Firenze

After a great Friday in Rome beginning with a fabulous run through the Villa Bourghese, I was off to Florence to visit Meredith for the weekend. I arrived Friday night and we went to dinner at this great place called Il Latini. My mom and I had gone there before and loved it. There is no menu, the chef basically decides the meal for you, and the seating is communal so you never know who you'll end up with... The two of us were seated with these two middle aged men traveling on business from France and Brasil. It sounds like it should've been awkward but we had a great time and were actually the last table left in the restaurant! It was hysterical. The food was incredible and we ate enough for the entire weekend, but had the best time. Thank you Mom for treating us all the way from Charleston! Wish you could've been there with us!!

Saturday, Burney Pollock (Meredith's roommate at Georgia, and Eleni's best friend from Macon, GA) arrived with her dad to Florence. Burney is going to be an au pair for a family in Reggio nell'Emilia in northern Italy. Burney's dad was so nice as always, and wined and dined us all weekend! We had the best time and owe him many thanks!! I enjoyed walking around Florence on Saturday. Saturday night we took a cab up to Piazza Michelangelo, which overlooks the whole city, to have a drink before dinner. We had a great dinner afterwards at a local place that Meredith's family recommended to us. Sunday morning, we went to Mass at the Duomo. It was surreal to be there for Mass, absolutely beautiful. We went to an amazing lunch afterwards at my new favorite place in Florence, and sat outside on the river. We relaxed the rest of the afternoon on the beautiful courtyard of Meredith's house. It was such a wonderful weekend! So great to see both of them!

Knowing how much I love Florence, I expected to visit this weekend and return envious that I was not spending my year in that beautiful place that I so adore. But upon arriving in Rome last night, I got this incredible feeling like I was returning home, somewhere so comfortable and fitting. I am so happy here and really enjoying being in such a big city. It is such a great feeling and I feel so lucky to be here!

I don't have too much planned for this week... several play dates and birthday parties after school, and we're off to Copenhagen on Friday morning for a long weekend. It should be very relaxing- the home exchange they did was with a house in the countryside, and Shana said it should be beautiful. I'm looking forward to traveling with them and getting to see Copenhagen for the first time!