an amazing birthday that I will never ever in my lifetime forget. I mean how many people can say they celebrated their birthday in Florence?! Um yeah that's what I thought. 

Like I mentioned we got up super early for our train to Pisa. We only stayed in Pisa for a few hours. We had just enough time to check-out the Leaning Tower and grab a slice of pizza before the flight back to Budapest. The Leaning Tower was crazy cool. If you think about it the Tower defies all logic of gravity, yet it is still standing. Like most people we took the corny Leaning Tower pictures and made our way for pizza. I like to call it the Leaning Tower of Pizza...!! (oh the kid in me).




This weekend has been the perfect last trip. I love the girlies so much for making my birthday so special and cannot believe all the amazing things we saw this weekend. Now it's back to Budapest. Once we get back I'm going to have to start studying for finals and process that this whole experience of studying abroad is coming to a close. I am not quite ready to deal with my mixed feelings of saying good bye and leaving. I have grown to love Budapest and consider it my home. Not only that, but all the people I have met have really become family and I can't imagine not seeing them everyday. With that being said enjoy the next few posts about my trip abroad and Arrivederci!!

Until next time-- Szia!