FLORENCE and VENICE!!!!!

So I have been slacking on the blog posts lately....lack of internet around the globe and lack of sleep in Scotland/USA

So, here's the update on Florence and Venice!

It was a long-ish train ride out to Florence from Rome (around 4 hours). The hostel was a short walk from the train station and it was a lovely small town feel. When I got to the square, there was a huge church, called a duomo (if I spelled that correctly). At first sight, it looked like it was a 3-D puzzle someone had constructed because the entire exterior was painted in all sorts of greens and whites with designs and loads of statues all around. The whole thing is massive! Not only is it really tall and have a huge tower, the building seems to stretch forever. It also has a separate building which has been turned into a museum of some sort (but it cost money to go into it and cash was low).

After a walk around the duomo, I ventured over to the gallery where the statue of David is held. The whole gallery is kind of interesting - at this point, I had seen a lot of churches and a lot of artwork so I didn't pay as close attention as I could have. There were quite a few rooms dedicated to paintings while there were others that focused on music and statues. I liked those two because with the music, there was an interactive section that enabled you to hear what they sounded like and it showed me some I had never heard of before. The statue room was neat just because sculptures must take a rare form of patience and skill.

After that, I spent some time walking around the town. I walked through a street market in between a bunch of churches that was filled with signs informing me that if I bought fake/knock off goods, it is punishable under the law. After my 'night time' walk (since it was already really dark), I met some people back at the hostel. The woman that ran it provided us with some home made snacks and wine every night so we could meet other travelers. I ended up going to dinner with about 9 other people from the flat for a traditional Italian meal followed by some delicious gelatto! One of the guys in the flat had been there for a bit so he took a group of us to this really cool point that overlooks the entire city of Florence. This point was also near the fake statue of David that they put up in the town so that you are actually allowed to take pictures of it! Later on that night, a few of us went out for a night out on the town and had a good time.

The next morning, I headed out on another train to Venice. This ride was half as long but cost twice as much - yippee! During the day, I walked around the islands a little bit and spent some time just relaxing in the hostel and reading because it was absolutely freezing out. I took my book (about the history of Portugal!) to go and get some tea and a local little shop and did some reading to warm up! I met a guy named Alex (from Chile) who was also in the same hostel in Florence and we took a night walk around Florence and got something to drink.

The following morning (after a lovely night of 10 hours of sleep!!!), I walked around the entire island on the main tourist path and saw the three main touristy things - bridges and churches. It was another freezing cold day but the island was beautiful - the way that everything is situated in the water is really neat. I would definitely like to go back there in the warmer weather!!!

I hopped on a flight to Berlin that afternoon. I was supposed to be heading there to meet my flat mate Lisa but because of the snow storm in Scotland, her finals were rescheduled so she wasn't in Berlin. I only ended up spending one night in a hotel that I booked and of course, it was snowing like crazy in Berlin and I didn't have enough cash to afford getting lost if I headed into the city (which would have happened with the snow) so I spent the night relaxing, reading and sleeping! Man did that feel good! I was okay with not exploring because I plan on going back to Germany when Lisa and Melanie are both there and spending some quality time with them in their country =]