Florence, Day 1 - "To Firenze!!"

The beautiful sunset - our view as we walked to dinner our first night in Florence.
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In the morning, we took a final for our first class, Law and Development.

The exam was only one hour, open book, and consisted of one broad question to cover the entire class - just like undergrad!

We took an afternoon train to Florence for the weekend, since we had no class on Monday (we think our professors just wanted a 3 day weekend!)

We got to Florence after a 3 hour train ride (not bad - especially compared to Vienna's 12 hour journey!) and found our hotel.

Mamma Gina's - the most delicious cannceloni in the world!
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Abbey was pretty skeptical of this place - there wasn't a noticable sign on the street to mark the place, and we had to rent towels because they weren't included withthe room - but, it ended up being lovely!

We had a beautiful room with an iron frame bed (though the romance was slightly wasted on the two of us) and a beautiful fresco on the ceiling.

We decided to explore the city a bit, and search for some dinner.

We wandered the streets, only getting off-track once, and found an adorable Italian restaurant on the far-side of the Ponte Vecchio called Mamma Gina's - it was delicious!

We had the BEST homemade cannelonni (both of us agreed, it was honestly to die for) as well as great viel (Jen's with asparagus, Abbey's with mushroom and tomatoes) and, of course, a caraffe of the house red wine.

From there, we walked back to our hotel, stopping of course for some Gelato.

Abbey's blonde hair was described by an italian as "the honey to the bee" - on the course of the walk she was propositioned at least 5 times; our favorites were:

The skeezy Italian teenager who yelled "suck my deeeeeeeeck" as his friends ogled Jen,

and

The Italian man who looked strikingly similar to a Sopranos mobster singing "like a veeeeergin, oooooooh."

Abbey was really tempted by both of these men, but Jen made her keep walking (please note, this sentence is dripping with sarcasm).

We were tired, and it was already midnight, so we headed to bed -- yet another wild and crazy night with Abbey and Jen!