ciao italia!

this is my last post!

it's a pretty chilly day here. supposed to rain all night (hopefully it stops by 5 am-that's when we will be leaving the hostel). we just got back from our last walk around town. excluding tomorrow morning on the way to the bus station of course. we found out that there's an airport shuttle every half hour, and it's about a 10 minute walk to the station. $4.50 for a bus ticket is a lot nicer than $25 for a cab. 

our trips to siena & san gimignano were slightly less thrilling than we hoped. we walked around siena and ended up getting lost-kameron's little saying has become "we get off the train and wander around for 30 minutes, and then spend the next 2.5 hours finding our way back"...and trust me, that really did apply to basically all of our adventures. we didn't actually make it to san gimignano unfortunately. we got off at the correct train station, but for whatever reason could not find the town. instead we wandered around poggibonsi for awhile-feels like the italian version of anamosa or tiption according to kameron. 

on friday night we ended up finding this awesome restaurant called trattoria nerone. we weren't planning on going out, but we were both hungry and decided we could try something new. it was sooo good. we had the best bruschetta EVER and the rest of the food was amazing as well. kameron ordered stuffed rabbit...interesting. i tried it, and it wasn't bad, but not thrilling either. he also had these great roasted potatoes (what is getting in to me? i like potatoes?) we liked it so much that we ended up going back last night (saturday) for our final meal. we climbed michaelangelo's point for a final view of this beautiful city, and then came back to our apartment. the plan was to stay up late and then wake up late today, to try to get closer to being back on american time, but that didn't happen. i got tired too fast! 

today we have packed and cleaned up our apartment. it is so weird to see it so bare. we are grabbing our final italian pizza and bruschetta tonight from downstairs, and then probably spending a decent amount of time on the terrace before getting up at 4 am tomorrow. that will be interesting haha.

and because i enjoy making lists, here you go

things i will miss:

1. gelato from the "bermuda triangle"...the best flavors of gelato ever! coconut grove & nut lao

2. bruschetta from trattoria nerone-for not eating/liking tomatoes before coming to italy, i sure did eat a lot of bruschetta. i will admit that i picked a lot of tomatoes off though :) at least i tried!

3. truffle sauce!

4. italian style pizza

5. the san lorenzo leather market-never fails to amaze me at the random things found here. also never failed to amaze me at how persistent the leather merchants are.

things i will not miss:

1. euros/the conversion rate. the bronze coins are completely useless, and the conversion rate stinks.

2. ham. i have had enough! haha, at least for awhile.

3. $14 laundry. i dont mind doing laundry, but $14 to do it? no thanks.

4. the train-takes you to amazing places, but makes me soo nauseous.

5. our bunsen burner "stove"...useless for doing anything but cooking pasta and removing wine labels.

see you tomorrow!!!!

ciao :)

emily