Just a Typical Weekend in Florence

Last night, our regular group of five met up for dinner at our apartment. We had Fettuccini with Kale, Chickpeas, and Tomatoes. Only instead of kale we used spinach, since we had a giant bag of spinach left over from Thursday's dinner (bruschetta, pizza, and a spinach salad with strawberries, blood oranges, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette).
It was good, and we had some yummy peachy strawberry-y drinks after dinner. Then we got all dressed up in dresses and went out on the town for White Night, another awesome thing to do in Florence. They have it every year. Lots of places in town stay open all night long and there are people EVERYWHERE! There's music and other random events. We didn't really have anywhere to go. We just wandered around the town for a while until we got too tired and went home.

Today, Lindsey and I went to lunch. We were going to eat at a place called ZaZa. Lindsey got to our apartment and I met her downstairs. We started to walk to the restaurant, but we heard something that sounded like a parade, so we followed it.

We ended up in Piazza della Repubblica, the square closest to our apartment. There was a big crowd, and in the middle there was a band of drummers, and it was awesome. Then a lady on stage said something after they finished. Everyone laughed. Lindsey and I laughed because we figured we should. Then everyone dispersed. So we started to head for the restaurant, but then to our left we saw some stands that looked to us like they might be food-related.

The first stand was a booth with brochures about the Italian Slow Food movement. They were all in Italian, so we couldn't really read them. The next three booths were sandwiches. A man gave Lindsey and I each a big salami sandwich. It. Was. Awesome!

Is this real life?

We walked around eating our salami sandwiches. Which tasted like bologna sandwiches. But were delicious. And free.

Then, we went back for goat cheese sandwiches from another booth.

We felt like we shouldn't just keep this to ourselves, so we decided to tell Meghan and Hannah about it. They met up with us there just as we were getting some rice with some spicy chicken in gravy on top. They also had rice with veggies on top. For free.

So great!

So, two sandwiches and a plate of meat and rice later, I was stuffed. We didn't have to go to ZaZa afterall!

On the way home, we walked into the Palazzo Strozzi, because there was this awesome structure made out of tape. It was like a hollow web built inside of this palace. It's here through May 20.

Tape!

Now, your JS update.

Apartment

That is our apartment building, from the outside.

On the left, you'll see on the very, very left side, a door with a rounded arch doorway and a window on each side. That's the main JS door. The second door on the right side (other street) is the one that goes up to our apartment. On the way up to our apartment is another door leading into the JS house. And somewhere in the midst of that building is an open space where we can look out from our window and see their deck. Get it?

Italy has confusing buildings.