Italy - Florence

We left Genoa after a couple hours and headed towards Pisa, where we had to transfer once more.. I contemplated hopping out of the station to check out the leaning tower, but we only had about 15 mins.

Anywhoo.. we eventually arrived in Florence. A nice Australian/Italian woman gave us her map of Florence along with some helpful tips. Shortly after exiting the train station, a little girl ran up to me with change in her hand. She kept saying cinque chente or something like that.. and gesturing with her hand.. Bobo said maybe she wants change for a five. I wasnt really paying attention.. (I think I was mulling over the 20 Euro fine).. so without thinking I took out some change from my pocket. The little girl quickly picked all the Euro coins (left the swiss francs).. and just as I realized I was getting robbed, she ran away. It all happened in a matter of seconds.. I felt really stupid afterwards.. I remember telling myself I wasnt going to get robbed or pick pocketed.. I was even paranoid about it from time to time.. Oh well.. I dont know why I'm rambling about it now.. I guess just to set the mood.. It was overcast, the rain arrived soo after I was robbed by the little one.. Suffice it to say, I wasn't in a good mood.. Bobo, on the other hand kept laughing the whole time.. heheh.. thats what friends are for eh! :) To make matters worse, it took us a while to find our hostel (in heavier rain, and we were too cheap to buy umbrellas), and when we did, the fools at the desk made a mistake and gave our reserved beds to someone else..hehe.. we just had to laugh at our poor luck.

We didn't stay in Florence for very long.. the weather was terrible.. and our room mates, Thomas and Bob (Brits) were excessive snorers.. Bobo and I managed to walk around most of the city the next day.. We didn't go into any buildings though, although we should have probably checked out the huuuuge one (I think it was called the Duomo, or something like that).. There was a long line up though, it was raining, it wasn't free, we were tired, and most importantly we were hungry.. so instead we looked for a place to eat... We just tried to enjoy the city, the people, the outdoors since we didnt have much time.

Here's are two pics Bobo took from our hostel window..







Breathe that air!!



At one point we wandered away from the tourist areas.. It was nice, not seeing so many Americans.



The University of Waterloo (my Almamaaata) has a replica of this exact Boar on it's campus just outside the Modern Languages Building. They say it's good luck to touch the nose of this beast. Bobo and I bumped into the original purely by accident.. I recognized his snout immediately and just had to give it a pat! :)



This is a replica of David.. the real one was in the huuuuge cathedral.





There were lots of market stalls around this area.







Another one of Bobo's pics



The next few pics are of the huge cathedral.. I wish I had more pics, but my camera was out of service during our stay in Florence, and Bobo had limited memory on his.













You can imagine how hard it was to fit this building through the lens!!