Florence and Chianti

To my loyal and devoted followers:

I present to you, Day 6.

On Day 6, Kim and I went to Florence, the birthplace of both the Renaissance and gelato, to enjoy these two famous exports.Any experience traveler, or someone with a Rick Steves book (guilty!), would know that making reservations at Florence's most popular museums savings weary travelers ("weary travelers" is something Rick Steves would say) hours of waiting in line. However, Kim and I hadn't had internet for the past few days, and therefore had not made reservations for the Uffizi or the Academia. However, we ALSO didn't want to wait in line. Dilemma of dilemmas! Should we waste all day standing in line to see the art we wanted to see, or should we spend the day strolling the city, enjoying gelato, cathedrals and parks?

Answer: WE CAN DO IT ALL. Kim and I paid 40 euro each to become members of the Uffizi for a year. This gave us "Amici (Friend) del Uffizi" membership cards, which let us skip to the front of the line for any city-owned hotel - including the Uffizi and the Academia. So, we skipped directly to the front of the hours-long line at the Uffizi to see the paintings and sculptures. It was especially interesting seeing the pieces I studied in art history, including



and



After that we went to the Academia, where we saw the most impressive statue I've ever seen:



Obviously that's not my photo,its a Google image, since no photos are allowed, but Kim snuck one because she's a rebel.

After the two museums, Kim and I were exhausted and headed back to the hostel. After recovering, we grabbed Tim, the New Zealand hosteller we'd had dinner with the night before, and went to find some food. It was about 10pm, and even tho Italians are supposed to eat late, every restaurant in small-town Chianti was closed! We wandered until we found one open restaurant..we knew it was open because the waitress ambushed us in the street, insisting it was open! She asked where we wanted to sit,saying that it was easier for her if we sat outside, and mentioned that the veggie lasagna would be a good thing to order because it was already made and easier for her. So, we sat outside and all three of us ordered the veggie lasagna. As we were eating, the waitress came outside and sat at the table next to us, and spent a good hour telling us about her boyfriend, her previous boyfriends, how men are, how girlfriends should be, and generally all sorts of relationship advice. My favorites were:
-Girlfriends shouldn't call their boyfriends all the time. It stresses them out.
-Let him come find you. You don't need to bother him - when he needs you, he can come find you.

After soaking up all her relationship advice, Kim, Tim and I went back to the hostel with the intent of going to bed early. Instead, we ended up playing cards and drinking wine with 2 girls from Canada and one girl from Malaysia until 3am. The next morning, we planning to attend a 10am wine tasting....stay tuned!