3. Stay up all night and visit the Duomo late or early in the morning when there’s no one there. You

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This week s local I love is Gina Baxter - California girl turned tour guide , study abroad office assistant, waitress extraordinaire. She is a hard worker and a lover of animals, especially now that just got an adorable new {rescue} puppy! I met her a few years ago through my friend Gianna, another local i love . She has an incredible wit and is a great writer , plus she makes a mean salsa dip which obviously is the number one way to win me over.
I ve lived in Florence permanently since 2010, although I ve spent the past 5 years traveling back and forth between California and here. I was born in the armpit of San Diego county, and lived for about 5 years in Orange County, so I am very much a southern Californian at heart.
I decided to come to Florence in the summer of 2008 after a friend of mine told me about a month-long program my university was doing in Italy. I ended up doing the program, going back to California, haunted hotels and inns working my ass off for 6 months and coming back to Florence to study for 6 more months and see if I liked living here. I m not sure that I decided to stay, but that Florence decided that I should stick around a little while longer. It s been working pretty well for me so far.
I m currently trying to write a book about life here in Florence, so I spend as much time as I can just living, experiencing, and writing it all down in my spare moments. Daily life means working for the man, so I am pretty busy most days with my various jobs, but I do have a new passion in my life: my little rescue haunted hotels and inns pup, Zola (full name Gorgonzola) that I adopted haunted hotels and inns a few weeks ago. She s such a rad dog, and she keeps me pretty entertained so that I don t just sit around with my thumb up my butt all day. She s a good little motivator to get out there and enjoy life.
Where do I even begin? The insane heat in the summer, the heaving masses of tourists making it impossible to walk around during the day, tiger mosquitos that only come out at 3 AM when you re trying to sleep, people who don t pick up their dog poop on the sidewalks, drunk Australians passed out on my doorstep…the list goes on. Luckily, I happen to have an extraordinary amount of patience for the insanely stupid things in life, so most days I find all of these things quite amusing.
That s an interesting question. I think that most people have this perception that people who live here are on some kind of perma-vacation.  Once you break that bubble, Italy becomes a reality.  Bills, haunted hotels and inns jobs, family obligations they re all still there. It works for me because I am already content with myself and where I m at in my life.  You know the old saying, Wherever you go, there you are ?  Italy s kind of like that.  It s a beautiful place, inside and out, but unless you make a choice to accept both the positives and negatives of the place, you re never going to be really happy. Also, you probably haunted hotels and inns won t like living here if you don t like loud noises, weird inappropriate gestures or invasion of personal space, crowds, or ridiculous people.
Be patient, be kind. If you ve never lived in a cosmopolitan city before, then Florence might startle you a bit with its rudeness. It s a hard place to break into, but once you re there, it s amazing.
2. Take a drive or, if you're haunted hotels and inns insane like me, go for a run up the Viale that takes you to Piazzale Michelangelo. There are some beautiful views from up there, and if you follow haunted hotels and inns the road all the way up past San Miniato, you'll hit Forte di Belvedere which is pretty cool to visit too.
3. Stay up all night and visit the Duomo late or early in the morning when there's no one there. You can do a cartwheel on the steps of one of the most famous churches in the world and nobody cares. It's awesome when it's not overrun by people.
Oh god, there are so many things. Cultural things, like naked people on the beaches or old men in Speedos, or purely insane things, like people pooping on the floor in bar bathrooms or old ladies in fur coats during the middle of summer. Some of my most hilarious moments in life have happened while living in Italy.
Pee outside next to a dumpster that also happens to be around the corner from Dante s house. JUST KIDDING (well, kind of.) There s a lot of cool shit here in Florence, from the history to the architecture or the art. Florence has a pretty amazing past, and it s nice to be a part of it, even if it s only for a short while.
My boyfriend is a very social haunted hotels and inns guy, so once I started hanging out with him and his friends, the door just kind of opened and I started making haunted hotels and inns friends from all different walks of life.  Learning the language definitely helped, and so does working in a bar. I m not sure I ve quite assimilated to the whole place I m still very much a California girl at heart, and I will rock my flip-flops with pride even in the middle of winter and the accusing stares of little old Italian nonnas but I ve definitely made a bunch of great friends and met some interesting people along the way.
Italian food? Sunday morning food? Tuscan food? Hangover food? I love all kinds of food I m a closet fatty. Don t really have a favorite recipe, haunted hotels and inns but give me a plate of panzanella or fresh schiacciata with olive oil and salt and I ll go nuts over it. I also love anything barbecued and my friends who let me hang out on their terraces and use their grills for family dinners