Babylon

Today has been a day of relaxation and recovery from our previous nights shenanigans.  The night was definitely one to remember that's for sure...

We started our evening by cooking some pasta and meatballs along with some garlic bread for dinner all together.  Sydney and Kelsey discovered a brand of red wine that for 3 euro you get 1.5 litres of smooth amazingness.  After enjoying our family meal and exchanging funny stories and talking about our home lives, we cleaned up, got ready, and headed over to a bar a few blocks over called Cruise.  As soon as we walked in we were bombarded with other API students, wayy too many americans for my taste.  We decided to take advantage of the 5 shots for five euro deal, ordering a round of kamikaze shots.  A boy in our group suggested we all go to a bar called black stove, but we couldn't seem to find it.  Amy, Julia, Sydney and I all broke away from the massive pack of americans and decided to head back to Naima, the bar we went to on tuesday night.  The drinks are relatively cheap here so we order big glasses of beer and mingled with the people.  After being harassed by a guy who told me he loved me and could he give me "kiss," a guy named giorgio sat next to us at the bar and struck up a conversation with us in relatively fluent english.  Turns out he is roommates with the bartender Carlos.  Then the gatto bombs came along...yikes.  Anyways, we all decided to wait for the boys to get off work and head to another place called Babylon where more Italians hung out.  Naturally, Sergio (the owner of Naima) knew all the B list people aka Bouncers, Bartenders etc. so we didn't have to pay cover charges and were taken to our place in the corner booth with a bottle of grey goose and red bulls.  This place was clearly a hot spot for the locals because it was packed to every inch of the room with raging partygoers.  The DJ was amazing, his mixes were infectious and my friends and I couldn't bring ourselves to stop dancing until 4am.  Then we moved on to another place called Fill Up which had separate VIP rooms and each had a Dj and a bar.  There were neon lights and lots of people dancing salsa to classic 90's music.  Eventually we decided to head back to Naima where we late-nighted some more and goofed off with our new Italian friends.  Sergio ordered us some panino's, one of which was hard-boiled egg and mozzarella...it was good at the time?  Giorgio offered to make us some spaghetti back at his place and there was talk of us trekking up to the Piazza de Michelangelo to watch the sun rise.  Ultimately the sunrise was still two hours away so we forfeited that idea.  As we walked home after our night of madness a wave of extreme contentment came over me.  What a great first week in Firenze, full of making new friends and learning my way around this beautiful, yet mysterious city.