Well finals were done, so I had nothing important to wake up for. I got up at a decent time anyway, ate breakfast, and packed a bit more, as always, pretty depressing. I took clothes to school to donate, returned books, and took pictures all over school. Thursday afternoon was our last lunch/meal at Soggiourno Laura. It was the usual lunch, not much was different. After it however, Chiara came out with a bag full of Soggiourno Laura hats. There were yellow and white ones, so I obviously took a yellow. All of us put out hats on right away. After lunch we headed upstairs to the terrace to take a group picture of all of us with the staff. All of us kids are wearing our hats and Marinella is right in the middle of all of us.
We were all getting nostalgic and began taking multiple pictures with each other, Marinella, Chiara, Jesus, and Giovanni. At 2, a group of us headed over to Boboli gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day and that is the best place to sit in the grass, toss a Frisbee, and enjoy the sunshine…so that is exactly what we did. We spent a few hours there, taking pictures, roaming the gardens, playing Frisbee. Brooks, Tucker and I left the group around 430 and went and met another group of friends on the Triangle Bridge. It was our friend Jack’s birthday, so we had some champagne, enjoyed the view of the arno, and took some final, beautiful pictures on the river.
We all headed home to shower up, pack a bit more, and get ready for our last big group dinner. Sean called and made reservations for 20 at a restaurant suggested to us by Alessandro (a teacher at school). The restaurant was down by Santa Croce, which was perfect because that’s where all our favorite bars are. Chloe and I both had the gnocchi for dinner, no surprise there, and it was absolutely fabulous, as always. After a while at dinner, everyone moved around, (we were at two tables of ten, sadly) so people moved from one table to the other. Sean came over to our table, mostly of girls. Christina asked him to go through every person and tell the story of how they first met. He went through every person at the table, nine of us, and told the exact story of how he had met each one. Sean has been studying there a year, so for some, had to remember back to August. His memory was so prime that he was even able to go so far as to saying what each of us were wearing the night we met. As for me, we met in the hallway of our pensione, I was wearing the old (I think its from the ’80’s) crewneck UofA sweatshirt I always wear, and he was worried I would be the usual, snobby LA kind of girl, but pleasantly surprised and happy that’s not how it was. Anywho, other members of the table tried doing what he was able to do, and it turned into a big discussion of all of our first meets, first impressions, story telling of the semester, etc.
After a long dinner, we all left for the bars. Some went to Kikuya and some went to Moyo. Chloe and I decided to go to Moyo with Tucker, Carl, Brooks, Sean and Kussman. We ordered drinks, enjoyed the ambiance and continued reminiscing. We moved on to Kikuya to get the rest of our friends, then stopped by Exbaco. We were there only for a short period of time, Jackie and I did handstands with Roy out in the front area of Santa Croce Cathedral while the others sat outside of Exbaco having a good laugh at us. We then all hopped in cabs to go to Finnegans, at the other side of the city, to see our friend Jack for his 21st birthday. Finnegans closed soon after our arrival, but there we met up with about 50 other people from the GIF program. When the bar kicked us all out for closing, we frolicked around in the street for a while, and agreed on Shot Café, a nearby location for our next bar. We ALL went there, it was fantastic. We enjoyed being with so many people from the program. We bought pitchers and stuck multiple straws in them, as always, and enjoyed hanging out with our best friends, along with the kids we had had in our classes all semester. At 3, it closed, and everyone quite slowly made their way home.
Back at home Chloe, Garrett and I sat outside reminiscing even more, and getting way too nostalgic to the point where all three of us were in tears. Sean and Kuss came home with the genius idea to fill the waterballoons we had been holding all semester. We did, and of course decided to attack all of those who had come home early and were sleeping. We rampaged them, obviously woke them, and then all played and ran around the pensione together until about 4 am. Obviously a great time.
Brooks came over and told us to throw on comfy clothes, because we were heading to see the sunrise. We threw on sweats, sweatshirts, rain coats, and grabbed umbrellas and headed out. I was with Brooks and Chloe, and Sean, Antonina and Kussman had gone ahead. We met up with them in Piazza Singnoria around 5 and began our climb up to the top of Piazza Michelangelo. Kuss was too tired so she grabbed a cab, but the other five of us made it to the very top. We took pictures, hung out, opened a bottle of champagne. We didn’t exactly see the sun ‘rise’ but we saw the city go from complete darkness, to light, which we decided was just as awesome. We finished the champagne, made a toast, and headed home in a cab. We got back around 730 am, and fell asleep.
I have never been so content with a night. As the last night for me to stay up that late, and see the sunrise, I couldn’t be happier that I made it to that point and actually got to experience it. It was my last full night-into-morning I had in Florence, and I couldn’t think of a better way to have spent it.
I wish this could never end. I leave in less than 24 hours…
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