Grey's Anatomy has got nothing on us!!

Soooo.. To say the least, Florence was definitely an interesting experience. While the city is famous for art, we saw very little. Upon getting off the bus after a day of traveling, we climbed the six flights of very steep stairs up to our hostile. Did I say hostile? I meant "hotel." This place was run by an Italian family. Our room consisted of four cement walls, four creeky beds, no air conditioning, and a shower that was hazardous to our health. Brittney quickly broke in the lovely blue bathroom with an upset stomach, and that's where the story begins...

Right when we walked into our new lovely room, Britt went immediately into the bathroom and was very sick. We weren't sure what was wrong, but it was not normal. Erin, Jac, and I went to a little restaraunt around the corner from the hotel and had some yummy Rissoto, Gnocchi, and Ravioli. When we brought the food back to Britt, she wouldn't eat any, that's when we new something was really wrong! The European Brittney enjoys pasta way too much to reject it! We decided to sleep it off and see what the city could offer us in the morning. When we woke up, Britt got ready in her usual cute outfit, and we all put on the Nike shorts and t-shirts. After Britt got cute, we figured everything was back to normal. We met with the group to start the walking tour. Our tour guide had a little bit too much to drink the night before, so we had to wake him up in order to get to the church to meet the man who would take us on our walking tour. We saw a church in the middle of the town, lots of interesting statues, a bridge, and some sort of river. I'm sure these things were all great and full of historical facts, but our guide was a tad long winded, so I lost interest and got distracted by all the pretty street art and the rumble of my tummy telling me it was time to eat. When we went into the leather factory, things started to make a turn for the worse. After the demonstration, Erin and I got hooked on the Italian version of Pandora bracelets, Amore&Beci. We decided to start our bracelets together there, and of course we bought something for Belle and Barb to add to their bracelets too :). While all of this was going on, Britt went to the bathroom, and Jackie found her crying and feeling awful. They took a taxi back to the hotel, and E and I decided to walk back. Back at the hotel, we decided it was time to do something for Britt. We talked to Vitor, our tour guide, to see where we should go to get medical attention. He casually explained where a "clinic" was down the street that had doctors and medicine, assuring us that anywhere we went, someone would speak english. We waited for two hours for this clinic to open. In the mean time, Jackie and I went down the street to do laundry and use the internet cafe. Our laundry took longer than expected, so Erin and Britt went ahead to the clinic at 4:00. After laundry and facebook, Jac and I headed back to the hotel to pack and rest. We figured it wouldnt be long until E and Britt got back, so we waited. When 5:00 rolled around, we got a little concerned, so we started putting on our shoes to walk to the clinic. As I was tying up the easy tones, I got a text from Erin that read: "We are at the hospital. The clinic does not exist." At that, Jackie and I jumped in a cab and got to the hospital. When we finally found our way around to the Emergency Room, we walked back through the hall ways to find Britt laying on a bed in the hall, connected to a creepy Italian man's bed. This was possibly the scariest place any of us have ever been. Before talking to Britt, Erin caught us up on the events that had gone on. After walking for about 30 minutes, they arrived at the hospital, where no one spoke much English. The doctor or nurse, then proceeded to take Brittney's blood. While Brittney was obviously freaking out, Erin was freaking out on the inside, but kept herself cool, calm, and collected. She got Britt through that experience. What a great future nurse! We all three stood with Britt for a few minutes, gave her the book she was reading, then got chewed out in Italian by some old nurse man, that apparently told us we werent allowed to be back there with her. I went to the hallway to call my dad to make sure these people were doing everything right, and Jackie stayed with Britt. She got kicked out of the hall pretty wuickly after that, so we were left to sit and wait, while Britt had to go through this alone. During her time in the ER, two Italian men talked about her and stared at her, an old lady was shocked and brought back to life in the same room as Brittney, and the nurse tried to tell Britt that she had to stay over night at the hospital. I will let her elaborate on these events later. Somewhere around 9:00, we finally saw our little trooper walk through the doors of the ER. She had prescriptions, x-rays, and unclear instructions on what to eat and drink. I am not lying when I tell you that we got out of that hospital as fast as our feet would carry us. We stopped by a pharmacy to get the medicine, got Britt some waffles on the street (she hadn't eaten anything in 24 hours), and headed back to the hotel. I don't know how, but we somehow survived the experience of the Italian hospital. We considered using our usual motto of "don't tell Glen," because we didn't want him to be too upset that we begged for Brittney to come on the trip, but we decided it might not be a good idea for him to be kept in the dark about this, so we made sure to call with any updates as they came! When we got home that night, Jackie and I went back to the internet cafe. Mid-session, I had to go to the bathroom very badly. I went into the less than average bathroom in the dark back corner of this cafe, and realized that there was no toilet paper. It was already to late, so I used my underwear, left them on the floor, because there was no trash can, and got out of that place before anyone realized what I had done. I think I gave the term "cruise and lose" a whole new meaning. When I got back to the hotel, that provided us with a little comic relief before we all fell asleep. I think it is safe to say that we discovered Florence in the way that the locals do. We were bored with all of the tourist non-sense, so we decided to make a new kidn of adventure. Thank youuu to Brittney's kidney stone! The next morning, it was time to travel to Nice, France. While we though our bus was going to be around the corner where it dropped us off, it turns out to be a good half a mile walk away that felt like three miles carrying all of our luggage. Our bus driver picked a place to park and refused to pull the bus closer to the hotel, even though the town was quiet, and there were plenty of avaliable streets for him to park on. Needless to say, his tip amount went wayyyy down when the envelope was passed around later that day! On the way to Nice, we stopped to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That was a fun little area, with a church and the tower. We took the typical tourist pictures, got back on the bus, and rode 4 more hours to Nice. Our hotel has AC, internet, and pretty comfortable beds! We are definitely pleased. More to come on the rest of our time here when Jackie decides to blog next.

Keep praying that the stone passes before Spain, so Britt can feel better and enjoy the last week of the trip! I know all of y'all can't wait to see our chubby cheeks back in the states soon!

Lots of love,

Kaci the other three