Lindsays Good Bye to Italy

So it is sad to say that we are leaving Italy today:) But that means more countries for us to visit!!! We fly out tomorrow for Athens where we are going to be staying for a week which should be a lot of fun since neither of us have been to greece. My friend Alex lives there so hopefully she will be able to meet up with us and show us some great local places to go:)
We had a great last week in Italy....Almost every afternoon we go and eat at our friend Armando's little sandwhich shop which is on one of the side streets right past piazza senoria. The best part about it is that you get this little sandwhich, which is by far one of the best things I have eaten in Italy, and a small glass of wine for 4 euros. Karina use to go there all the time when she lived here last year and he remembers her (of course, every waiter has!) and soon we became one of the regulars. On our last trip after we ordered our typical salami with goat cheese and fennel, he handed us this package because he said he wanted to give us something...and why wouldn't he give us a 5 pound piece of the salami that we have everyday! hahaha it was pretty funny but now we are wondering, crap what do we do with this and this just might put our luggage over the limit! All I can say is that it was one of the nicest things that we have gotten from an Italian and now we will never starve on our trip:)
On Thursday our friend Andrea took us wine tasting out in the chianti area about 30 minutes south of Florence which has over 140 wines to try, but dont worry we didnt try that many! (very tempting though) Once we were inside the winery they had a lot of interesting memorabilia dating back to the 19th century and even a room where you could go in that is HUGE because it was the actualy size of the barrel that they would age the wine. We had a great time and even got to walk around the little town that looks like a postcard from Tuscany. Last night Karina and I were walking in the center of florence and came across a wine tasting event which was fun. We started noticing all these people walking around the city with wine glasses and karina thought, "those people stole their wine glasses from the restaurant!" and I was thinking, "what restaurant lets you take the wine with you when you go!?" haha but we finally figured it out. It was 5 euros for the glass and that included 6 different tastings and food, talk about a great deal! The wines were actually very good except one which we should have figured out since the drain next to that particular booth was very wet! (from everyone pouring it out!) The food has been great here in Italy and i am sad to leave our favorite little cafe where we have our morning cappuccino and brioche.
The days are getting shorter and it is starting to get colder but fortuntely Greece is more south so we are hoping it is warmer!! After Greece we are going to Berlin, which I am starting to think was a bad choice for the middle of December, but it will make our suitcases lighter because we will be wearing most of our clothes to keep warm:) After Berlin it is off to Paris and Barcelona and that is as far as we have gotten in our planning:) Have a great Thanksgiving! Ciao!
Lindsay