Alright guys. I bet you are wondering what has happened to me? I mean where did the shanti shanti go? I must say, Europe kinda takes it out of you...

Right now i am sitting in an Internet cafe in the seedy part of Florence, if you can call any part of Florence seedy. Basically i stumbled one lonely day across this street that smelled like India. I saw stubbly men and dogs running past. You can guess the types of things i smelled. On my way i happened upon an Asian Grocery store where i bargained for 5 Mandarins for 80 cents (bloody cheap in Florence). Ahh I knew i was home. Anyways it was there that i found internet for 1€ an hour. AMAZING.

Then today i found cans of baked beans for 1€ in that same grocery shop. So now to give you a fully set scene, I am sitting in the cheap internet cafe, in the seedy part of Florence, eating bakedbeans with cornflakes. Yes, life is good.

Let me explain, Florence is absoloutly GORGEOUS! But it is ridiculously expensive. I mean Armani, Dolce and Fendi sit on the same corner. Opposite you have Gucci and Louis Vitton. This place is something else.

OH MY GOD i have to share with you, today i saw the Uffizi museum.. art museum.. We waited 2 hours to get in and then you see all this Christian artwork, BUT there are some GEMS, absolute GEMS.

Botticelli - the birth of Venus, is it?? and Spring? Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. then obviously one must admire Raphael. BUT can i say the True diamond was seeing Artemisia Gentileschi in the Flesh.. well her painting at least. See i studied it, and i just walked into this room and there it was - with some Caravaggio (obviously). Marvelous, really.

New years eve was a blast, we managed to traipse around Florence with no idea of where we actually were. Let's just say that at 5 in the morning i wasnt feeling so crash hot (thank you very much 10 euro sambuca).

Um... How have i gotten away with my backpacker shoes, you ask? Seeing as I am in Europe and people here are fashionable. Well, Ill tell you. I BOUGHT LEGWARMERS. They cover my shoes and people just think i making a fashion statement. This is great because it means i can buy stuff cheaper in Spain.. yeah baby.
We go to Geneva tonight and arrive in Paris tomorrow night.. im very excited. We have to sort of do Paris in a day, this means Louvre, Arc d triumph, Eiffel, Champs Elysse, montemarte (t night) and the notredame church thingamibov. I also wanted to make it to Picasso but i just dont think that will happen. but IT'S OKAY because Barcelona has a Picasso museum.
WOah. Yeh and what else? We also went to a food market and crossed the river today. We walked for 9 hours.. and my feet are now buzzing. Yesterday was great, everything in Florence was closed, so we got up late and then went for a walk around the cities piazzas. We then came back and slept. We then went back out, and you would never guess that we met up with an old school friend - Essie - and we had dinner.. well bec's and i did anyways.
The day before we saw David, went shopping and saw the Duomo before New years. Did i mention our first night in Florence? Oh god im going backwards, but our first night we had been in the city for 2 hours when we happened upon a bar that had happy hour. Oh yes, becky and I managed to get ourselves completely drunk by 6.30pm and stumbling across Florence, in a desparate attempt to find out hostel, food and a bathroom. After many wrong turns we found a place and we asked to use their bathroom. They said
'You can only use if you eat'
'Well what do you have?' we ask
'Zuppa (soup)'
'Oh yeh, that looks good enough. Now where's the bathroom'.
Then we managed to find Gelato on the way home... yum Coconut.... (im not sure if i wrote this story already but it was funny at the time...

Hello Geneva, I say. Did you know there is a Red Cross Museum? fun fun fun...

HAHAHAHA i just put spell check on and the entire thing went up in yellow as spelt wrong.. BECAUSE IT'S ALL ITALIAN.. heheh