I have written and completed three other blog posts at this point but I can’t even publish two of them until I publish a post about Florence because everything will be all out of order and confusing. It’s not that I am lacking in things to say and that’s why I am struggling to write it, it is actually the exact opposite. Jayde and I had the most amazing time in Florence and I want to be able to tell you what is like as if you are experiencing it with us. So here is my best attempt:

First off you need to meet Jayde.

Jayde is my design friend and fellow badass travel babe. 8 months ago we were walking through the studio when we saw a poster for a study abroad program in Italy. We grabbed the poster off the wall  and as we walked into class we asked our professor Cameron if he knew anything about it. He said something along the lines of

“No idea, looks dope though”

We sat down and said

“I want to do this. Really, we are going to do this.”

There is this thing about being human where when you say you are going to do something, you don’t always follow through. Especially if you are a broke college student and this thing you say you are going to do requires you to travel halfway across the planet. So, you can see why when we finally met at the CDG airport at 6 am for our flight to Florence everything felt a little surreal.

While we had successfully arrived in Florence, my bag (along with half of the other passangers bags) did not arrive. So we filled out some forms and then hopped into a taxi heading for the city. Once we arrived at our airbnb they told us that it wasn’t going to be ready for at least 4 hours. In major need of sleep and frusterated by this news we did the only reasonable thing: get gelato and sit in front a breath taking church.

This is the Basillica de Santa Croce which would become our go to spot for the next couple days. After gelato and Santa Croce we got some lunch before heading back to the airbnb for a quick nap. We ended up falling asleep for 5 hours and waking up at 9 pm which was perfect becasue we got dressed up and headed out to the bars.

We had lots and lots of fun roaming around the streets of Florence. It was pretty crazy how safe we felt. We even made some new friends while admiring the beauty Santa Croco at 4 am. By the time we got home and feel asleep it was around 6 am. So when I woke up at 3 pm the next day (thanks jetlag) I was completely mortified. How had we wasted an entire day??

We jumped out of bed and headed to the Duomo, aka the city center. We were happy to finally get some delious pizza and then head to Zara. (if you know, you know) We also found a super cool vintage shop while walkin around. Florence is soooo pretty and has the coolest shops it is hard to describe it so here are some pictures: 

After running around the city we, taking another nap (again thanks jet lag) and changing we headed out for the night. We decided to go to this club called Flo which literally was a mountain trek away from us, shout out to Jayde for doing it in heals. Once we got there we were surprised to find that the club was made up of 30-40 year olds. We danced for while and then feeling a little out of place we went and looked at the cities incredible night view in front of fake david.

We headed back to Santa Croce and were admiring the church when we ran into a couple friends we had made the night before. The group decided that we wanted to watch the sunrise over the city at fake david so we trekked up the mountains again. We arrived and realized that we were 2 hours early. We laid on the grass, laughed and waited for the sun. As the sky turned pinks and purples we got to take in the city on a whole other level. Jayde and I led a little yoga cycle and lived in the at moment like it was our last.

Now that it was 7:30am and we had to be out of our airbnb by 9:30 am we headed back down the mountain. After getting everything packed up we hit the city again. We got some art supplies and had the cutest experience with the Italian art store owner. He barely spoke any english but got so excited to help us find various things. Then he added it all up by hand and he had the prices of everything memorized. He even gave us chocolate. Best art store experience EVER.

I feel in love with Florence and Italy over a period of 2 days, and might I add that I slept through majority of those days hahahaha.

 

Until next time Firenze

 

love and miss you all lots,

gabi

 

P.S. tomorrow a post about journeying to our new home for the next 3 months on 0 hours of sleep comin for ya. (probably my favorite post yet)