Florence, Italy

Italia!Italia! Florencia! Florencia! We are still in Italia(Jan. 2,2007)! Look at this view !!! Out of all the countries this was definitely the best one because we loved the food and being able to speak Spanish all day. For some reason there where allot of nude statues all over the place. The most famous one being the David Statue. Here is a replica of it since the real one had a 2 hour line to see it. I had to make David decent by adding some leaves (this is a family oriented blog):

Here we are walking around town, everything looked super cute with their X-mas decorations.

We had a chance to see the crowning architectural jewel of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, known as "The Dome".

We also got to see The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery of St John) which is believed to be the oldest building in Florence. Michelangelo referred to these doors as fit to be the "Gates of Paradise", and the name stuck for ever and ever. These gilded bronze doors took 27 years to complete!!! (reference: wikipedia.org) Now that's persistence!!!

One of the bridges that stood out in Florece was The Ponte Vecchio - Old Bridge (For my PR peeps all we kept saying was "Sr. Ponte Vecchio, llamando al Sr. Ponte Vecchio" from those 1980's commercials. This bridge was interesting because of the corridor on the top of it was built in order for the rich people (Medici family - the bankers of the Renaissance period) to go from their home to their jobs without mingling with the commoners. How special where they?

After another exhausting day of walking, walking and walking some more we went to a huge Tuscan Dinner (there where like 5 courses or more) in the beautiful Italian country side. There we stuffed our faces with lasagna, pasta, bread and all you could drink wine. The fun part was that this really funny waiter came and started singing "Lo que paso, paso entro tu y to..." and we had not said one word in Spanish!!! He knew a bunch of Reggaeton songs by heart!!! Then the actual music started with a one-man band. The Puerto Ricans girls and I stood up and started dancing. The singer asked where we where from and we said Puerto Rico. He proceeded to put on a merengue song. Everyone cleared the dance floor and there was only the 3 of left. I turned to the girls and said "Ok let's grab some guys and teach them a few things". It turns out the closest table had the Japanese kids from our tour, so we made them stand up and shake their bon bons. Technically I could do that here, but it was fun and everyone complemented us at the end. The one-man band then started singing "En mi Viejo San Juan" (like America the Beautiful in the US) and we all joined him ( somewhat out of tune but we tried). I got very sentimental all of a sudden but knowing that I will be back home in May made me feel better.

Once the dinner was over we danced the night away in a Florence disco. Once again there where lots of Reggeaton music all through out the night.