Firenze

We arrived in Florence today around 1:00 PM. Mom was a little stressed about going through the subway in Rome to get to Termini to catch the train to Firenze. She was also a little stressed about us having no money and neither of our ATM cards wanting to work. We (well, I) came up with a new phrase. "Be Italian!"
The Italians are so passionate but don't really seem to get too stressed. As opposed to the Croatians who seemed pretty glum while we were there. We want mom to embrace her Italian side.

We checked in at Hotel Casci, and went immediately to our favorite restaurant - ZaZa! For a little more then the price of our horrible meals in Rome, we ate bruschetta, papardelle with boar's sauce, ravioli with walnut sauce, chicken with truffle sauce, tenderloin and ravioli with a beef ragu - topped off with house wine. Amazing!

After our meal we finally had a chance to do what Mom has been dying to do the whole trip - shop! We wandered through the white tented market area near Via Cavour. There was a lot of merchandise - some tacky but most of it actually good. I bought a scarf. Rachel bought a hat and scarf. And the most anticipated purchase of the whole trip was finally completed- Alex's leather jacket. He spent nearly 3 months of allowance as well as some incentive reading program money. But, he thinks it was worth it.

We are now back in our hotel - journaling, blogging, talking, playing DS and relaxing.