Our alarms rang around 3am since my parent's flight departs a little after 6am. I awoke not really knowing where I was, and for only getting five hours of sleep, I feel shockingly awake. The streets of Venice were DEAD quiet. After a bit of a stressful taxi situation where the first two taxis wouldn't accept credit card, the third one was the charm and my parents were off. Final "I love yous" were said and then I'm alone. It's just me, my backpack, and a loose plan for the next 3 weeks.

My train didn’t depart for another hour and a half so I spent my time doing some calisthenics in the waiting area of the train; the security guard gave me a curious look, understandably. The journey to Florence from Venice took a little over five hours and included 3 different trains and a bus and during the entire trip, not a single person asked me for my ticket.

Once in Florence, I headed to my hostel, Dance Hostel, a cheap hole-in-the-wall type place to drop off my bag before heading off to a coffee shop recommended by a friend. I first began to use GPS to navigate there but after not using it much the last 10 days with my parents, it felt unauthentic as a way to experience a new city so I turned it off and strolled, just allowing my instinct to take over and only checking in every once in awhile to make sure I was on track. Hell, I rarely did that in Fort Wayne. It is definitely a more present way to explore a place rather than just following the phone like a robot. The coffee shop, Ditta Artigianale, served up the best cup of coffee I've ever had, a remarkable feet to usurp Yellow Cup from the top spot its held the past three or so years. It was just a plain black coffee but the taste was remarkably chocolate forward and sooo tasty.

I napped at the hostel before going on a run & then heading to Yoga Garage for a class. It'd been 10 days since I'd been in a class and it felt incredible to my body. I went up into a head stand on my own for the first time and stayed! I loved the feeling. After class, I met up with a girl I met at the coffee shop for dinner. She’d been studying in Florence for almost a year and gave me good tips of things to do while in town.