MY DAD CAME TO FLORENCE!!

The best thing ever happened this weekend, MY DAD VISITED!

Yes that is right, Kevin Connolly was IN FLORENCE- it was not a mirage it was really him!

I have been waiting for this weekend and mentally planning it for SO LONG and it was finally here :)

FRIDAY:

Dad’s hotel was right down the street from me, literally a hop skip and a jump! (great find Sue-Mama!) 
I was so happy to see him I cannot even explain! 

After the best hug ever it was off to check out where I live!

 I showed him my apartment and my street and then we trekked up to Piazza Michelangelo.

And when I say we went UP to Piazza Michelangelo.... I mean exactly that.

 The piazza overlooks all of Florence so it is quite the trip up some stairs to get there. 

Let me just say, that hiking up those stairs was foreshadowing events to come...

SO many stairs this weekend, SO much walking…my calves feel great right now!

It was cool to be able to point out places and inform Dad as to what they were. 

We managed to go to all of them, and even places I have never been before!

As we were up in Piazza Michelangelo, taking in all that is Florence and enjoying the beautiful weather, we spotted some wedding pictures being taken!

There was another bride around somewhere, we waited to see if there was going to be a bride show-down, but had things to do so couldn't stay around too long!

Behind Piazza Michelangelo, even higher up, is a church called San Miniato al Monte.

 Monks live there and during the week at 5:30 pm sing Gregorian chants! I have never been up there before so we decided to check it out. It was pretty cool, but also slightly creepy because there is a pretty big cemetery up there.

So much to do so much to see! From there we walked back down the hill and crossed the bridge near my apartment. If you stay straight on that road you stumble across Santa Croce! TA DA there it was! 

From there we walked to Piazza della Signoria and went to the museum there. 

This is a picture not from that day,but for the sake of visualization here we go!

It was the Medici's second "house" and part of the museum is that you can see their apartments, a ton of statues and artwork and frescoes, etc. 

A lot of really intricate and extremely detailed frescoes on the walls!

There was a room with a gigantic globe inside of it and maps all over the walls! 

AND LOOK WHO IT IS LOOKING AT A MAP..of.....what's that?.... IRELAND! How fitting!

Just my dad checking out the map!

My favorite part of this was nothing to do with the medici or renaissance art...sorry Florence!

 It was the life-size platinum skull encrusted with about 8,000 diamonds by Damien Hirst

YES THAT IS RIGHT LADIES AND GENTS THAT WAS NOT A TYPO….DIAMONDS!

It was in a glass case in an all black room and you could not even see the ground in front of you all you could see was the skull! 

I actually couldn’t take a picture sadly there was a guard in the room- So here is a picture from the internet...

It was REALLY COOL. 

After we were done inside there, we went out into the world. Imposter-David is in that Piazza so we got to check him out! 

And we took a picture in front of the Fountain of Neptune.

(Hey Dad! I LOOKED IT UP- IT IS CALLED THE FOUNTAIN OF NEPTUNE! Fromer is telling me that it is a statue Florentines love to hate, but with us in front I am sure they would love to love it!)

By now our tummies were rumbling and some lunch was necessary- so it was off to share the wonderfulness that is Pizza Man with Dad!

Mmmmmm margarita!

Then we walked to my school and it was open so he got to go inside and see the classrooms/meet some of the staff! And we went to the not-even-a-little-bit-intimidating Cafe Amerini and got expresso and cappucino.

The weather was great, perfect for watching peoples outside!

Can't afford 75 euro a month gym membership? Want to lose weight but don't know what to do?

JUST CLIMB UP THE 436 STEPS TO THE TOP OF THE DUOMO!

(8 euro fee)

Yes that is right, we hadn't had our fill of stairs or beautiful views of Firenze-

So let the games begin, it was up up up to the top!

Last time I climbed massive heights to the top of a building with my Dad......

WELLLLLL let's just say I wasn't exactly climbing. 

