Florence

Okay, we've only been Florence a day and a half and I already feel like I have way too much to write about. First of all, I want to put you all at ease...Sydney is still alive, as you can see from this picture I took a few hours ago.

She's shopping with a few other girls we spent the evening with there, in case you were wondering, for whatever reason.

Moving on! First of all, to continue where I left off yesterday, we all got on the bus and pretty much stayed on it for about 4 hours until we reached Florence. We took a 45 minute break at some rest stop where I got a mediocre slice of Pizza for 3,50 Euros, but whatever. I guess my first meal in Italy was a bust.

The countryside is very interesting. Around Rome there always seemed to be some kind of construction, but as we got further north towards Florence everything seemed to get a little bit more natural. Still, there's something about this country....it feels very old. And some of it feels old in a kind of "charming" way, as Sydney puts it, but most of it just feels kind of depressing. It's weird. Almost like everything is rotting around you. But then again, I don't want to sound like a sobfest here. There really is a certain kind of beauty to the city. But I'll get into that in a bit.

Remember yesterday how I said the whole concept of flying west to fly east seemed dumb to me? Well here's part two of that. We flew into Rome, right? And then we drove 4 hours, halfway up the country north to get to Florence. On Sunday we're going to travel 4 more hours to get BACK to Rome. THEN we're going to have to travel WAY north to get to Venice, passing Florence on the way. Now....I know I'm a STaC major at Tech and all (btw, me using that in this sentence does not give you guys permission to make fun of it [I'm looking at you Hoffman]) but that doesn't seem like the most efficient way to do things.

Back to the city, I suppose. Walking around Florence makes me feel a lot like a Lab Rat in a cage. Sometimes I wonder if God is up there taking notes on what Sydney and I are doing and how long it takes us to figure out where we are and how to get back to our hotel. Okay, in all honesty, it's not that bad. There's a river through the middle of the city and I've learned how to get us back to the hotel from that. I actually got us back tonight; everyone was rather impressed with my directional skills. ...not sure why. All the roads are thin, almost like alleys back home, just wide enough for one car to find down. There are buildings, most of them residential, on either side of the road, usually about 3 or 4 stories tall. So, like I said, it really does give the impression that you're in a maze sometimes.

I've also gotten the impression that I'm about to be run over. About 9000 times so far in this city alone. People here kind of just....drive. It seems like the only rule of the road is don't hit anything. The locals seem to have this whole street crossing thing down to a science, but sometimes our groups just jump out into the streets and hope for the best. And the drivers don't make it any better. They like to speed up to the crosswalks and stop at the last second to try and psyche you out. Sometimes they honk at you too, from, like, 80 yards down the road. It's all very fascinating and distressful.

Oh, before I continue on with talk about the city, I feel I should mention my roommate, James. He's a really nice guy, very amicable and easy to get along with, but he's got this very formal and to-the-point way of talking, so I always have to remind myself that's he's not angry at me or something. You know, he's the kind of guy that says 'Correct' instead of 'Right'. That might be a bad example, but hopefully it gets the point across until he gives me a better one. He actually reminds me a lot of a 'cousin' I have up in New York, which isn't a bad thing at all, if you know who I'm talking about.

Back to the city. I feel obligated to start with a picture.

That is a sculpture by Donatello, one of a dozen inset into the walls of some kind of important building in the middle of the city. I think it was the Builder's Guild, but I can't remember. It was the headquarters of some kind of guild. I remember that. Keep in mind that this statue is just a replica (most of the pictures I'll put up of sculptures will be, the originals are all in museums) and that it's probably 7 or 8 feet tall. This was one of my favorites thus far.

