From Miami to Rome . . .: March 2007 - Florence, Italy

In our third week in Florence, we started Italian class. We met so many amazing people from all over Europe. But the craziest and most fun were the Irish!!

Here we are with Ciara and Rachel from Dublin.

Our first outing with the Irish girls was to a bar hosting some really bad performance art.

Here is Kenny with some of our other classmates - Declon (from Ireland) and Ismail (from Turkey).

So after the performance art, they convinced us to go to a club in the center of Florence. We were out way too late, drank far too much and slept through our class the next day. Rachel and Ciara try to prove they can be tame and host a dinner party. Please note all the bottles of alcohol on the table. In all fairness, they put out a wonderful spread and we pigged out before we really started in on the wine. And no dinner party would be complete without an after-party. Here we are heading out - already bobbing and weaving.

Ciara stops traffic - just for fun.

Surprise surprise, the girls know every bartender in town.

So its shots of rum-pigna for everyone. This mixture of rum and pineapple nectar is toxic.

After the shots, we headed to Salamanca, a Spanish-themed nightclub, feeling pretty tipsy.

The girls had us dancing silly in no time. Yes those are straws that we're using as microphones.

The theme is Spanish dancing, so Casandra showed off some of her moves. I think we were all too drunk to appreciate her grace.

After two weeks of non-stop fun with Rachel and Ciara, we agree to head out to a karaoke bar together.

After a couple of drinks, they persuaded Casandra to get up on stage and sing. Oh God Casandra, stay away from the microphone and keep shaking your hips.

As usual, the girls broke the ice on the empty dance floor.

They are a two-man party. It is impossible to get a shot of them standing still.

After a little while, the crowd starts to build and Casandra joins in.

This odd French girl was a ton of fun and her moves were hilarious. Can the Irish girls out dance her?

Oooops they did it again . . . to Britney Spears. Rachel amazingly knew the whole routine and she had all the Britney wannabees on the dance floor.

Even Casandra lost herself in the music.

On our last night with the Rachel and Ciara we headed out for one last drink. The girls' took over the bar, as usual, and we parted ways after making promises to visit each other.

What we love most about Rachel and Ciara is that they have no shame or sense of embarassment. They just love to have fun and dance in some wild and crazy ways. Here they are sitting on the floor of the bar showing us their rendition of the "Row the Boat Baby" from the 70s. They swear everyone in Dublin plops down on the floor and rows an imaginary canoe whenever this song comes on. We want to check it out for ourselves.