Florence and Pisa

Funny story... Mom and I were shopping in the marketplace in Florence and taking goofy pictures with all of the Italian leather and these two Italian guys saw us and said, "Take our pictures! We are famous Italians!" My mom laughed and said, "Okay." But when she pulled the camera up to her eye they said, "No! She needs to be in it too!" So I got my picture with the two famous Italian boys in the marketplace...I was hoping I would meet someone famous on my trip :)

Mom with an Italian leather purse

Me holding my shopping bags...look at all the Italian leather purses in the background! So fun!

The Duomo, a famous cathedral in Florence


The beautiful cathedral in Pisa, including the Leaning Tower

The Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Buying Pinocchio souvenirs for my fourth grade students. When I told the lady I wanted 25 keychains, she didn't believe me :)


Our next stop was in Florence and Pisa, Italy. This day was absolutely incredible! We started out visiting a beautiful cathedral in the center of Florence and then mom and I did a lot of shopping. We heard that Florence had the best shopping of all of the stops and boy did we hear right! This is where we got almost all of our souvenirs for home. After we shopped for a while the group headed to see The David statue done by Michelangelo. This was one of the most incredible things that I have EVER seen and also one of the most emotional things that I have ever been through. I know, I sound like a huge dork.. I mean, who gets emotional over a statue right? Well, me. I can't believe how beautiful The David was. It seems almost impossible that a human carved that out of stone! I absolutely LOVED this part of our trip. We weren't aloud to take pictures of The David so sadly there aren't any on here, it doesn't matter though, pictures just don't do it justice. After we saw David we went to Pisa and saw the leaning tower. It was so cool! You grow up your whole life hearing about the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and it was so surreal that I was actually standing in front of it!

Just an aside...the author of the original Pinnochio was born in Florence, Italy so there were Pinnochio figurines everywhere! I decided to bring a Pinnochio souvenir home to my students. I searched all day and finally found the cutest little key chain Pinnochios, the last picture is of me buying them!