my dad couldnt see the blue on black....so now it's white there ya go dad!!

Thursday (day 1)
We arrived in Nice, where we switched trains to Florence. We got a couchette, and began drinking some nasty liquor. There were two Italians in our train. They spoke French so we talked with them a lot...probably more than we should have because we were pretty drunk. We were supposed to get off the train in Pisa and switch to another connecting train to Florence. But we passed out really late, and we woke up at like 5 am realizing that we had slept through the alarm clock. In a panic we all grabbed our stuff and ran off the train. Jake got off the train on the wrong side and found himself on the tracks with another train coming right at him, he was able to make it onto the other platform just in time. He almost got a ticket for doing whatever it was that he did. We sat around this train station and waited for a train to Florence which came after about a 40 minute wait. The wait was cold, we had no idea where we were, but luckily to take the train in Italy, you dont need any reservations, if you have a eurorail you can just get on and ride.
Tired and hung over, we finally made it to Florence, where we walked around for a really really long time to find our hostel, which was really nice, and pretty affordable. You are able to walk to most place in Florence in a few minutes so the location was fine. Because we arrived at our hostel at like 12 noon we took like a 3 hour nap and then went out for some food.
After the food we thought we should go see the statue David by Michelangelo. While walking to find the museum, within about a 30 minute time span i stepped on the back of Jake's Birkenstock sandal by accident like 3 times. I felt really really bad about it and I could tell it was really starting to drive him crazy. It would have made me mad too, but it was really an accident. oh well, he got over it in a hurry. And the statue was the coolest piece of artwork I'd ever seen.
We later called Christine who was visiting her boyfriend who studied in Florence. We went over to his apartment and partied with them for a while and made plans to meet up on Saturday. Then went home around midnight or one oclock

Jake and Ethan on the dance floor
Saturday (day 2)
I woke up around 9 am because I have class in Aix every day at that time which stops me from being able to sleep in. I could tell my roommates were going to be sleeping for a while so i got up and walked around town, went to the market where they sell all kinds of stuff, had a coffee, bought a News Week, and killed about 3.5 hours exploring the town. I liked the mornings that I spent exploring the towns while the rest of my people slept.
I went back and met up with the guys and we all headed out to go meet christen and Bo for lunch. We went to a good little sandwich shop. After the sandwich shop we went to a giant cathedral and i cant remember the name right now, and after we went to that we waited through a really long line to see the Duomo. It was about 500 steps to the top and when you're in a spiral staircase to the top that can seem like a lot of stairs. The painting in the Dome was unbelievable. On the bottom was a seen from hell, in the middle was earth, and on the top of the dome was heaven. It was so big and there was so much too look at. Out on the observation deck you could see the whole town. I hope my pictures turn out well from there, check the website in few days and they should be up there.
After looking at the large buildings we went to the grocery store bought some meat, bread, and wine, and went back to our hostel. We showered, ate, and drank. After hanging around the hostle doing all that we went over to Bo's awesome apartment and the 5 of us all went to this really cool dance club where a girl from our program had rented out a section of the bar. It was pretty cool because we got some free champagne and cake because of this girl! We had a great time at that cool dance club then called it a night around 4-5 oclock.

This restaurant was know as "the cock" because they decided to decorate with roosters. I had spaghetti with wild boar, and Jake had wild boar in chocolate sauce. We really liked that place!
Sunday (day 3)
I woke up at 9 oclock again. I did about the same routine as the day before only with more walking and more exploring because less shops were open. I guess that's a European thing to not work on Sundays.
After the guys woke up we just kinda wandered around the town aimlessly because most things were closed. Ethan and Jake used the internet for like 30 minutes while I called Brooke and the Parents. After just trying to kill time we decided to go get Gelato for like the 10th time the two days. Supposedly Florence is the best know city to get gelato and we found the place that the "lets go" book ranked no. 1 in Florence. So by default I think we had the best gelato in the world.
we wasted the rest of the day then at 10 oclock at night we went and caught the train out to Vienna.
A friend of ours at IAU was celebrating her friends birthday at this club. They rented out this area, we got cake and champagne there. VIP.
Jesse, Bo, and Ethan. We were at Bo's place, it was an awesome apartment, Bo was a good man. He looks a lot like Justin Timberlake.
Jake and Ethan at the top of the Duomo with Florence in the background