For such a small city, Florence turned out to be a pretty big weekend. It’s a pity that everything that happened on Friday/Saturday kind of overshadowed the city itself, but at least it made for a good story.

I spent most of the time there with a complete inability to heary anything out of my left ear, and producing more phlegm than I would have thought my body could contain. It’s rate of reproduction has been phenomenonal. But while I’m proud of my incredible phlegm-creating capabilities, I’d rather just be able to keep company without having to constantly clear my throat and nose.

We saw David yesterday, through the haze of hangover, but I’m so glad I went and saw him. He was everything I expected and about a million times more. The replica in the square, while impressive, was nothing on the real thing. Even the other statues paled into insignificance in comparison. Although I had known that David was a masterpiece, I hadn’t fully appreciated why until I saw him myself. He looked like he could step off his pedestal and wander out of the museum. Every muscle and sinew was so perfectly placed and defined that real nly believed I could watch him moving like flesh and blood. No other sculpture I’d seen had ever given me that impression. The unfinished pieces of Michelangelo were pretty damn cool, too. You could see the figures emerging out of the marble and actually appreciate the skill and talent that went into making that happen.

The reason this was experienced through a haze of hangover was because of a slightly crazy Friday night that was supposed to be a couple of cocktails and then turned into a 30-hour-epic of at least one of us. Not me, though, ha. I got merry at the pub, told a bunch of Italian men to leave me alone, got a hankering for a kebab, and was home by one o'clock. Both Annaleis and Meilz were much drunker than I was, and kicked on. Since there was only one key for the room, I was expecting to hear Annaleis come home and as such was half-awake in anticipation of her getting back. I kind of jerked awake at about five (my snoring woke me up, I’ll be honest) and realised that she hadn’t come back. I was a little worried, but thought that surely Mick and Meilz would have made sure she got home safe. Initial thoughts turned to her maybe coming home with someone else, or passing out in their room, or something along those lines.

When my alarm went off at seven thirty, and Annaleis still wasn’t back, I was starting to hit on the real worry. I was fairly certain that she wouldn’t have gone home witha local, no matter how drunk she was, but instead had myself convinced that she was probably dead in a ditch and I’d have to worry about how I’d tell her mother that I’d left her daughter at a pub to be murdered by a strange Italian and her body dumped in a shallow grave. (A typical Amy reaction) I asked around at breakfast, no one there had see her after around two, most had left before then. By this point I was rather terribly worried. She hadn’t been back to shower, didn’t show up at breakfast, hadn’t come back with anyone else on tour. I followed it up with Chad, who told me not to worry, that this kind of thing happens, and not to let it ruin my day. I felt suitably condescended by this - seeing as I know Annaleis a lot better than he does and that she wouldn’t have gone home with a random as I knew he was probably assuming. And of course, as a consummate worrier, this was absolutely no comfort whatsoever.

I met up with Mick and Meilz, who made me feel worse by telling me that after they’d left the pub, Annaleis had done a runner for no apparent reason. Which I thought seemed totally out of character, and I couldn’t think of what could possibly have made her bolt. My dead in a ditch hypothesis seemed to be gaining ground.

We did the tour around Florence and I was just sort of hoping she would pop up somehwere and that I wouldn’t see her lifeles body floating down the Arno. But at around 12.30, as we were wandering past the Duomo in the vague direction of David, and I got crash tackled by a dishevelled blonde who’d spent the night first in a stairwell, and then on a stranger’s couch. Her side of the story was that she’d lost her camera in the pub, which was why she’d bolted, gotten lost, and then the only place she could find to sleep was the stairwell of an apartment block. ne of the people who lived there told her she couldn’t sleep there and invited her in to sleep on his couch. In the morning she wandered into town and we eventually stumble upon each other. I have never been so relieved to see anyone ever.

So it was after all that that we went to see David. The rest of the afternoon was relatively uneventful, as was the Tuscan dinner. Gave the space disco a miss...I think there had been plenty of excitement already...it’s so sad that all I’ll really remember about Florence was being drunk, hungover, and worried.