busy day in florence!

we met up with nick's sister, jessica, this morning close to 10.  it was so great to see her and i think she was really excited as well!  we got busy eating right away and enjoyed some cappuccinos and pastries together :)  then we went off to the duomo..however i got severely distracted by the streets and streets of market vendors that were out!  holy lord, it was heaven!  they had everything from purses and pashminas to olive oil and pasta.  i only bought a couple things but now that the flood gates are open, i'm sure i'll be doing some serious damage tomorrow.  nick is even considering purchasing a gorgeous messenger bag - quite stylish! 

we finally did make it to the duomo and decided to climb to the top...28 minutes, and about 1000 steep steps, later we made it.  it was a gorgeous view!  after the climb down, which was almost as treacherous as the climb up, we made it over to the ponte vecchio.  i was so excited for this part, but i have to say it was a little overwhelming!  everything was amazing, but there were so many choices and it was way more expensive than i thought.  like yeah...i think i'll pass on spending 700 euro on a necklace, but thanks.  we'll go back tomorrow to see if anything speaks to me ;)

we got some lunch and then i had to use my gelato stomach to eat up some yummy gelato on our walk around the city.  we shopped around some more, saw jess off onto her train and then decided to eat dessert for dinner.  but of course, we had to get some gelato for dessert ;)


we're running out of battery and the converter doesn't seem to be working on nick's laptop, so we probably won't be able to write tomorrow.  but hopefully we'll be good to go again on saturday!