Hey all! This weekend was action packed, so I'll let you in on the exciting week in Florence.
Thursday morning, Dad, Maureen and I took the train from Rome to Florence. One of my best friends (Cara) goes to school in Florence, so I was super super excited to see her! Right when we got there I called her and we met by the Florence Duomo (no big deal). We decided to go to the Uffizi Museum not too far away, while Cara went home to relax after class (poor girl, she has classes on Thursday!). The Uffizi Museum was extremely interesting, and I was able to see so many works of art that I had studied in Art History in high school, but NEVER dreamed I would see. We saw Botticelli's Primavera, Birth of Venus, Annunciation by Leonardo daVinci, and works from artists Giotto, Cimabue, Albrecht Durer, Verrocchio, Caravaggio, etc., etc., etc. It was fantastic, surreal, and crazy to think that these works of art were made so long ago, and have made it to this day. So cool. Anyways, after the Uffizi, we met back up with Cara and had a delicious dinner of gnocchi with mozzerella de bufala (buffalo mozzerella, the BEST mozzerella ever), with fresh bread and yummy olive oil, with creamy tiramisu to top it all off. Cara went off and were able to catch up, I met her awesome roommates and crazy friends, and ended the great day off with an even better night!
Friday was pretty awesome too. As a little tyke, I always thought of the Leaning Tower of Pisa as some awesome place, where this crazy building stood. Little did I know that I would be seeing it in real life one day. The day started off by a late-ish start after waking early for the train the day before to catch yet another train an hour to Pisa. My dad had gotten a book out of the library (big surprise!) and had read all about Pisa and things to do, and one of them was a little restaurant on the way from the station to the tower. Pizza in Pisa, that was my goal; achieved, however not the best way. I'll just put it this way: if you ever have the chance to try WURSTEL, don't. It is a type of sausage, which made me initially interested in it, but the way they make it is that of a hot dog. This was the worst part of the pizza, which there rarely is a bad part. Once we finished eating our pizzas in Pisa, we meandered through the streets and on to the LEANING TOWER!
The leaning tower was crazy, with tourists swarming taking the stereotypical pictures with no shame; holding the tower up and pushing it over. I am not saying we didn't partake in the taking of these photos. That was the fun part! Also near the tower is a basilica and a baptistery, which we visited both. The basilica was really beautiful, art everywhere. The baptistery was especially interesting, because the building was originally made for musical purposes. It's acoustics are so good, that an echo can be heard for almost 30 seconds after a sound is made. So, to demonstrate this, every 30 minutes a guard comes in and sings. All he sings are simply a few notes, but once they are all sung they harmonize and blend together to make a beautiful sound. This was really really awesome. What was a shame though is that the building is no longer used for its original purposes, but only for the tourist ones. What was once made for great things, now just stands there unused except for a couple minutes every half hour. On our way around the Pisa buildings, there were about 20 different vendors lining the street selling "Pisa junk" as we called it. We got some postcards and walked around until we found gelato (strawberry and chocolate, the best combination EVER) and headed back to the train for an hour's ride (or nap) back to Florence.
On a lighter note, we saw the beautiful baptistery, the Tower, as well as the duomo, and made it back in just enough time to run to Tijuana. NO not all the way in Mexico, but a Mexican restaurant, with Cara and some girls from her school! I had been craving some Mexican food so bad, it was great to eat spicy and deliciously flavorful chicken fajitas. It was fun to talk and compare where we live and our schools, since my school in Rome is a branch off of the Lorenzo di Medici school in Florence, where the main headquarters are. Florence is the most Americanized Italian city that I know of, where English is spoken, and expected to be spoken almost everywhere you go. Also, their school has over 2,000 students, whereas here in Rome we only have 25. They live very close to eachother, apartments within blocks of their friends, where we would have to take the metro between one and eight metro stops away. It is incredibly different, but all of us are having such a great time, and were also able to share similarities in loves of gelato, paninis, pretty much all food, as well as love of the culture and Italy in general! After dinner Cara and I hung out for a while, then I went home to rest up for a busy Saturday, starting at 7AM.
