-Start driving at 10 pm in a big bus with 20 of your closest people you've never met before. Wake up with a sore neck to sunrises in Germany.
-While waiting for a train, allow an old man to come up to you and say in a scratchy German accent, "Only for you, only one time," and then proceed to throw a handful of paper hearts into the air above your head.
-Walk around Berlin in the crisp early sunlight and decide no this this is your favorite city in the world. Find yourself standing in front of a vast memorial for European Jews and let your heart drop at the power of its size. Then an adorable fall couple sharing coffees and donuts on one of the cement blocks will warm your heart back up again.
-Get currywurst and mulled wine for lunch (sausage with curry ketchup and hot wine, kind of like apple cider, but wine) and see the Berlin wall. Go to the zoo. A beer garden. Eat more sausages. Drink more beer and when you go out to eat at a cavernous German restaurant, order pork knuckle. Seriously do it. Don't sleep but wake up in Amsterdam.
-Eat delicious baked goods called "happy cakes" for breakfast and walk around the city feeling like this. Take pictures you'll only slightly remember taking.
Laugh enough to end all wars.
Take your heart back from Berlin and give it all to Amsterdam because you've never fallen so hard for a place in your life.
-Say good morning to Brussels! Step out of the bus and into a magestic land of castles and sexy business men in gorgeous suits. Go to take a picture of Mannekin Pis but notice the three siblings taking a picture in front of it and automatically miss your little brothers more than you ever thought you would. Take a picture of them instead. Find a chocolate named "Carolina" and smile. Buy it and eat it dramatically like your in a Dove commercial. Carb up on waffles that taste more like magic than waffles, then hit up Delirium, the bar with millions a lot of beers and won best beer in the world in 2004. Drink a mango beer and start missing blueberry wheats at Topo. This city is so bittersweet, so enchanting, you promise it forever.
-Feel guilty for leaving Belgium so soon after he swept you off your feet, but France shows you this sunset and before you know it, you're flirting with Paris. Champagne under the Eiffel Tower until the early morning hours with friends. That's about all it took.
-But then. Barcelona.
You forget everything. It's warm finally. Busy. Relaxing. Beautiful. And so much fun.
The kind of fun where you go out at night with everyone all dressed up, dance until the beach clubs close at 6, and fall into the sand out front while you watch the sun rise.
This is where you decide you'll stay.
I don't know whether the 14 hour bus ride back to Florence was torture,
or just plain hell, but I can tell you two things.
That I can't hold a single sip of water to save my life and that after trying to sleep sitting up, I'll never complain about a twin bed again.
Oh and one more thing. That when we finally got back to Santa Maria Novella, it didn't take long to conclude that Florence is it. The one. The best city in the world.
The quiet walk back to the apartment through the packed-up-for-the-night- San Lorenzo market street, the feeling of arriving at our big front door that I love so much,
seeing the other two roommates already home from their fall breaks. Yes.
Europe I'm a let you finish but uh.. Florence takes the cake on this one.
