Today is a day of rest! Yesterday we got up and went to the train at 6 30am. It took about 3.5 hours to get to Florence but it was a great day. We even enjoy the train rides, with all the interesting people and countryside to view. We're considering stating a sing-along or musical chairs on the next trip.

Well, Florence, as you may or may not know is in the region of Tuscany, it is also the birthplace of the Author of Pinocchio and home to oh so many statues! It is also a city with SO many tourists, it's crazy. We enjoyed more 1000 year old buildings, bridges, churches and statues. It's so interesting to see history come alive. Like all the statues of the Greek gods. It's kind of freaky to read the signs that explain about them, they are so morbid and violent.

I think Hannah's favorite part of these cities are the shops and Shane's is the pigeons. He fed them some Museli in the plaza but then got in trouble by the police. They don't want to encourage the pigeons to come because the acid in their poop ruins the monuments-isn't that great to know!

Just before that happened we asked a nice policeman for directions to a water fountaina nd a public toilet (WC) those two are very hard to come by in Italy. The WC we found about eight allies away and you had to pay for it and the fountain was a tiny trickle coming out of an acient lions mouth dripping into a basin of algea- hows that for a picture of Tuscany?

After our sip of water we went to an old bridge. It was built by the romans aroung the year 1000, then over the centuries was added onto bit by bit and about 500 years ago they built shops on it and that is how it is today, all jewelry shops.

We ended our day with the train ride home, entertained by Shane singing. We usually have dinner at about 8. We got home close to 10 and found bread, cheese, fruits and veggies waiting on our table... Raffaella's parents are so sweet. If you remember we are staying in the house next door where her granfather used to live.

I will update pictures soon and tomorrow we are off to Milan to visit Marco, who was also an exchange student in Sac with Raffaella.