italy diaries🌷| cafe runs, best pizza in Bari, souvenir shopping, my final days here

Hey friends, good morning. It's Leilani. So today is Saturday morning and it's incredibly bright outside, but I thought I'd go ahead and take you guys along for a weekend in Italy with me. My boyfriend and I are planning to get some lunch and do a little shopping. I actually need to get some souvenirs for my family because this is my last weekend in Italy. I know that probably seems so sudden, I will definitely try to get into it more maybe later in this video or the next one when I'm back home, but the condensed version is basically my three months here are up. So I had to decide if I wanted to extend and get a visa that would allow me to stay here longer or go home. It's a really long story. I'll get into it another time, but in the meantime, I just want to enjoy a nice weekend and bring you guys along. Let's head out. So for my final weekend in Italy, I requested to eat here at my favorite pizzeria. They were established in 1870 and make the best authentic Neapolitan style pizza I've ever had. I always order their spicy margherita because the pizza comes on fire. So not only is it a bit of a spectacle, but I've never tasted a more flavorful pizza sauce. As I'm editing this, my mouth is watering, I miss it so much, but I found out they do happen to have a few restaurant locations in the US, mostly in California and New York. So if you happen to have one near you, you need to try this pizza. So after lunch, we decided to take a walk in Bari's old town and I showed a little bit of this area when I visited the first time in summer of 2022, but it was so brutally hot and I could enjoy it so much more in the winter. Plus it isn't as crowded during this season, so we were able to really take our time and appreciate all the beautiful streets and buildings made of stone. And the main reason we came here was for the souvenir shops. I'm now trying to collect magnets from all the places I travel to and they had so many precious magnets to choose from, like these local pasta ones. I ended up buying three because they're only a euro each and I'm planning to give one to my sister too. And we also passed the Basilica San Nicola and it was lit perfectly this time of day. It was so stunning. Also these cow statues in the front caught my eye and my boyfriend said that they used to have gold horns, but they were stolen. R.I.P. I've already been in here a few times and the interior is just gorgeous and I especially love looking at the artwork on the ceilings of Italian churches. So this is one of my favorite lookout points here in Badi, the view is just unreal. And I feel like my camera wasn't picking up just how vivid the colors are in real life. Especially on a clear sunny day like this, the sea is the most stunning shade of blue. There's no color grading on this footage, it's just that beautiful. Also there's this cafe right on the edge of the wall that's so cute. My boyfriend's mom took me here the other day and it was so relaxing to look at the flowers and out to the sea. Sorry, I don't know what came over him, but anyway. We've made our way out of the old town and are back in the beautiful city center. We needed a little caffeine pick-me-up, so my boyfriend said he knew a cute cafe nearby where we could get some coffee and dessert. Italian cafes will never disappoint. The pure euphoria I get from just looking at mini pastries like this, like this is the kind of stuff that makes me happy to be alive. We love trying out a variety, so we ordered four different mini cakes to share, then went to the bar to pick up our coffee. So after I insulted every Italian in that cafe with my afternoon cappuccino, I went to a good old fashioned American coffee shop. Not to get more coffee though. My mom collects these location mugs and requested an Italy one. And I saw they actually came out with body mugs, but I still preferred the design of the Italy one. And I got the baby size, just in case I didn't have enough space in my luggage. Hello friends, happy Monday. I'm currently coming to you guys from my hotel room here in Turkey. This is actually where I'm having my layover, a really long layover in fact. I'm not leaving for California until early tomorrow morning, so I have to spend the night here. And I'm kind of bummed because I've always wanted to go to Istanbul, I just don't have enough time here. I'm staying close to the airport, and the airport's actually about like an hour long And your girl has to be up at 5am tomorrow, so next time. But anyway, I left Italy really early this morning and officially had to say goodbye to my boyfriend, and that was really sad. It literally never gets easier saying goodbye. If you guys are in long term relationships yourself, you would know. So I'm just trying to distract myself. I'm getting ready to go to dinner, and I thought I was going to be like super lonely and sad in the hotel by myself, but I've honestly been so sleep deprived that I just kind of feel numb at this point. I don't really feel anything. So weirdly enough, it's actually been kind of playing into my favor. And also sorry, I know I didn't film yesterday, but it was my last day in Italy. We went over to my boyfriend's parents' house for lunch. We visited them pretty much every Sunday without fail, and his mom would make us like the most incredible feast. And I got to say goodbye to them, I did a lot of packing, and I actually went back into the city center because my mom really wanted the full-size Starbucks Italy cup. Some people collect magnets, and some people collect Starbucks cups, I guess. So I drag my booty all the way down to the only Starbucks in town, buy this frickin mug, which was $20, by the way, for a mug, send her a Snapchat of the mug, and she responds 「あまりかわからない。」 Which roughly translates to, it's actually not that cute, mother. The things I do for her. Whatever, I'm gonna keep it. But anyway, I know that I also haven't really gotten to my experience in Italy and why I left, and I think I'll talk about that in the next video when I have a little more time. It is getting late, and I do need to go to dinner because I need to get in early tonight. Time to change out of my PJs and back into some real clothes, and let's go get a Turkish dinner.