Good Vibrations

This was such a wonderful weekend!
Friday night the internet was working so well I got to watch an entire episode of Criminal Minds! This episode was based off a fictional book called Empty Planet, but I really wish it were a real book. It sounded like such a good read.
On Saturday Kevin, Pati, Gina, and I were going to go to Volterra, but we'd missed the bus. So instead we went to Viareggio. This was the most relaxing little town, and it honestly was like a crappy Florida beach town and I loved it. We sat on the beach and ate lunch, walked around, got French Fries. We were some of the only tourists there. We decided we're going back our very last weekend to go swimming.
After Viareggio, we went to Lucca, which is the world's largest producer of toilet paper (or at least one of them.) We walked around the Medieval wall and just sat. Firenze is so hectic sometimes, it was so nice to just sit.
After we got home, I ran to the library and rented movies. Pati, Kevin, Gina, and Emily all made a spaghetti with an avocado, red pepper, tomato, feta, and a tiny bit of tequila sauce. It was really pretty great. The feta here tastes sort of strange. Afterwards, Kevin and I watched Alien Resurrection, which was really bizarre, and I realized I hadn't seen the third one yet.

Yesterday was an exciting day!
I woke up, cleaned the whole apartment, and baked Oreo Balls. Then I went and met Cheri and her sister Kathy in the middle of the Ponte Vecchio. I was so glad to see her! It's been a year since I've seen her even in the States. We wandered around. I took them inside the Palazzo Vecchio. Then we had an apertif at the Piazza della Reppublica, which was really good. Afterwards we had dinner at this little Tuscan restaurant. We all got an antipasto and a secondi. My antipasto was an artichoke and cheese salad. Raw artichoke. Mmmmmm! Americans need to use artichoke more often! Cheri got pears and cheese with honey (pecorino) and Kathy got a mozzarella dish with tomatoes and lettuce. It was fun to try all these things I never get to try because of the cost. Then I got something called ossobucco, which was this deliciously flavored dark meat. Cheri got wild boar and Kathy got a balsalmic steak. We all shared and it was just so good. Afterwards Cheri bought us gelato. I haven't eaten so much food since .... I don't know, Christmas?? Thanksgiving?? It was so MUCH! I thought I was going to burst, so I walked home. Cheri also got a red wine for the table. I don't usually like red wine... it turns out that 1, 50 € red wine is just nothing in comparison to real red wine.

So now I'm going to call them up and see what's happening. I'm so glad to have people here in Florence!