Earlier this week, my grandparents, uncle and aunt, and two cousins came to Florence for ten days. I met up with them throughout the entire week (mostly for dinners, as I was busy during the day). It was so good to see familiar faces and to catch up with them. Tuesday was the last day of the gelato festival up at Piazza Michelangelo, so my family, Leigh and I hiked up to the piazza where we tasted twenty different flavors of gelato. Most of them were doozies but there were a couple good ones. We could vote on a favorite and hopefully, help them become the Best Gelato Shop in the world (the festival was a part of a traveling competition).
FRIDAY
My friend Katy, a high school friend studying abroad in Ireland, came to Italy for the weekend. We started off going to La Milkeria for breakfast. I then had to go to class while Katy checked into her hostel. We decided to go to the Boboli Gardens and wander around the large complex.
Afterwards, we went to an early dinner at Dantes, and at the end of the meal, they gave us free limoncello shots, that weren’t very good. We wanted to catch the sunset at Piazza Michelangelo, so we made our way to the top. It was incredibly crowded when we got there (we weren’t the only ones with that idea). Luckily, we got to the front right as the sun was going behind the mountains. We stayed there for about an hour and a half.
SATURDAY
My parents had been bugging me about going to the Opificio delle pietre dure, a lesser known semi-precious stone museum, right near where I live. I finally made it there, and it was ok. It wasn’t like my parents described (they said it was replicas of paintings, but made entirely out of stone), but some parts were interesting. There were only four or five stone “painting replicas” on display.
Afterwards, we went to the Central Market to eat some lunch. We both got pesto pasta, and it was delicious. We went back to my apartment to do homework, and we decided to take a day trip out to Cinque Terre on Sunday. Katy wanted Mexican food, so we went to Tijuana for dinner. For sunset, we went out to look at the Ponte Vecchio from Ponte Santa Trinita.
I had a happy accident with my camera tonight. I was trying to take a picture of the Ponte alla Carraia, but accidentally switched my camera setting to Aperture Priority and took a picture. In the middle of taking the picture, I realized the shutter was open for longer than I had expected, and so I moved the camera down until the shutter closed. I figured that the picture was going to be a doozy, but I got this instead. I was so pleased with the turnout that I tried doing the same thing, but did a different motion each time.
125 Adventures 