Public Transportation success!

Week #2 went by great! Since I do not make my management class anymore, I have more free time on tuesdays. I decided I would use tuesdays to explore Florence, since it has so much to offer. Last tuesday I went down to Palazio Pitti and into the Bobli Gardens. It was amazing! The palace is just huge and majestic and you can go about Florence without even noticing it, I know I did the first time I was here. It was really nice to sit down at the gardens and read for my classes!

Thursday night we had a small un-planned DU girls reunion on the streets of Florence and that was a really good time. I hadn't seen Lizz in a while so that was nice!

Friday morning I got up a little bit early and hit the Mercato Centrale. I had to go to a market for a "looking assignment" for my Mediterranean Diet class. I really enojed the market and loved all the food they had to offer. Best find: NUTS. The day before, Laura and I had gone looking for nuts to snack on at the supermarket and found none. Well, I found a bunch here and super cheap!

Later that day, Laura and I decided we wanted Mexican food for lunch, we were a little done with Italian food. Well, turns out Tijuana, the mexican restaurant is closed for lunch, GREAT. So we headed on over to The Diner, that has tyipical american food. I had a grilled cheese (on whole wheat bread, which is rare here) and some fries, it was amazing. Then, we started on our hunt for bus tickets and a bus schedule to go up to Fiesole.

Fiesole is on the outsides of Florence but is still technically a part of the city. We were told the views form there were amazing and totally worth the 1.50 euro bus ticket. Well, we were told that we could find bus schedules and tickets at any "tabacchi". Well, when we asked for a schedule at the first two that we saw, the people looked at me like I was asking for free wine. We had walked towards Piazza Savonarola (where our school is located) because I was convinced that it was Bus #7 that took us to Fiesole and that it stoped there. Turns out, bus #7 did not stop at P.Savonarola. Gaaaa. Frustrating.

We were about to give up when we saw one more Tabacchi. I figured, thrid time is the charm, right? So insted of asking for the schedule I asked what bus went to Fiesole (it was #7), then asked for two tickets (they sold them there) and asked the kind gentleman where I could take bus #7. Turns out, there was a stop on Piazza de la Libertad, which is 2 blocks from school. SUCCESS!

Finding said bus stop was a little harder since P. de la Libertad is kinda big (tipo el obelisco en Guate). We found one that said bus #7 and then realized it was in the wrong direction, so we looked around and finally saw two buses pull up to, what we hoped, would be the correct stop. Indeed it was. After waiting for about 8 minutes our bus came and we were on our way! We arrived to Fiesole and the views, from the bus, were amazing. As soon as we got off we started exploring and just walked "up". We are not exactly sure if at one point we may have invaded private property, but oh well. We kept trying to take pictures but the photos did NOT do the view justice. We ended up doing a full loop of the town, met two adorable old ladies (who DID NOT know how to use a camera), had some gelato and bruscetta and headed home.

Turns out, Fiesole has some pretty impressive archeological ruins that we missed.... so I guess we will have to go back! I also heard there was some very good indian food up there..... so that is going on the to-do list for Florence!

That night Lizz and Isabelle made us some delicious egg-wraps for dinner, we ventured to The Diner for the second time in one day in search of apple pie (which they were out of!) and called it a night. Laura and I were heading to Cinque Terre on Saturday and Lizz and her friends were going to Siena and San Gimingiano so we all had early mornings.