Contiki Day 7: Florence Sightseeing August 10, 2006
Posted by missrebecca in Europe, Florence, Italy.add a comment
We sung “Wish You Well” (our day song) on the bus at the top of our voices today!! Must’ve been because of the great night we had last night.
Wandering around Florence was a bit of a non-event. We went to a leather factory and I bought some genuine leather for mum, then we had a guided tour around Florence, but it was hard to hear, and the tour guide was an idiot (I could’ve said something worse there) so when we “lost” the tour group, it was a bit of a blessing. The city wasn’t hard to navigate by ourselves. Katie, Hayley, Margie and I stopped for lunch, I wasn’t really hungry so I thought I’d be safe with a “Fantasy Salad”. I thought it was just the name that was fancy. Turns out my lunch was a massive plate of lettuce, cabbage, cooked but cold beans and carrots, cauliflower, apricots and peaches. Who thought you could mix fruit, vegetables and salad?! I only ate the fruit…I couldn’t bring myself to eat the rest.
We went shopping for a bit, and I bought a top from Zara (a chain fashion shop in Europe) to wear out tonight. We had a Tuscan dinner – breads, pasta, chicken, potatoes etc, pretty much a five course meal. It wasn’t fantastic, and I wasn’t feeling too well. Half a glass of red didn’t go down too well, and I had to declined to Dave and Craig pouring some lime flavoured alcohol straight down my throat.
After dinner – Space Electronic Discoteque (say that in an Arnie accent and it’s even funnier. Under ‘normal’ circumstances (whatever that may be when you’re in Europe) I probably wouldn’t've paid €11 to get into that place. It was fun, but Contiki Number One tried to out-do us again, and there were no locals there to mix with, only the other Contiki Tour. I went back to the campsite fairly early.
Contiki Day 6: French Riviera to Florence August 9, 2006
Posted by missrebecca in Europe, Florence, Italy, Pisa.add a comment
Up early to head to Italy! Before we got to Italy though, we stopped at a French Perfumary..the smell didn’t really help our hangovers, and the tour was a tad boring. Anyway, first stop in Italy: the leaning tower of Pisa. It was so cool.. it leans so much I can’t believe it doesn’t fall over. We took a few photos, tried to avoid the fake bag and sunnies salesmen and the Grass Police. Tonight we had dinne at the camp site – the best cabins on the entire tour apparently, nice rooms, a REAL bathroom in your individual cabin with running hot water, mmm… washing my hair never felt so good. Dangerous Dave took us to The Red Garer, a pub in the city, for cheap drinks. It was basically half price! Fantastic. We were all sitting there drinking our entire jug of some type of cocktail. I scammed most of my drinks for free tonight 
not that I had that many (ahem). Katie, Hayley and Kasi sung some Karaoke for us (apparently!) I had the best night so far on tour, a really good bonding night for us all. Pity the Americans missed it.
We didn’t go home with the bus, so we caught a taxi back to the campsite, which wasnt so bad, €5 each. I didn’t have a key to my room, so I was bashing on the door for ages, but no one was there, or they were asleep (I found out the next day that the door was actually left unlocked…haha). But not knowing this, I slept in Margie’s room in Hayley’s bed. We chatted til about 2am when I fell asleep. I slept in my clothes, yuk. I can’t stand that.