I was clinging to him for dear life and sobbing hysterically as we made our way to the top of the "Stachey of Libertie"

 I like to block out this memory because it is a rough one!

However on this great day, we came full circle, and I carried Dad to the top as he cried.

JUST KIDDING!!!! 

There were no tears, I wasn't even scared! 8 year old Brigid is really proud of me, and Dad was thankful because I definitely weigh WAYYYY to much to be carried up 436 steps!

We had briefly considered climbing the bell tower, good thing we didn't WE WERE TALLER THEN THEM! Muahah!

The way down was worse at some parts cause it was pretty steep! Also the walls are slanted in some parts, so tall people like Dad have to do a lean back manuever to get down stairs without hitting their heads! 

(Short people like myself have do not have this problem)

I have been here since January and the Duomo STILL mystifies me, it is just so pretty!

After all that activity we strolled on back to Via di San Niccolo to take a little pepper and re-energize before dinner. 

Before dinner we did what? OH THAT'S RIGHT WE TOOK A WALK! 

Because we love to walk!

To get to the main part of the city you have to turn left out of my street, but being the explorers that we are, decided to take a walk on the wild side! So we turned right out of my street!

It was really pretty over there and definitely needs further exploration!

We had some guest for dinner! Not only was Dad going to get to have pear ravioli, he was getting to meet Sara, Mandy, Elise and Jessie! 

(See Dad, I have friends! They are real! I didn't make them up! )

Dinner was great, I loved that my friends got to meet Dad because I have talked him up so much and now they got to see that he was real too!

AND pear ravioli om nom nom! 

After "Flat-Brigid's Uconn Adventures" was such a big hit, Dad thought we should do Flat Family in Florence! So after dinner we stopped to pick up the rest of the family and introduce them to my friends!

Gang's all here!

After dinner we parted ways, and Dad and I went to the Old Stove! 

(I love that he was here and now when I talk about places I go he will be able to mentally picture them and have his own memory attached!)

We did some people watching and just hung out, twas quite lovely!

SATURDAY:

Waaaaaaa it is Saturday already? Why is the weekend going so fast?!

I woke up Saturday and my feet hurt, and I could feel muscles in my legs that I have long forgotten about. And what did we have in store for us today?

OHHHHH YES, MORE WALKING! :-)

We went to Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens

...or should I say "Buble/Bubbly/Michael Buble Gardens" (they had many names that day)

Naturally we had to bring the family along to see all the beauty inside the gardens!

There's Mom, Dad and the fat man on a turtle!

Sean why are you blatantly ignoring that sign?!!?!?

Kiks looking at the map, deciding where to wander next- "you are here!"

Liz was a little cold here in Italy, I don't know why because it was the warmest weekend we had! Nonetheless she loved the views!

Dad, I do not want to startle you, but there is a GIANT FACE behind you!

Among statues of what we think are Greek Gods and/or Roman Emperors, we spotted the greatest of them all- SUSANACUS!

Here's Kiki standing with an egg-like statue in the gardens, weird statue, pretty lady!

Oh and look who decided to join us! Sean and Ruebs! 

Alright now Liz, please get out of the tree...it is not going to make you any warmer

and it is time to go!

The gardens were a lot of fun, we did so much and I got to see parts I never had before which I really enjoyed! After that we went to go to Oil Shoppe so Dad could tell Sara that he did, but it was CLOSED!

As much as I love me some Oil Shoppe, they are always randomly closed, we have seen signs that said "Out of bread, come back tomorrow" REALLY!?

Anywho it didn't matter seeing as there are a zillion good places to eat here!

 Antico Noe was right there and just as good :)

AND THEN DAD GOT TO GO TO FILO! I had a little bit of a struggle because there are two places we like to go for gelato. One is called Cararria and it is great and the other is Filo and it is also great. What to do what to do! Well I loved Filo first and didn't want to cheat on them, plus their dark chocolate is WAY better..DECISION MADE WE ARE GOING TO FILO!

