Day 21: Florence, Italy

We woke up early to stand in line for the Basilica. We stood in line for about 45 minutes before it opened and good thing we did because the line got crazy. We met some really nice people in line from California and Jersey so it was cool to talk to people and know the places that they were talking about.

The church was beautiful, of course. We couldn't go up to the top as it was fully booked for the next two days, but we were happy with what we saw. We then went to Piazza Michaelangelo and had a really nice view of the city. We sat there for a bit just taking in the view. We also wanted to see the gardens so we took a walk over and walked around for a bit. The botanicals were closed as apparently they were being worked on so we didn't get to see them, but it was still worth the visit.

After being out for a good eight hours, we headed back for some showers and took time to cool off (we were the only two in the room so we got to have the fans directly on us, it was heaven).

On our way to the Galleria dell'Accademia, to see good old David, we stopped to get some gelato (no surprise there). I had dark chocolate and After Eight and it was really good until I tasted Zoe's chocolate mousse gelato and that was on another level. We ate our ice cream while we walked over to the museum and it turned out to be pretty cool.

The Statue of David was huge and made of marble. We got to see a bunch of other paintings and statues during our tour. I can't get over how much detail was can be sculpted out of marble and even plaster. Thank god we went at 8 at night because there was a lot less people and we got in pretty easily and were able to really appreciate it all.

When we got back, I chatted with our Australian and New Zealand roommates who were really nice. Apparently New Zealand-ers are referred to as Kiwis because they are named after their national bird. They showed it to me and it's one of the funniest looking birds, I encourage you to google it.Read more