our first night in florence

It's kind of easy to get lost because of the ways the streets turn and run into another. But the area isn't all that big; knowing the general area of our apartment and wandering long enough is good enough to get us back home. We walked down several of the nearby streets around our apartment looking for a place to eat. I'm not sure what exactly we were looking for. All the restaurants we passed looked the same to me. Anyway, we finally stopped at one and got a table on the street. Our waiter was excellent. He was very nice and became easily distracted by pretty women walking along the street (ah, the women... that topic deserves it's own lengthy post which I will make someday). It was highly entertaining. The food was excellent as well. I had tortellini with bolognese and then roast chicken with potatoes. I followed it up with a fruit salad and espresso. Our waiter also brought us a shot of Limencello (link) during dessert and then another when we asked for the bill. "It's free!" he said.

After dinner we made our way to the Irish pub. Brenna had told us there was one very close to our apartment and we found it earlier in the day when out exploring. The place is great. It's a nice safe haven. While everyone in Florence speaks English, I still feel a little guilty about using it or intimidated to try Italian in most places. In the pub, however, English is the way to go. The bartenders and customers mostly appear to be English or Irish. It's a nice, comfortable place. :)

We had a couple pints at the pub and chatted with a few other patrons. One was a nice retired English cop. Then, not long before the place closed (around 2 am) we started talking to a group of young Irish peeps (probably mid to late 20s). One of the guys had just gotten married that day and was out drinking with several of his friends. Anyway, as the pub was closing, they ended up inviting us to share a taxi to some after hours bar that one of the guys new. We were having fun, and decided to go along. The new bar was pretty strange, but still had a great time with our new found friends. I think Kipp has more details on the rest of the evening on his page. I guess the only thing I'll add is that the Irish love hip hop, South Park, Family Guy (giggity giggity), and WWC.