I can’t believe I’ll be leaving Firenze soon. Sad, sad times! I’ve gotten so used to the language, people, and life here that it would be weird to leave. I’m gonna miss my Italian class, Ida, gelato (even though I’ll still be able to have some in Rome and Venice), grocery shopping at Billa and Centro, the Duomo :( Wah, ok moving on to less depressing topics.

Last Saturday, I went on a trip with the school to go on a “Tuscany tour.” We got to see Monteoliveto, Pienza, and Montepulciano. These little towns are deep in the heart of Tuscan hills, and are known for their cheese and wine. In Pienza, I tried ‘pici’ which is homemade spaghetti with pecorino sauce I think. Omg, it was so delish! Montepulciano is where New Moon was actually filmed in (not Volterra).

Sunday, we had nothing planned so we decided to cross some things off our list. (‘things to do/try/eat before we leave’ list). We crossed off lunch at ZaZa, where I had this super amazing ravioli with truffle sauce. Bombtastic. It kinda reminded me of the pasta I got at Golden View my first night in Florence. After lunch, we went to the Academia and saw the statue of David (the real one). He’s so much bigger than the replicas! After that we got granitas, a must on a hot summery day!— It’s getting hotter and more humid here, kind of gross. Then we went over to the Pitti Palace and checked out some other museums, then took a stroll in the Boboli Garden. I never realized how huge the garden is! It’s like 10x bigger than the Palace, and the palace is pretty enormous! For dinner, we planned on having bistecca alla fiorentina (massive Florentine steak), but decided we weren’t hungry enough for it. We were kinda bummed since we’ve been looking forward to it all weekend, but for sure it’s going down this Friday! No exceptions. Instead, we went to Tijuana and got nachos and burritos instead. haha After dindin, we walked up to Michelangelo since we’ve never been there at night. We chilled there for a while and had sangria while enjoying the majestic views of the city.

Our final weeks/days in Florence will definitely be spent devouring many Italian noms. Today was the start of the gelato festival and we def celebrated by gelateria hopping. We got gelato from 3 different places, one after the other. And we’ll probably get some more later. I don’t know why we hadn’t thought of this before. And we just got an unexpected call from Chiara inviting us to dinner at Golden View, aka my favorite restaurant eva. Just as we thought we’d never be able to go back there since it doesn’t fit our budget.. Well I guess we’re getting free dinner tonight! :) I won’t be surprised if I get into a food coma tonight. Besides, I need it anyway since I got practically no sleep last night because the mosquito situation is getting a little out of hand. They’re driving me insane!

On a brighter note, I’m so stoked for Roma this weekend!!