Our last day....

Haley here. Its almost midnight here and we are all about to head to bed. Wanted to brief you on our day before we started our last day in Europe. Today, we toured Florence. Family, get excited! You all have Christmas presents!!! And I feel like I did quite a good job of shopping in Europe. Didnt spend a lot of money and bought quality presents that I think each of you will like! We are staying in a hostel called PLUS in Florence. Last minute book, but has proved to be very nice..it even has a swimming pool! We have 3 other girls in our room..one goes to Vandy, 1 to University of Virginia and one is canadian and at the University of Montreal. The American girls are studying abroad in Barcelona this semester so they are ending their time here in Europe. The Canadian girl has been all over Europe for the past 3 months. Super fun girls, we have had fun getting to know them.

Today, we started our day by heading to the train station. Last night, we found out that we will not be able to stay with the Rogers family in Munich, but no problem. It actually works out great. We are able to spend all day tomorrow in Florence and then get on a train at 9:30 pm that heads to Munich. We will get to Munich about 6:30 am and then catch a short train to Frankfurt. We will get to Frankfurt on Tuesday morning about 9:30; our plan leaves at 2:10. So, we will be sleeping on the train on Tuesday night, but dont worry, the trains are all completely safe and nice. So today, we went and booked our reservation for the train and then headed off to explore Florence. We first found the market place that had TONS of everything for sale! Italy is known for its leather and boy did they have some leather! Great fun doing a little shopping on our way to the Academia Gallery. This Gallery used to be the art school where Michaelangeo, Di Vinci, Giotto, Rafael and many other studied. These guys were the main stream artists of the beginning of the Renaissance and they all happened to be from Florence and studied and painted here. Is artistic talent in the water here? Maybe I should drink more of it....

At the Academia Gallery, among many great pieces of art, we saw the David. Amazing!! Its HUGE!!! I never imagined it to be so big. Cameras were not allowed but i snuck a picture in of David before I was caught, it was worth the chance. and my flash was off so in now way did i damage the art work:) After the David experience, we went back into the town where we explored a little...saw the Duomo, watched a marathon being run, cheered on some Italians that were struggling in the race, shopped a little more, and went to the Uffizi Museum. Again, an amazing museum with work from all the greats of the Renaissance, my favorite art period. It is still SO cool to be able to see all these pieces in real life. I studied them for so long, looked at pictures of them in books and memorized tons of information about them, but am just now able to see them in person. Great!

After the Uffizi, my brain was kinda full, but we headed out again to see more of Florence. We saw the bridge that has lots of stores on the bridge. Tons of jewelry stores with lots of diamonds! I took lots of pictures of rings that i like..you know, for ideas for the future. We headed back to our hostel, walked back through the market on the way. Ended out having to buy another suitcase for all our purchases, and made it back "home." We got back in time to meet our new friends, have dinner, and the hostel was showing Pirates of the Carribean so we watched the movie.

And that was our day. Everyone is in bed now...its been a long day. We have packed mostly. We have to check out of the hostel by 10am tomorrow. We will leave our bags in the locked luggage room they have, head to Pisa for the day and see the leaning tower they are crazy about, and spend the day there. We will get back from Pisa about 4 and have a few more hours in Florence before we catch our train at 9:30.

So thats it. Cant believe the trip is coming to an end, but i am so ready to see everyone! I called Dan today to see how his CPA test went. He answered and said, " Since your calling, im guessing your home..." Of course, i had to say no, but i wanted to say yes! I am ready to hang out with you guys. But this trip has indeed proved to be a trip of a lifetime. It has been a ton of fun, with some great experiences, some great memories and a ton of things learned. I am so glad I came. I was worried about the trip. A girl in my small group told me it would be absolutely freezing, very expensive and extremely hard. None of those things have proved to be true. It has been a little cold at times, but the last few days, I havent even had to wear my big coat, just my brown North Face. And while I have spent a little above my budget, my budget was $280 so lets be honest, that would be hard to do. And my spending is still very low, so I feel like I did pretty good for 14 days in Europe. So goodnight, love you, miss you! Will probably be able to jump on for a little while tomorrow but just in case we cant, see you Tuesday night!! We land at 9:30!