I am so excited I just want to sing!! But for Tim's sake, I won't!! We have just arrived in Florence at our Hostel - PLUS Hostel and it is, pause… amazing!! We have our own mini apartment! Full kitchen including fridge, stove and microwave, dining table and chairs, TV, air con and big wardrobes! The bathroom is beautiful and CLEAN and doesn't smell of bleach like usual.. Ohhh its simply marvellous! I always get excited when we have nice accom and we're here for 5 nights so it's a good time to get a sensashe place!! I might also add we have a double bed and a single which is a-ok with us because Tim prefers sleeping alone haha!! Alrighty, we're off to do a little grocery shop now considering we have FULL use of our own kitchen and free internet in our room!! Skype dates all round!!

We went on a tour today to a few different wineries.. It was a fun day, our tour guide Stefano, was a total stoner with struggling English and very poor jokes that definately got funnier as the day progressed and the alcohol consumption got higher! We drove all through Tuscany so it was really beautiful. It wasn't quite what Tim and I were expecting, we kinda pictured more terracotta, bit more character but it was still nice. As we sat in the garden at a Villa eating lunch, sun filtering through the 300 yr old tree, sipping on red wine, we felt very 'Under the Tuscan Sun'. Tim and I both fell asleep within minutes of the trip home. I think a little bit of unnessesary tasting went down! We also had toasted bread with garlic pasted on it and their special extra virgin olive oil… So yum! Tim and I are those suckers who felt obliged to buy so we even grabbed a small bottle of oil - will definitely make our breadsticks more interesting that's for sure! So we arrive home at 5:00pm, our hangover from wine already kicking in! With some nurofen and water on board though, it was time for a nap!

Tim had a WHOLE day of sightseeing. We are talking from 9am till 5pm.. What an effort! In the stinking heat with tens of thousands of other tourists, he lined up in all the lines, climbed the necessary number of stairs etc etc.. I thought it best to let Tim have all this 'fun' without me! But he did it all, cathedrals, domes, clock towers, art museums.. the lot!!

We didn't fall in love with Florence the way other people have. It was so packed with tourists that we found it quite hard to feel relaxed! It was very 'on-the-go' all the time!

We met up with Liam and Richo and celebrated Liam's 25th birthday! I think the boys may have gotten a little over excited with the celebrating considering that if it wasn't for me (who packed Tim's entire backpack and cleaned our apartment) we would have missed our train!

The boys had the steak that Florence is famous for - Steak Florentine I think. Trouble was, the restaurant we went to turned out to be a dud. Tim re-named it Steak s***! The steaks were all grisly and cooked well-done (supposed to be raw) and had 5 chips on their plates instead of salad! My asparagus risotto was actually dry and crunchy rice - who would have thought! We were pretty disappointed about our dinner but had some nice red wine which made us forget about our very average dinner….almost!

Off to Rome next!! We're in for some heat apparently - bring it on!! J