florence

Ahh Florence. When I left a year ago, I thought I wouldn’t see this city for decades. God’s got a funny way of continually proving me wrong, but I can’t really complain in this case, can I? It’s hard to describe what it was like going back. I was certainly excited to show Katy the Firenze I had fallen in love with, go back to all my favorite places and do a few things I ran out of time to do. (Check out my old blog for my adventures: Emily in Italy) But I’ll admit that it was kind of hard going back too. For the first tim, I was a visitor in Florence. This city felt like a home away from home when I left. When I went back everything had changed, but nothing was different at the same time. It was like returning to your childhood home. That reminiscent feeling lingered with me the few days we were there. I wrote a story about Florence for one of my classes, and the time I described in those pages came back to life. Streets and smells and flavors conjured faded memories. Florence will always have a special place in my heart. It will always be a kind of home, no matter how much time spans between our meetings.

Naturally, our first stop was for food. The two priorities were Vivoli Gelato, which legitimately changed my life and was a frequent stop for us while living in Florence, and the chocolate tart that redefined “delicious” for me.

While I’ve been terrible about running this summer (thank you, triple-digit temperatures), I actually went on runs pretty frequently. The park above and the Arno River were my favorite spots, but the most unusual run was definitely that time Hil and I got caught in a hail storm….

Oh yea, Katy and I had desert with Snookie. We also met a couple people who got in bar fights with the Jersey Shore boys. Solid representation of a America right there.

Fact: I remembered the code to my old apartment building

Another fact: Katy and I stayed there our last night when we got locked out of our hostel

Florence is known as the “City of Art” and for good reason. The David, Primavera and countless other masterpieces call it home. These two statues definitely get the awards for most unusual pieces of art: Fat Man Sits on Box Turtle and Toddler Plays with Lamb.

White wine and the sunset at the Piazalle Michelangelo. Nothing could be more perfect.

I took a picture nearly identical to this one below the first time I went to this famous overlook. By far the most colorful sunset I’ve ever seen.

We also got to meet up with one of our good friends from Florence! Chiara was Becca’s language partner while we were abroad and will actually be visiting good ole Chapel Hill in mere weeks!

And so concludes me and Katy’s Grand Adventure! Could you tell it was a whirlwind? Incredible. Exhausting. Once in a lifetime. Sometimes the whole trip still seems unreal to me.  Did we seriously spend close to 2 hours at the Lennon Wall in Prague? Will I ever find such frolic-worthy fields anywhere besides Rothenburg? How on earth did manage to take nearly 900 pictures in Ireland? I will continue to have to suppress my constant craving for French bread until I’m back in Paris. I still have my wanderlust, but until I’m able to jet off somewhere, I’ll just have to find adventures on this side of the pond :)