Friday in Florence

Today I woke up to our upstairs neighbor ringing our doorbell. Its 11 am and I am not at all ready to get up. But I really wanted to get tickets to the February 24th Fiorentina vs AC Milan game, and I told her I would walk with her when she got her tickets so I could buy some too. The tickets are pretty cheap, only 14 Euro through FlorenceforFun. I am really excited for the game, even though I have never really cared at all about the sport until coming here (minus the Latham Circle Soccer days). Only a few of my house mates are going since we have Italian class Wednesday night. I think an AC Milan game is definitely worth a skip though. For a 6 credit course like my Italian language course, we are allowed 3 absences before our final grade is lowered. I will be cutting it close, as I have all 3 of my skips already planned (AC Milan game, Greece Spring Break, Munich Beerfest). Its risky but I think its worth it. I may never come back to Florence again, who knows?

For lunch I finally went to the sandwich shop that everyone has been raving about, Oil Shop. The place was packed and it sounds like it stays that way until around 2:30 when they run out of inventory. Its a very popular place, especially among the American students. They have a special for a sandwich, fries, and a water for 5 Euro. I ordered a meatball sub on a "hungry" sized roll. It came with peppers and onions and was very spicy. It was a great meal and really filled me up. The fries were very quality too, especially compared to the ones in Italy. I'll definitely be going back there to try out all the other sandwich varieties.

We finally went to the Uffizi Gallery for the first time today. After debating with myself for awhile, I decided to purchase the Amici degli Uffizi pass (friends of the Uffizi) for 40 Euro, which gives free unlimited entry to all state operated museums in Florence. I figured it would pay off since I will probably be going to the Uffizi and the Academia more than once. Plus we get to cut lines. There are a lot of places I will want to visit on the weekends when I stay in Florence too. I don't know how anyone can appreciate the Uffizi in one day. We were there for probably an hour and barely covered an inch of what it had to offer. Unfortunately cameras are not allowed in the Uffizi Gallery, so I don't have any pictures to attach but I will try to sneak a few good ones in the upcoming months.

Kevin and I ran to the track again today and were finally able to meet up with Manfredi, the coach of the Florence running club. He recommended some good routes and is trying to get us in contact with a couple possible training partners. I still can't get over how nice this track facility is. At night (6:30) it looked even nicer with the stadium lights on. The knee is feeling better and slowly but surely I'm trying to make running a regular part of my day. Ok I need to get to bed soon. I'll be waking up in just over 5 hours to leave for Rome this weekend. Rome post coming Monday.