Most of the exciting stuff happened today, considering that we were only in the city for a few hours yesterday, what with the bus ride and all. We got up at 7 AM (sucks) for Breakfast and class (not as much, but still not fantastic; I like both of my teachers, but sitting in a conference room and learning about these things just seems so pointless when the actual works are all within walking distance). Haha, James and I woke up when his alarm went off this morning, and the first thing we did was turn over and look at each other with some sort of exhaustion-ridden blank stare. Then we looked away and I went to the bathroom and we were both quiet for the next ten minutes. It was a weird moment.

Breakfast was pretty good, but I learned something. This lesson was reinforced later in the day as well, at lunch. If you order a crossaint (spelling, sorry) here, it WILL have some kind of fruity filling. Just so you all know, because I'm sure you were just dying for that tidbit of knowledge. Oh, and something else. Soda cans aren't shaped like they are back home. They all have the same shape as Red Bull bottles. It's awesome. I bought a sprite today for the sheer novelty of it. And everything is warm here. Everything. Water, Soda, Wine, everything. Even if you get it out of a refrigerator, it's still barely less than room temperature. I've had a bottle of water in our rooms refrigerator for 24 hours and it still isn't what I would consider 'cold'.

Anyway, on one of our trips through the city, we stumbled across the Florence Cathedral. Okay, so I'm going to disclaimer this part by reminding you all that I'm pretty skeptical about art and all that. I mean, it takes a lot to really impress me. Sydney walks through the streets and finds something to gape at every 10 feet, and I do not. Europe isn't really all that grand to me.

End disclaimer, because this cathedral was absolutely mind-blowing. Here, pictures.

That first picture is of the dome of the cathedral, which was the claim to fame for a guy named Brunelleschi. If you can't tell by the pictures, and you actually probably can't, all things considered, the dome is massive. I don't want to take a stab at numbers, but hopefully Sydney and I will be able to climb to the top of it (they have stairs inside) and get some pictures of the cityscape to try and give you a sense of things. The other two pictures are of the building's facade, which is, to put it simply, the most ornate, detailed piece of work I've ever seen. Ever. It's easily 100 feet tall, which is why you can pretty much only see the top half of it in picture two. About midway up through pic 2 you can also see a row of enclaves, which is what picture 3 is zoomed in on. This is just another example of the detail put into this thing, but each of those statues is at least life-size. It was incredible to see, which is a lot coming from someone who typically doesn't care about this stuff. Easily the most fantastic thing we've seen yet.

Anyway, after seeing that we went to dinner (we being Me, Sydney, Lindsay, and two other girls, all of whom are in that first picture of Sydney). It was, honestly, the first good meal I'd gotten since coming to Italy, which I admittedly blame on my lack of knowledge in what to look for and my pretty simple tastes when it comes to food. But, basically, for 10 Euros, I got a giant plate of pasta, a bunch of bread, and (lol) 3 glasses of wine. But let me defend myself now. Lindsay and another girl wanted to get wine, so they ordered a full bottle of the stuff, which cost them 12 Euros. When they realized just how much wine they had ordered, me and another girl at the table went in to the rescue. And the glasses were small. I mean, the full bottle was about 1 Liter of wine, and there was enough in there for about 10-11 glasses worth. So I only drank about 300 mL of the stuff. Admittedly, it is the most I've ever drank in one sitting, but thankfully I didn't feel tipsy or anything like that afterwards, which I was a little worried about since I lost my sense of balance after drinking only half a glass yesterday. Don't worry, don't worry, I promise not to drink anything tomorrow, or even that often, and never to get wasted or anything like that. So, no, there won't be any drunk stories on here....at least not of me. Who knows what Syndey plans on doing.

And I think I'm gonna call it quits with this. This entry took a while, so I'm going to go to bed without doing my homework, which means I'm going to have to do it tomorrow. Tomorrow's going to be really busy, we're going to the Uffizi, Accademia, and Bargello (all museums) in the city here, so I probably won't have time to do an update tomorrow. I'll try and put something up on Saturday night, just in case we don't have internet access in Rome, which is where we leave for on Sunday.

Well I'm off to bed. Good afternoon to all of you.

Ciao.