This morning we headed into Florence. Our first stop was Leonardo's Leather Works. We had a leather demonstration here. Paul was the volunteer for the demonstration and was asked to help engrave a piece of genuine Italian leather with 22.8 caret gold. He got to keep the small piece of leather so I'm going to add it to our scrapbook when I get home. The Italian guy also explained to us how to tell if leather is genuine or not. Apparently genuine leather shouldn't be able to be burnt. He also reminded us that just because it may have a stamp saying it is 100% genuine leather it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. He also showed us the backing of the leather and explained that this can not be separated from the leather so therefore if it doesn't have the same backing it's not genuine either. I found the leather demonstration a lot more interesting than the perfume demonstration yesterday. We then had the opportunity to look through their shop. The products were beautiful, everything from the bags and wallets to the jackets and leather boxes. I never bought myself anything, but did buy a gift for someone special back home. After the leather demonstration we carried on to our walking tour of Florence. The Italian guy's name was Paulo. He was very informative and had an awesome sense of humour. He walked us around the city pointing our never buildings and sites, including statues, churches and the bridge. The tour took roughly an hour. After the tour I bought a bracelet and magnet from a stall in the street. We then met up with Gemma, Olivia and Kate. We found a cute Italian restaurant for lunch. I ordered a bowl of two different pastas. The pesto pasta was so yummy. I think it may have had pine nuts mixed in with it too. Was a lot more tasty than the one I had in Nice. I also ordered a fruit cup and a large glass of coke. They seem to always put a slice of lemon in their glasses of coke. After lunch Gemma and Oliver went shopping, but Kate decided to come back to the camp with us. We were exhausted from walking around in the heat for so long so went back to the camp ground for a swim in the pool. You have to wear these ugly bathing caps in the swimming pool. Although, they're not rubbery like our ones in NZ so wasn't too bad. They also get you to shower using the outside shower prior to getting into the pool. It was worth all the hassle though. The water was so refreshing. We had a few hours of free time as we weren't going out for dinner and our group photo until 6.50pm. I went and paid for three hours of wifi so I could message my family and upload my photos to Facebook. When we got on the bus to go out to dinner three of the girls were late to the bus so had to do coachoke (karaoke with the ear plugs in their ears so you can only hear them singing, not the music). There's no way I'm ever being late enough to have to do that! Our first stop was at a beautiful look out where a photographer took our group photo. Then Alex dropped us off in town and we walked to the restaurant for our Viennese dinner. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it in my blog, but I've been sick with the Contiki cough for the past couple of days, now I'm losing my voice too. I was straining so much to talk to other people at our table. It was horrible. The bright side was that we got fed so well. They just kept bringing out plates of food for our table to the point where you couldn't fit anymore in. I ended up getting the shuttle back to the camp after dinner. I was getting so frustrated with being sick and not being able to communicate that I decided it wasn't worth it. I'm getting over tired too and just felt so unhappy. I walked outside to get some fresh air. Then when Bec came out I told her I'd decided to go back to camp instead of going to the Space Disco with the rest of the group. She was really good about it. We're so lucky to have such an amazing tour manager and driver. Lots of us think they would make a really cute couple. Paul ended up coming back with me too. I kept telling him to just go out with everyone. I wanted him to come back with me because I was upset, but at the same time I didn't want to ruin his night and him feel like he had to look after me. It turned out that a lot of people thought it was over rated and that they played R&B most of the night so it wouldn't have really been our scene anyway. Made me feel a little bit better. I think part of it is that I get a bit homesick at night too and everything seems to become overwhelming with the mix of that, not feeling well and being exhausted from the heat. It was good to just have some time to ourselves too. I am loving getting to mix with and get to know new people, but am finding it a bit hard that we have no time at all just by ourselves. It's good that there are two other couples on our tour though. Both of the other couples are really nice too. Paul bought me an ice block and a large bottle of water. Then we just went back to the cabin and sat on the couch talking for a bit before getting into bed.