Yes, I said SEVEN IN THE MORNING. It was rough, but we were able to go to the Galeria dell' Accademia museum. This museum mostly housed the unfinished slave sculptures of Michaelangelo, as well as the much hyped-over DAVID. The David was very tall, standing in the middle of the main hall, clearly as the focal point. The statue was originally made to stand atop the Duomo there in Florence, but was seen as such an accomplishment by Michaelangelo, that it was put in the square outside of the town hall building until need for its removal to a museum. Many a sculptor tried to tackle the giant piece of marble that David was birthed from, but only Michaelangelo was able to make magic with it.
After the tour through Michaelangelo's most well-known works (both finished and unfinished), we went to the Bargello National Museum. This museum was even more impressive than the last, because the building itself was beautiful brown brick, stained-glass windows at the second floor, and a giant outdoor brick staircase up the middle. This museum housed my favorite David statue, which was made by Donatello. In my opinion, this version of David depicts the story more, as there is Goliath's head under one of his feet, David is much less manly looking, which is the way he was in the story. He was only a boy when he defeated Goliath, so it was more accurate. Also, Michaelangelo's David could be anyone, he is a grown man, and does not clearly show his defeat over the giant. While I of course still love and appreciate Michaelangelo's accomplishment, I much prefer Donatello's depiction. Also in this museum were 2 sections of the doors of the Florence Baptistery. When the Baptistery was being made, there was a competition between Ghibertti and Brunelleschi to make a depiction of the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac. This story is about God testing Abraham's faith, by telling him to build an alter to sacrifice his son Isaac on. Just before Abraham is about to kill his son, God sends an angel to prevent him from killing Isaac.Both ended up tying in the competition, but Brunelleschi ended up bowing out, working out well because he was able to go on and have time to design and build the Florence Duomo itself. Other items we saw were Hercules with the Head of Medusa, among other not-so-well-known sculptures. What was upsetting was that we were unable to see the small statue of Hercules & Anteus, as well as another David. I had studied H&A in my art history class, and I was excited to see it up close, but the 2nd floor was unfortunately closed.
After the Bargello Museum, we headed to the Florence Duomo, which was a beautiful display of fantastic architecture on the outside, but underwhelmingly boring on the inside. I honestly had no interest in anything that had to do with the inside, however famous it is. The only thing that impressed me about the inside was still the sheer size of the entire basilica; HUMONGOUS.
That night was a race against time, literally! I had gone to Florence with the hope of purchasing a leather jacket, and Saturday night was a race around the whole city to find the perfect coat! We went to the market and I found a great one a little more expensive than I had hoped, then went on to about 6 or 7 other stores, only for me to decide it was worth paying a little extra for exactly what I wanted, and I was so happy about my purchase! Absolutely loooooove my leather jacket! After that mad race around Florence, we went up to Piazza Michaelangelo, where there is the most spectacular view of the entire city; Duomo and city hall building popping out of the lesser buildings, the river, all surrounded by bright lights against the night sky. Amazing! By that time we were pooped, so we left after a few (who am I kidding, a LOT) of pictures to eat and relax for the night. I also skyped my mama! We talked about their trip, how its coming up close, and about planning for Greece when she stays a week extra! Getting soooooo excited....
After the full full fuuuuuuull day on Saturday, we woke up later Sunday, ate some breakfast, and went back to Piazza Michaelangelo for daytime pictures, which was also just as awesome. I then was able to hang out with Cara for a couple hours, got some delicious organic homemade gelato at GROM, then got some fresh and deliciously nutty biscotti, said our goodbyes, and caught the train home (where I wrote Emily a little note for dad to take back to her at home!)
WOW. What a weekend, huh? I had planned on using my "week" as time to recover (from my "rough" life), but as mid-terms are readily approaching, time is gold, and I am unfortunately not getting any richer.
Until next time.
xoxo Erica
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