Saturday Night

Alright so last night Cait, Christi, and I went up to the Palazzo Michelangelo around dusk for a a spectacular view of the city below. We sat on the steps in order to watch the city ease into the night. There were a lot of people about, and it was really enjoyable for us three to sit, talk, and relish the view. We are seriously spoiling our eyes with all this beauty around us. Then our friend Andrew called and we met up with him and 2 of his roommates at Dublin Pub, a bar in the historic part of Florence, around 10:45 We spent a good deal of time there, and we heard about a music festival called the Festival of Democracy. We head over there and music is going on everywhere. We watched a group of older men playing a instrumental rock set, as well as watched a group of dancers dancing a sort of salsa/merengue/samba mix. There were also several outdoor discotheques with lots of people dancing. Around 1:00 am, we realized Christi, Cait, and I had not had dinner yet and grabbed some kebob sandwiches at one of the stands at the festival. All 6 of us sat down for a while and the guys smoked hookah. Around 2 am the festival was over and we all decided to call it a night. We left the boys at there street and continued to walk alone to our apartment all the way across the city. The streets were completely empty except for drunken American students. I remember at one point we were walking and some American boys were being loud in the street. An Italian woman pops out of her window and threatens to call the police so they start screaming and cursing at her. Another time we were about to go down a particular street, but we saw more drunken American guys just shove over a moped so we back-tracked and looked for an alternative route. We got lost at some point and so a man approached us asking if we needed any help. Initially, I was weary of him, but he turned out to be a good-natured person. He introduced himself as Meeno. He is originally Egyptian, but resides in Italy. He knew an adequate amount of English and walked with us for a short distance until he thought we could figure out the rest of the way ourselves. He apologized for not being able to walk with us the whole way, but he had to meet his friend at the Duomo, which seemed funny considering it was 2:30 am by this point. He also told us if he ever saw us in the street, he would be sure to say hello. So his directions were gold and we managed to get home at 3 am. We went to bed around 5:30 am and woke up at 4 pm today. 

This has been a lazy Sunday in our flat- we just lounged around and then we made dinner. Pasta with tomatoe sauce and a fresh salad. We have a stellar gelato shop down the street from us right next to the Ponte Alla Carraia, so around 10:30 tonight we indulged ourselves and sat on our Ponte.