Florence Post #2

Good Morning (For Us) Everyone,

Kristina and I just finished having breakfast in our hostel here in Florence, or Firenze as it is called in Italian. I just want to stress again how awesome this place is. It's called Ostello Archi Rossi, and not only do they have free breakfast and dinner, but they cook it made to order! Also, as you'll hopefully see from the few pictures below, it's just stunning! Anyway, check out the pics for more details...



This is me in front of the hostel, on a nondescript alleyway called Via Faenze. It never ceases to amaze us that everything looks small and like nothing to speak of from the outside, but is usually sprawling and beautiful on the inside! Seriously, without having booked the hostel in advance, it's likely we would just walked past it and never thought twice. Makes you wonder what other things are hidden behind closed doors!

This is the courtyard inside the hostel, literally right outside our room! A courtyard, in a hostel!?! Yeah, pretty cool. Only downside was the mosquitos, which Kristina got attacked by last night. She got like 3 huge bites literally within 10 seconds of sitting down! They must like her because she is so sweet!

This is what the interior of the hostel looks like. There are sculptures as well as large paintings and murals everywhere! In the spaces in between the artwork, there is tagging and messages written all over the walls. They encourage it! Kinda neat, like a guestbook inscribed into the building itself. The place definitely has personality, and a wonderful atmosphere. Only downside is our Asian roomates... They kept Kristina up all night with their snoring (sensing a trend...), and woke her up with literally 3 minutes straight of ring tone this morning. Would not shut it off! Also, they apparently like it blazing hot at night time, because they consistently turn off the air conditioning before going to bed. Kristina had to wake up our other roomates (non-Asian) at 3:00 AM to try to figure out how to turn it back on because it was literally too hot to sleep! As Kristina put it the other night, "We're not very good at making Asian friends..." Nothing against them, but the cultural barrier is apparently a bit wider than we might have thought... Oh the things one discovers when travelling! And we're in Europe!

As I mentioned earlier, breakfast at this place is awesome (Well, to be fair, it's all relative. The last place had NO breakfast, so maybe we're just biased!). You pick what you want from a menu of 10 choices, and they cook it hot for you then and there. I had an egg sandwich, and Kristina had scrambled eggs. Funny anecdote: The menu number for Kristina's scrambled eggs was 8, but it looked like it meant that they were giving you 8 scrambled eggs! Kristina, confused, said, "I don't want 8 scrambled eggs, I just want like 1 or 2!" Awesome. Also, apparently the milk is a bit different over here, because after specifically asking for milk with ice, Kristina tasted it and was severely dissapointed! Perhaps, as ever, our expectations ride just a little to high! :)


As high maintenance as this makes us sound, it really isn't like that. But the stories are true, and fun to convey! Kristina has been fantastic, in fact the only charge that could be levied against her is that she is human, and wants to eat like at least 2 meals a day! Can you believe her! How unreasonable! Ryan is attempting to abate hunger by sheer force of will, like a Jedi you might say, but eventually will see the light. Hopefully sooner rather than later, or Kristina will be changing her flight!

Alright, well we'd better stop blogging and start seeing the city! Today we'll be exploring the town of Florence itself, so we'll be sure to post some pictures of our discoveries. First impressions: It is really neat here, easy to see why it was the center of the Renaissance. This is the city of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, and others, and it shows through in every single building and street.

Have a great weekend everyone, and expect more posts to come (We LOVE free internet!). I intend to put up some instructions on commenting on our posts, as well as a feature on Kristina's brother Matt's girlfriend Kirsten, who plays for the Great Britain National Softball Team. They'll be going to the world championships next year, wooo hooo! We have pics, and we'll post them later.

Alright, love you guys, Ciao!

Ryan