First weekend in Florence

Our JMU program took us on our first organized weekend trip to Siena. It was a beautiful, countryside city that we got to explore on our first weekend abroad, only an hour bus ride from Florence. We met up with our tour guide... who got quite boring quite quickly, but we got to learn and discover some beautiful areas of Siena. 

 San Dominico

 The Cathedral 

 Piazza del Campo

Last night we headed to Dante's for dinner, a pizzeria that also offers free wine for students. We got delicious pizza and wound up getting two bottles of Chianti wine for free! The waiters loved us and also gave us free t-shirts and hats as well, such friendly Italians... we will definitely be returning. 

After our busy day yesterday, I wound up sleeping in until 1pm today since it was the first time that I could! My roommates and I decided to head out for a day of shopping in Florence! We went to Zara, H&M and some local markets that had leather bags and scarves. I didn't go on a crazy shopping spree because I want to explore other stores, but at orientation we learned that the sale season in Florence is only in January and July...so why wait?! Sales = madhouse. When people shop here they are all over the place, they don't move out of your way and the stores are extremely crowded, but hey, I guess no one wants to pass up a good deal...