After gelato we went our seperate ways for a bit..all that walking really tires you out! And I wasn't even jetlagged so I can only imagine how exhausted Dad must have been!

Before dinner we decided to walk around some more. I showed Dad where the leather market is and the Mercato Centrale. Then we wandered and wandered! 

We were told there was a fair-esque thing going on near Gino Capponi, so we went to check that out!

On our way we took a little pit stop at San Marco and people watched for a while. We played the "Italian or Not?" game, with some it was obvious but others not so much!

San Marco

Guess what? NO FAIR ON GINO CAPPONI! 

Oh well! 

Snagged this picture for the lovely Sara Shaban who frequented the apartments of Gino Capponi not too long ago!

Then we were on our way to go back to where the Duomo was and I spotted the top of a building that is a pretty tealy blue. And in all the panoramas of Florence I see this building but I had no idea what it was or where! 

WELP IT WAS OFF TO FIND IT!

It was a tricky little building, we thought we couldn't find it at first even though we were so close! It kept moving I swear!

DUN DUN DUN DUNNN...WE FOUND IT! 
It is a temple! Built between 1874 and 1882 by Marco Treves.
(Don't be impressed that I know that, I am cheating, if you keep looking at the pictures you will have a lot more knowledge about this temple as well!!)

You learn new things everyday! It wasn't exactly time for dinner yet, but our feets were tired and we needed to re-energize, so it was off to The Lion's Fountain for some pre-dinner drinks!

People write ALLLLLLLL over the walls at Lion's Fountain, so I thought it was fitting to immortalize mine and Dad's weekend on the walls of a bar! How precious :)

We listened to some great tunes, such as Paint It Black by none other than The Rolling Stones, that's right Dad, not Pink Floyd or ACDC or The Who...THE ROLLING STONES!

I also tried a black and tan and enjoyed it very much!

Then it was dinner time! We went to Osteria del Gatto e la Volpe ( there are pictures of Pinocchio-esque things on the placemats, so we used our Disney knowledge to deduce that the cat and fox they refer to are the ones that convince Pinocchio to join the circus) 

IF YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS FEEL FREE TO LEAVE A COMMENT.

It was REALLY good! Dad got veal and mushrooms which I didn't even ask to try because that is not my cup of tea! And I got the pasta alla carbonara. 

And then we had dessert! Tiramisu and cheesecake, nom nom nom!

All weekend we had been seeing groups of high school age students, traveling in seemingly organized packs but with no teachers or parents around. WELL THERE WAS A GROUP OF THEM IN THE RESTAURANT. We really wanted to know what there deal was, so Dad dared me to go ask. (His reasoning was that HE couldn't ask because that would be weird)

Well there was no way I was going up to the table of 17 Italian students and asking them what there deal was, instead I waited till a girl went off to the bathroom! Much less weird? Probably not.

Annnnnyway! In my broken Italian and her broken english, I learned that they were in fact a group of high schoolers from Rome on a weekend trip!

Well naturally I would want photographic evidence of this group, so I pretended to take a picture of Dad and insteaddddd....

After dinner we went to a place called ZOE that is on my street and always packed with Italians!

Then it was bedtime, which meant the worst thing ever because the next day was Sunday and Dad was leaving!

SUNDAY

Dad had to leave pretty early, 

lucky for him I wasn't bringing us to a place that involved walking, just eating!

We went to The Diner! Yes we went to the "American" Diner in Florence. I just wanted him to experience it because it is somewhere I go and I wanted him to see it!

LAY OFF ME I'M STARVING!

While there, I learned that they do take out, wooooo!

Then he had to leave, and my heart broke a little.

It was such a great weekend and I was so happy/lucky that Dad was here!

It is perfect timing for him to have visited too, because if it had been any earlier I would have REALLY cried when he left. Instead it was just a couple tears but then I said, "Shush self, you will be home in like a month to see him then!"