Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Exploring Florence!!


There are few words that can describe how amazing being in Florence was today. I will start with these three: Oh. My. God! There was so much history and so much beauty... it was crazy!! I can't even begin to explain.
We woke up early this morning and got on the bus bound for Florence at 8AM. As much as I tried to fall asleep on the bus I was was too excited to. When we arrived I looked to the right and the first thing I see is the Florence skyline with the Duomo, Santa Cruce, the Baptistry, etc. Great way to start the morning, right?! (You'll have to check Facebook for photos, they are taking too long to upload to here.)
At the top of the hill in Piazza Michelangelo we toured a church that is 1000 years old. Think about that... that's 4X the time that the US has even existed!
Afterwards we went to Santa Croce- a Dominican Cathedral that you can pay 3 euro and take a tour. SO WORTH THE 3 EURO!
While my friends were in College Station in classrooms I was in Santa Croce with the tombs of... wait for it... Michelangelo, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Dante. (While the bodies of Galileo and Michelangelo were there- da Vinci and Dante's are located elsewhere.) Just standing there in the church in front of their tombs was crazy! These are the people that I've read about in history books and now their bodies are within feet of me!
Afterwards we walked around the city with Paolo (the amazing man than runs the center) and he showed us all the sites that people don't typically see when they are just wandering through. Then we all went to a restaurant to eat and we had an amazing meal!! We had pasta, followed by pork, salad, french fries (comforts of home!), and then ice cream. Amazing!
Then we were allowed to do whatever we wanted and roam the city. Three of my friends and I went over to a market that lined several of the streets. We had to go over and look at them for a class (and write an essay on it later). It was really interesting. They had all sorts of cheap leather goods like purses, wallets, jackets, and gloves.
Once we were done walking the market we walked around and went into actual shops. Katie and I found a place that sold warm socks and we split a 5 pair/10 euro deal. Now my toes are nice and toasty. It comes in handy since they don’t really do the central heating thing over here. They turn on the radiators whenever they feel like it’s completely necessary for us to not get frostbite. This is part of the reason that I’m not feeling too sorry for people in Texas right now with the cold weather. Yes, it’s freezing there, but outside it is a constant 30-35 here and inside it’s about a constant 55 degrees. Really gotta bundle up to stay warm inside here. It’s funny because everyone will be eating meals in their full winter coats and winter garb.
We met back up to get on the bus in Florence at 5:30 and then started heading back to Castig. Once we got here we had about 30 minutes until dinner.
Now I am fighting with the Internet trying to post this. The wireless here has really been acting up- boo. Finally got it posted. Internet ninja! :)

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