Happy New Year...

Thursday was New Years day for Florence. None of us really understood why, and no one explained it to us, but we loved the day. After lunch about ten of us headed over to the New Years market. Its a market that only comes on new years day. There was a ton of food, candy, chocolate, meat, clothes, jewelry, everything. The sun was shining, we were all in t-shirts and sun glasses. Chloe and Tucker got Coronas and I made a necklace. There were charms and chains, I chose a silver elephant and a long silver chain. The man and I put it together and my grand total was 2 euro. I love the necklace. At some of the places there were whole pigs that had been roasted sitting on the counter. You could literally walk up, have a sliver of pig cut off and handed to you right there. I was obviously disturbed but plenty of people there loved it.
After meandering, Chloe, Tucker, Kiki and I climbed the Duomo. It was a rough climb, lots of steps, but worse for me, extremely claustrophobic, tinnnyyy staircases. It was well worth it once at the top though. The view of the city is absolutely perfect. The Duomo is the center of everything. We took plenty of pictures, hung out for a while, and headed home.
I went to Cirque Du Soleil that night with a bunch of friends. On the way we stopped at a Sandwhich shop that Federica (student Life staff) had suggested. It had HUGE, delicious paninis for only 4 euro. It was a local place, no one spoke english and it was full of Italians. Our favorite. We chowed down and everyone was stuffed. Then crossed the street to the Mandella Forum where Cirque was held. Saltimbanco was the name. It was amazing, blew me away. I was literally on the edge of my seat the entire time. The trapeze artists were doing the most unreal tricks. All of the acts were amazing, and they included some clown like, really funny acts, too. There was a little girl sitting next to me making me laugh because she was enjoying it so much. I was inspired to go home and work out and find a crazy talent so that by next year Jackie and I can join Cirque, wouldnt that be fun?
Came home late and exhausted, hopped in to bed and got a good nights sleep.