Florence

Tom and I arrived in Florence about an hour ahead of Jenna. She had reserved a hotel for us so we had to meet her at the train station to go there together. However, since we had some time, we decided we needed to have a little fun with the girl and loosen her up a bit befor our week together. She's a sweet girl, but she has a plan for everything and is very punctual, so we have to ruffle her feathers when we can. Her train was to arrive at 6:06 sharp (or something like that, I can’t remember) and she was expecting to be greeted by Tom and I at the station. So I sent her a text message 15 minutes before and told her that the train from Pisa to Florence broke and we were stuck in Pisa. Her reply to that seemed relatively calm, asking if I was serious, so I replied back and told her unfortunately yes, and that she may have to stay the night alone and we would meet her tomorrow, but we’d try to get there somehow. So by now we know she’s stressed since the plan has been messed up and things aren’t going as they should. Hee hee :) So we waited for her train to arrive, anxious ourselves not to miss it because then we’d have to call her to find the hotel with egg on our faces. When we saw her get off the train pulling her bag we started to follow her from a distance. Tom actually wanted to stalk her all the way to the hotel, but I couldn’t do that to the poor girl since I knew she was freaking out as it was. So we came up from behind and surprised her, she couldn’t believe her eyes at first, then she got mad and beat us up a bit, but it was fun and it set a good tone for the week I think.

We had our fun with Jenna, but I have to give her credit, the hotel she got for us was very nice. The room was beautiful and it had a direct view of the Duomo, the big cathedral and symbol of Florence, that was only a few blocks away. The guy at the hotel even gave us a bottle of wine to drink up on the terrace which had an even more spectacular view of the church and Giotto’s tower as well as the rest of the city, it was amazing. After we got settled in and had our wine on the roof we went to meet my friend Jenni, who I had an Italian class with back home. She has been living in Florence since August and we have kept in touch, so I was excited to see her there. We went to dinner with her and one of her friends and afterwards met some other girls and had a drink. It was nice to see Jenni and get her perspective on life here in Italy, it made me feel more comfortable about staying here for a while.

The next morning was sunny and beautiful and we took a walk past the Duomo and went to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the more famous art galleries in the world. We say Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, springtime, as well as several other paintings of faces and angels. Botticelli’s paintings were great, but like I said before, I can only look at so many paintings, and I’ve been here before so it was no big thing to me. Jenna really enjoyed it though. She has been here a few times, but she knows more about the paintings so they mean more to her. After the gallery we got some food then went to the Santa Croce church. I had stayed right next to this place two years ago and never went inside it, and the front was covered in scaffolding so I couldn’t see the outside either. However, since then I learned that inside are the the tombes of Michelangelo, Galileio, and Dante to name a few, and they finished cleaning the white marble façade and it was stunning and looked like new. The tombes weren’t gloomy like you might imagine, they were just built into the walls inside the main body of the church and they were all decorated with paintings and statues. (Michelangelo below)After that I decided to go back to the hotel and take a nap as started to feel sick again. It seems that instead of feeling better I was starting to feel worse. So I left Tom and Jenna to sightsee on their own, which was probably good since they had started to take a liking to each other, how cute is that?

Day three. After a cornetto and spremuta d’arancia for breakfast we headed of to see more sights. Tom and Jenna went to the Galleria D’Accedemia the day before while I was sleeping to see the statue of David so they wanted to climb the 400 or so steps up Giotto’s tower. I didn’t feel up to that and I really wanted to see David, so we split up. I saw David the last time I was here, but it’s worth seeing more than once. Even now it is still amazing to see in person. Unlike the Moana Lisa, which to me wasn’t all that impressive in person, David is still shocking to see even after having seen it before. It’s hard to describe but the things that Michelangelo created are so lifelike, so real, it’s hard to imagine a person could do such a thing. His works, from David, to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City and the Pieta’ in St. Peter's basillica are simply amazing.

That evening I wanted to go up the hill to the Piazza Michelangelo to watch the sunset over the city. Florence is beautifully situated in a lush green valley in Tuscany and the sunsets there are breathtaking. The yellow light reflecting off the Duomo as it towers over the city is surreal. However, that evening it was pretty cloudy, so now yellow light. It was still beautiful though and we got some good pictures of the city. We had a good time in Florence, but I had to hold back a bit because I started to feel pretty sick. Not what I wanted to do but I guess I had too much fun the first month here so now I had to pay for it. Anyway, now we were off to Venice….

The Ponte Vecchio above, and my best impression of an Italian guy, below.