happy (is it really though) monday!

it's the start of a new week, and my week is already jam packed! 

today, i'm cleaning my entire house (although my mom will probably go back and re-clean after i'm done).  tomorrow i have practice graduation from 9 am to 12 pm, wednesday i'm graduating from high school (ahhh!!!), and thrusday i'll probably be sleeping a majority of the day because i'll be exhausted from project grad (an event my school holds for all the seniors after graduation that runs from 11 pm to about 4:30 am). the only day i technically don't have anything is friday. however, saturday i have three graduation parties to go to. 

but for some reason, i don't mind. 

now enough of my chatter, let's get started on today's journal entry from my trip to italy! (-:

p.s. * means there is sarcasm, (inside joke) means it's most likely not funny to anyone else but my mom and i so yeah, just a heads up (-:

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may 26

well, we didn't make it to the boboli gardens this morning as planned. mom overslept, lol just kidding. she actually couldn't get me out of bed. so, mom got a little frazzled. on the bright side, we actually got to eat breakfast where i had my first cappuccino and it was gross, until i poured two-three packets of sugar into it lol. 

after our first real italian breakfast, which consisted of meats, cheeses and breads (yay, i actually hate breakfast food so this meal was great), mom and i walked around for what felt like forever. i ended up getting super irritated because i don't just like wandering around so we ended up having a heart-to-heart when we got back to the hotel. 

however, while we walked around, i saw a bunch of horse carriages and wanted to ride in one of them, but mom said no (another inside joke). 

after our heart-to-heart (lol) mom and i headed to the galleria dell' academia to see david (that big statue with the penis, also an inside joke*). 

after we saw the david, we walked around the rest of the gallery. the only other thing there that i liked, was a statue room. pictured below is one of my favorite statues there.
you probably can't tell, but there are three figures, each in a different position. the statue is called: love, vice, wisdom (the sleep of ill-fated virtue and of lustful opulence; the disc of loves; the world)

the sign that tells the meaning of the statue says this: an allegory of the world (represented by the circulatory of the disc) where virtue sleeps crushed by vice (the child lying down with a bowl that slips from his hands); the third figure in the middle pointing upward, is reputedly love, as the force that dominates the world. 

it's deep and meaningful, i loved it. 

overall, i was actually a little disappointed with the gallery, there wasn't much else there. i was expecting much more artwork, but i guess it's only known for the david. so yeah.

after the gallery, mom and i walked back to eat lunch at another pizzeria, rested at the hotel, and decided to head over to the boboli gardens to see if they would still take our tickets from this morning--and they did. 

however, mom and i took a little detour to getting there. 

i knew we had to pass the ponte vecchio to get there, so i convinced mom to walk down to the other bridge right across from it, so i could get that picture i saw everywhere when we were planning this trip. (pictured below)

from there, it went downhill (metaphorically because all mom and i did was go uphill). my map directed us to an entrance of the boboli gardens, but not the right entrance. when i say we walked a lot, i mean we walked a lot. in total, mom and i walked 19,600 steps. there were so many frikin hills, so many. but, i mean after an hour, we finally made it. below are some of the views mom and i saw on the way up/down the many hills.

although i'm pretty sure mom kinda died along the way* lol. but i fully believe the 19,600 steps was worth it. the boboli gardens was absolutely beautiful, and the views of florence were stunning.
mom did keep tripping on all the stones and hills, which was hilarious. even though we were exhausted, mom tripping made both of us laugh/smile.

after wandering through here, we ate in front of the pitti palace (where the boboli gardens was). this is where i confused mozzarella sticks with italian mozzarella, lol. this water buffalo mozzarella was in the shape of an oval, and was filled with tomato and sided with tomato/basil. it was surprisingly very good. 

on our way back to the hotel, mom and i found a place where i could finally try gelatin without dying from all my allergies. it was so so so delicious. 

sitting in bed now, and today was probably my favorite day in florence. ciao!

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hope you enjoyed the last journal entry of florence! have a great monday (-: 

xoxo,

l.k