This week in Italia

The week has just been amazing, and it's only Wednesday! On Monday I decided to sleep in a bit trying to catch up on sleep from Rome, woke up around 11am. Since none of my roommates were in the mood for lunch, I decided to go on a little adventure by myself. Wandering around was actually the highlight of my day, something about being on your own schedule and doing whatever you please in a foreign city was really liberating. I went to lunch at the Oil Shoppe--it was amazing! Got a nice big salad, fries, and a drink all for under 7 euros. Afterward, I just explored the city, shopped a bit until 2pm when I met up with some people to climb the Campanile (The Duomo's Bell Tower). 414 steps later I was standing at the top of the tower, overlooking the heart of Florence! It was so beautiful.



We then checked out the Baptistry, which has such beautifully painted ceilings, depicting many stories from the bible. Class actually interesting, we were discussing the family life of the Renaissance, Florence. And the day just got better, since Monday night means its cooking time! My cooking class was so much fun as always. This time we learned about the Italian Happy Hour. During Happy Hour, Italian's drink wine, before dinner, in order to open up their taste buds and their stomachs for their meal. Nowadays there are certain bars you can go to for Happy Hour, and they serve bar food--but its actually all really elaborate finger foods that you can eat with one hand or a spoon. We made four finger food dishes--my favorite was the desert, which was chocolate spice cookies with homemade whipped cream, sliced fruit sandwiched between 2 cookies! Don't worry guys I have all the recipes!



I had to leave class a few minutes early to go to see a show at the Boboli Gardens. LdM got us reduced priced tickets for Le Cirque Invisible featuring this old man and a young woman. It was really good, but difficult to describe. It was somewhere between, a magic show, interpretive dance, corny comedy. The woman was amazing; she did this tight rope performance, which was really awesome. It was also just a nice setting, outside at the Boboli Gardens under the stars.

Tuesday morning I ventured to the Cascine Market for some shopping the Florentine way. It turned out to be a bust, it was just a big flea market with a bunch of cheap stuff, of course I still found something to buy, a dress and a scarf for only 1 euro. At least we got to see the Medici Park, which was really pretty, kind of reminded me of Forsyth Park in Savannah, Ga. :) After having a quick bit with Emily, I decided to start working on my documentary analysis for my history class-- got most of it done before meeting my class at the Church of San Lorenzo, the Medici family church. Pretty cool, but the churches are all starting to run together and I really would be happy if I didn’t see another church for a few days, enough is enough. I don’t think the Florentines understood that point. haha. Then during the second half of class we went to the Galleria dell' Accademia to see Michelangelo's David and a few other Michelangelo sculptures. It's so incredible to see his work in person and try to understand how brilliant he was. Michelangelo personally picked out each of his pieces of marble because he believes that God put the art into the marble, and it was just freeing it. He sometimes took years to pick out the right piece of marble that contained his most famous works.

After class, Leslie, Jordan, Hope and I decided to grab some dinner and go see Sex and the City 2 at the Odeon. Ali joined us too! It was so much fun to see it at a beautiful theatre, with super comfy seats and a bar within. In Italy there are intermissions in movies, so I had just enough time to grab a Beck’s and a Twix and use the w.c. before the movie started again! Also the movie was really good, loved all the clothes, cars and shoes!! Hope and Jordan convinced me that I should join them out, even though I hadn’t finished my history paper yet. I gave in and it turned out to be an amazing night. We started at this little bar near the Duomo—Jordan made friends with the owner and he promised good deals, and boy did he deliver. Benny, the owner, gave us several free shots of jager and half price beer bottles. I had such a great night with the girls out in Frienze! After the midnight when the bar closed, we walked to this small Italian club, Bebop with Benny. They have live music there every Tuesday, and it was Beatles night, Italian style! Needless to say, we all had a blast, and grew very close. Tuesday was by far my favorite night/day in Florence!!!! Besides the fact that it was Landon’s 23rd birthday, which I sadly missed, but no need to worry I will make it up to him!



Wednesday morning came very early, and a group of us decided to go to Fiesole, one of the oldest Tuscan cities, filled with beautiful Roman ruins. Fiesole was only about a 30 min bus ride up the hills right outside of Florence. The views of the city were amazing, yet the hike to the top was not a highlight so early in the morning after my epic night out. Yet still worth it. My favorite part of Fiesole was climbing around the Roman ruins and taking a million ridiculous pictures with all the girls! We had such a great time and Daniel was such a great photographer! Haha





I managed to finish my paper before class, which plenty of time for a coffee break. Class was super boring I ended up falling asleep in class, despite the coffee. Jessica had to wake me up because I was beginning to snore, oops.

Leslie and I, both super tired, decided to grab dinner on the way home from class so we didn’t have to go back out for the rest of the night. We had some of the best pizza I’ve had here and a great conversation to top it off! On the way back to the apartment I stumbled into a leather bag shop and bought a beautiful hunter green leather bag! Made in Florence too. The rest of the night was spent catching up online with Mom and Karly and editing all the pictures from Rome. Tried to fall asleep to Glee, but it was so hot Wednesday night that it was difficult to sleep. It was by far the hottest night here, so bad that Jessica went out and bought a fan this morning! I’m really trying to hold out because it’s kind of a waste of money since I won’t be able to take it home.

Today we traveled to the Medici Families private chapel, which housed the tombs of the great Medici’s. It was beautiful. Next we hiked across the ponto vecchio to the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. Here is where Masolino, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi painted some of the earliest frescoes. After the chapel we wander around the Boboli Gardens. It was so refreshing to see so much green. That is one thing I miss about North Carolina—there are plenty of trees.
This afternoon I wander around, which is my new favorite thing. Got some cute handmade, Italian leather shoes and had lunch at Mario’s again. Then it was class time again. Learned all about the paintings of the Renaissance, most of the works I had actually already seen in the many church adventures. Interesting but I had going to class from 4pm- 6:30pm. A bunch of us are going to dinner together at Il Gatto e La Volpe. Off to dinner now, then packing for Vesuvio, Sorrento, Capri and Pompeii this weekend. We’re all leaving at like 6am tomorrow morning so tonight will be an early night.