6/17/2011 Florence, Italy 22:00

I woke up this morning by the phone ringing in a beautiful hotel room with a slightly confusing bathroom. Mostly cuz it had a bidet in it. (pictures to come.) We had a dessert buffet called breakfast and went on our way because we had a 3 hour drive to pisa, and i think you know where this is going-the leaning tower of pisa. but, before we got there, we wanted lunch, so we ate at a gas station cafe that sold us delicious sandwiches, soda, and dessert. after this refreshment, we drove the last 20 minutes into pisa and parked. we walked over to the leaning tower. We took a few pictures outside of ti before it was our time to go in. it was the weirdest feelings walking up those steps. sometimes it felt like i was going uphill, sometimes it felt like i was going down the steps i was actually going up, and the rest of the time it just felt like i was leaning to one side or the other. i did experience vertigo when i was on the outside, but it wasn't excessive, so it was alright. (they let you out on the 4th floor and the top. you can also go up to the very top above the belfries.) Going back down was harder for me-i felt less stable. It was really an amazing experience though. I realized that i know basically nothing about the leaning tower except that its leaning-homework assignment for me; find out why it was built. We also went through the cathedral next to the tower. something i've found interesting in Italy in Italy is that in holy places they enforce modesty. they have pieces of fabric to tie around your shoulders if you're wearing a tank top or your waist if your shorts are really short. Well, after the cathedral, we piled back into the car, ate our gas station dessert, and headed out to Vinci, as in Leonardo de Vinci. We looked at a museum of models of machines he designed. It was so cool! we also hiked the stairs to the top of a bell tower. Lots of stairs. The view up there is so amazing, it looked like a painting. That was all we saw in Vinci, and we started the drive to florence. let me tell you, when we got over the Arno river into florence, we got lost a lot before finding our hotel. this was partially because tomtom got confused and told us to go the wrong way down one way streets. Eventually we got there, but they told us they put us in another building, so we walked over there and went up this kinda scary looking street and went into a dimly lit building up to the third floor dimly lit rooms where we were going to stay. let me just say, i was disappointed. this place isn't very nice, but at least it has AC. (And also a bidet, in case you were wondering about that.) It took us a while to get into the rooms because we had struggles opening/unlocking the doors, and we thought one was dead bolted, but it wasn't. After resting for a little, we went to a restraunt recommended by the hotel people. we started looking at the menu and i'm pretty sure my dad just about had a heart attack, the prices were so high. well, after a few minures, he walked up to the counter and started asking about meal options and came back with a different menu with 4 options each first course and second course. it was all super delicious! I had noodles with a tomatoe sauce and then a curry dish with peas. It was all insanely good and authentic italian food. After dinner we went back to our hotel and went to bed.