Quick Update!

Hello friends!! Happy Wednesday! I hope you are all having wonderful weeks! We are currently finishing day 6 of the 10 day adventure, as we are in Florence right now, packing up and preparing to leave for Rome in the morning!  Everything so far has been absolutely wonderful!  I am in love with Barcelona, Venice, and Florence so far, and am sure I will also love Rome and Madrid! I can't believe how fast time is flying, but we are certainly crazy and maximizing our time; we are all literally passing out every evening when we return home! For some quick general notes, Barcelona was absolutely gorgeous, and we felt it was a mix of a lot of different American cities, such as Chicago, New York, Boston, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. Also, I think my favorite chunk of a few hours so far during the 10 day adventure happened on day 2 of Barcelona! It was very interesting since they don't speak Spanish, they speak Catalan, which has some similarities but is still different.  The next stop was Venice, which blew my mind, and was completely gorgeous, since there were bridges and water everywhere! The city is also very peaceful, especially in the mornings and nights when the tourists are gone. Also, I had my first encounters with real Italian pizza and gelato, and I am in love!  Yesterday, we took a train to Florence, and were able to experience another side of Italy, which I also love! We hit up some yummy gelato again, such as Grom (shoutout to Uncle Bill and Aunt Barb!) and I had some amazing ravioli and pesto pasta! We had a day full of all of the artsy sites today, including the Uffizi Gallery, the Academia with the David statue, the Duomo (climbing up 450+ steps into the dome of course), and the Pitti Palace of course! So, everything has been wonderful! We have been very lucky with random things, such as catching the right trains and busses to get to and from airports, or to finding hostels or historical sites without much difficulty! And Kelley and Elle are certainly wonderful to travel with! I promise there will be more of an update real soon, at the latest once I return home in 5 days! Crazyness!  Talk to you later!