This post co-written by the one, the only....

...DIANE SEMET!

Greetings from Firenze all you little goobies! Mia mamma is sitting here with me in a very dingy little internet cafe that, gloriously, only charges 1,50 € per hour. We arrived after a wonderful, incredibly relaxing stay with our family in Zurich who pampered us beyond belief--we ate fantastically well, had hot showers and were escorted about the charming Swiss countryside. Annie, Lizzie and I got into Zurich on Friday night after two nights in a fun but not so comfortable hostel, and, needless to say, the hospitality my second cousin Patrick and his wife Ana showed us was very, very welcome. After allowing us to take 30-minute showers they fed us a veritable feast of a breakfast and showed us around Zurich until we met my mom at the train station that afternoon. We all went for a huge dinner up on a hill overlooking the city and lake of Zurich and then I had to part ways with my travel buddies of the last couple weeks, as they were taking an overnight train to Berlin. The next day we toured the little town of Lucerne, ate more rich Swiss food and had several cups of very strong coffee, which made us never want to go back to the Starbucks, ever. The next day my great uncle, Albert and my great aunt, Hanni drove us through the mountains to Lugano, which was a drop-dead GORGEOUS drive, complete with chalets and cows making that cheese we all know and love. We had to say good-bye in Lugano, which was sad after such a lovely visit, but we had the train ride to Firenze to look forward to in the morning, which went smoothly.

We had some trouble at the Firenze train station getting our ticket to Paris--both of us were near psyhcological collapse, but after some deep healing breaths in the shadow of a beautiful cathedral (not quite sure which one, but hey, it was pretty and served its purpose), we reentered the train station and got our shiz taken care of, which, I think, is pretty much the definition of NO PANTS. So now we're going to find some pizza and gelato and a stiff drink and make our plans for tomorrow. Perhaps one more update from Italy tomorrow to let you all know how the David was and then we head out for the last leg of our fantastic voyage!