Last Day in Flo

day 113 // florence

Today was my last day in Florence. (WHAT.) So naturally, we decided to start our day with Gusta Pizza. OUR LAST GUSTA PIZZA EVER. (Possibly more sad about this than I should be.) I had a ton of meal cards left so I decided to use a couple to get a shirt from Gusta. I put it on right then and there and the main Gusta guy invited me back into the oven area where I got a picture with him. Everyone loves the Gusta guys and the Gusta guys love everyone. (I've said "gusta" way too many times in this post.) Then we went to the school so that I could exchange the rest of my red meal cards (the dinner ones) for yellow ones (the breakfast/lunch ones) because I could use yellows to buy souvenir stuff at a couple different places and I had no use for reds. Then I went and did that shopping with those new yellow meal cards. (Wow I have this post is going to be hard to follow.) Then of course I got gelato, of course. I had to go back to the school to print out my boarding pass for tomorrow (so weird). When we were leaving the school we stopped in at the goodbye cocktail hour for the art students. It was an exhibition for all the Richmond students in art classes showcasing their work. I could've entered my photos, but last minute decided not to, simply because I wanted as much free time on my last day in Florence as possible. Then, I realized I still had a TON of yellow meal cards left and didn't know what I was going to do with them, so I went back to Gusta Pizza and got a ton more Gusta shirts. So SURPRISE! Gusta shirts for everyone!!!! Then I had to go back to my apartment to pack and clean because our landlord was coming at 4:30 to check out the place and make sure it was all cleaned and nothing was damaged or anything. After that I finished the last of my packing (minus the stuff I obviously needed to keep out until tomorrow morning). Then a bunch of us went to our last Italian dinner at one of our favorite restaurants on our meal plan (still trying to get rid of meal cards). We just ordered a bunch of the most Italian dishes we could think of and shared them. We still had extra meal cards so we paid for the meal of the couple sitting next to us. After dinner we planned to meet up with all of other friends (the rest of the paintballerz) in Piazza Santa Spirito, but they were still finishing up dinner so we wandered around a bit and got gelato before eventually going to meet them. We all just sat on the steps in the piazza and talked, people-watched, reminisced, laughed, played games, listened to the street performers, and enjoyed our last moments together. We played "Peak & Pit" again and did peak and pits of the whole trip. We made a rule that you couldn't say your peak was meeting each other because that's what everyone would say (because it's true). So I thought I'd share mine. My pit was that I didn't learn as much Italian as I wanted to, and my peak was being pleasantly surprised by different things/places/etc. For instance, at the beginning when everyone planned the trip to Switzerland my initial reaction was, "Interlaken? What's in Interlaken? Why would I want to go there?" I almost didn't even go on the trip, but I'm SO happy that I did. It was one of my absolute favorite trips and it made me realize early on to be very open and willing to see and do anything and everything because you never know what might come of it. That goes for people too, I became close friends with so many people that I didn't expect to be friends with and I can't imagine what the trip would've been like without them. After going around, sharing our peaks and pits, it was time to say our goodbyes. We all stood up and hugged each other and maybe even risked looking extremely lame and cheesy by having a huge group hug. The tears started flowing for everyone and we could believe we had to leave each other after sharing this amazing experience. And while it was hard to say goodbye, it still just didn't seem real. I know I've used those words a lot but it's so true. I can't fathom be fact that I'll never see majority of these people again. We talked about a reunion, but we all know that's easier said than done. It literally feels like the last four months weren't real life and that they didn't really even happen. When I think about a specific instance from the trip, it seems like it was so long ago. But when I think about my family dropping me off at the airport, it feels like that was literally yesterday. So much has happened since then and those experiences, along with the friendships I've made, have exceeded my expectations for this trip exponentially. I could not be happier that I chose to do this during this specific semester in this specific place, because I really just couldn't imagine it being any different. After we pulled ourselves away from each other while the tears rolled down, I headed back to Croissants because I had to use their phone to call and reserve a taxi for tomorrow morning. After I did that, I said my final goodbyes to Heidi and Dakota. Heidi leaves early morning to go back home to Michigan and Dakota would be on my flight back home but she's staying here and traveling for a couple weeks before she heads home. When the goodbyes ended, I headed back home to finish packing and spend my last night in my very first apartment. I sure am going to miss my cute little room in our even cuter little apartment.