Florence!...and the greatest experience of my life!

Well, I was able to spend some time in Florence today. After much struggle this morning, managed to wake up at 8 a.m. and start my day so that I could spend some time in Florence. At first, I was cursing Florence and it's ability to make me NOT want to sleep in, but I eventually got over that.

Me and two of the players bussed into the city around 9 a.m. to begin our tour. Since I only had a few hours to spend in the city, I already had my day kind of planned out. Thanks to Courtney and Paola, I was told where to go and what to see. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the statue of David - yes it's in Florence - because you had to make reservations and I only had a few hours.

So we walked around a bit. Florence is charming. It wasn't jaw-dropping or breath taking like Regensburg was for me and it really didn't provide a sense of being in Europe, but it it has charm and character everywhere! The place is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it is just SO full of tourists. I can't tell you how many different tour groups we saw while we were walking around. In Regensburg, I was able to take pictures all the time and not have to worry about anyone walking in front of my camera, but here it was ridiculous!

There are churches and such EVERYWHERE. We started off at a Basilica (pictured) and it was gorgeous and gargantuan. And Florence has all of the cobble stone streets and alleys full of shops and cafes that I like! It's full of fashion stores... Ehren, a pitcher in the White Sox organization knew about all of these designers and stuff, it kind of worried me at first, but he explained that it was because his girlfriend had explained to him everything so that he understood which present to buy her and what not to (He bought her a 1,500 Euro Prada bag, by the way), so we had to walk down through all of those shops. For the ladies, we went through Gucci, Prada, Burberry, Miu Miu, and some other ones... the stores were INSANE. We walked into Prada with Ehren and there was a t-shirt for 265 Euro... are you effin' kidding me?!

Well, my favorite part was the bridge! There was this place (forgive me, I forgot the name), and it is this old bridge and it's just made of buildings that are actually jewelry shops (oh, with watches that are 195,000 Euro - F that!). I'm such a sucker for bridges and I do not know why, but this was my favorite part. We walked through the streets just taking picture after picture after picture and finally got to the bridges. We walked through and stopped at Cafe Caruso and had lunch - PIZZA! - and settled down for a bit before we had to head back to the hotel.

Oh, by the way, the hotel was interesting. My room was the size of a broom closet, the bathroom didn't have a tub in it, just a drain in the middle of the bathroom... so when I showered, the entire floor flooded! I was walking through a kiddie pool of water after my shower. Comedy. Also, my ceiling was leaking the entire time. I digress.

Anyway, after we walked through Florence I got some work done and we headed to the stadium and this is where I had the coolest experience of my life! It is required by law (I don't know if it is just in Italy or what...) that USA and Israel have to have police escorts while traveling through a small town that we're staying in. So we generally have a police escort taking us to the field. They usually really suck because people don't care what cops do here, but today was TOTALLY different. We had two cops on motorcycles and they weren't screwing around.

We got to the stadium in rush hour traffic in about 15 minutes (yesterday it took about 30 minutes in non rush hour traffic). These cops were speeding ahead and forcing cars to pull to the side of the road or stop in the street. I mean, we're in a huge charter bus and we're flying through the city! At one point, one of the cops was driving his bike and a car wouldn't move over, so HE KICKED THE CAR WHILE DRIVING BESIDE OF IT! I AM NOT JOKING! IT WAS THE COOOOOOOOOOOOLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN! These guys were just flying by everyone forcing them out of the way and holding out these sticks with a red dot on it telling people to stop! Some people were dumb though... for instance, this one woman kept riding her bike through the street and nearly clipped the bus, and this other woman in a blue car would NOT move over and would not move for about two minutes so one of the cops sped and skidded in front of her, stopped and forced her to move to the side of the road. THESE GUYS WERE BADASSES! Not to mention that while we're flying through the city, people on the streets are just waving at us as we pass by like we're freaking super stars or something. I have never gone so fast in a charter bus and I have never been more pumped up in my life. We were all yelling at cars to get out of the way, getting WAY too into it and it was incredible. Ah! My favorite experience ever!!!

When we got to the stadium, we asked the cops to get on the bus and we gave them a round of applause and each shook their hand as we got off the bus... Coolest. Experience. Of. My. Life!

So, baseball, we clinched a spot in the Final Four yesterday and if we win tonight or if Canada

We are playing Puerto Rico tonight and will then bus to Rome Fiano - 30 minutes from the Vattican City - and will be there until we leave on Monday (well, if we make the gold medal game)!

OK, I have to go and get some work done before the game and post some pictures for you!

Oh, P.S., Florence has A TON of hookers. Just an FYI.

LOVES! loses, we clinch a spot in the gold medal game tonight (with three games left to play)... we're playing well, so hopefully we'll clinch tonight.