Naked Statues, Museums and Duomos!

Over a year late...but it's better than nothing!! Enjoy:

Sunday - Dec 13, 2008

The last place we left off at was Florence. We had just arrived and I was amazed at our very modern and spacious room. We put all of our stuff down and we got out our computers and ran downstairs. There was internet there, that we could access from the lobby only and we had to get a password from the front desk. While we were sitting there, browsing the internet, a few people from the Option 2 trip were there (they were going thru Italy from Venice, Florence, Rome so we were going in opposite directions). It was good to see some of them. I emailed everyone (well mom for the most part) to let her know that we made it to Florence.

It wasn’t long before we had all gotten a little hungry, so we took our computers back upstairs and we decided to go eat with Wes, Robb and Ryan O’Hare. No one could decide where we wanted to eat. Ryan was leading us around trying to find some place that he heard was good but we couldn’t find it. We ended up just popping into a little restaurant that a man told us we could get free wine if we ate there. They took us upstairs and basically had this little room to ourselves. Everyone ordered and ate, happily…for the most part. Ryan O’Hare is a jerk, let me clarify. He always has and always will be. I’m not sure why we decided to eat with him but anyways. It’s very easy for him to get into an argument with people and he always thinks he’s right when in reality he is very wrong. Anyways, Jessica got into it a little bit because he was making fun of the fact that she was from Wisconsin (saying that there is nothing special about the state) and that our favorite trip was Poland (which was stupid because everyone leaves Poland so there can’t be anything that great about it).

When we got the check, we noticed that we had been overcharged slightly for everything we all ordered. It wasn’t much, maybe a little over a Euro, but still. We paid and walked outside, but Jessica was pretty heated so she went back inside and told them we had overpaid and so they ended up giving us back the difference which was about 11 Euros or something like that. We all decided we would just put that money into getting some gelato. That’s what we did! Not all of us decided to get some, but a majority of us did and it was wonderful as usual. After we finished we decided to head back to the hotel.


After our long trek back, we grabbed our computers and headed back downstairs. We were craving the internet, hah! I called a few people from skype to tell them how everything was going and then we just all sat around not doing a whole lot. That’s my favorite thing to do! We were all pretty tired though, so we didn’t stay up real late before heading to bed.


Monday
We woke up and got ready for breakfast which was at 8:30. We didn’t rush after breakfast because it was pouring outside and we honestly didn’t feel like going out in it. We lounged around in the lobby (on the internet) until about noon. It was still raining but we knew we couldn’t sit around forever—we were in Florence!

Our first stop was the Duomo. It looked unreal from the outside when we saw it at night. My first thought of it looking like a decorated cardboard box hadn’t changed much in the daylight. However, I was able to tell it wasn’t in fact a cardboard box, haha. We went inside and it was not what I expected. It was very open and spacious. There was a manger scene in the middle to celebrate Christmas. On one side of the duomo there was a dome and we all went to try to stand underneath it because the paintings on the ceiling of it were pretty awesome.
Afterwards we decided to find the leather market which is a big deal though. We walked around and had a difficult finding which market it was exactly but eventually we found it. It was awesome and tons of little kiosk type booths set up selling basically the same thing but by a ton of different people. Most everything was leather: belts, wallets, purses, etc. It was really awesome though. There were a few purses that really caught my interest, but I thought better of it. Honestly I didn’t feel like paying for them. After wandering around for at least an hour, we decided to eat lunch at one of the little restaurants close by. It was a little pizza place (shocker there). It was pretty good. I got a coke and on the coke can had the “I love you” symbol in sign language on it, it was awesome, I was really excited! After relaxing from lunch, we headed back outside to enjoy the market. Half of our group disappeared and it was such a large market, it was nearly impossible to find them. Jessica, Meghan, Daniel and I went into one of the shops close by. We found this awesome friendship coin: meaning, it was divided in 3 areas. We each pitched in and bought the coin along with a necklace. Daniel—our wonderful picture taker—stood by and took a picture of us breaking the coin apart so we each had a third. After placing it on the string of the necklace, we each wore ours. It was really neat and we loved it!
We decided to go back to the hotel and just sit around until about 7. Then we went out to get dinner. Our choice of restaurant landed us in what would probably be considered a chain restaurant that I had never seen before, but had that commercial feeling about it. There were a lot of Harlaxton students eating in there, too. It was really good though. They had a part of the menu where you could build your own pasta and had a description of all the different kinds of noodles, sauces, etc. It was pretty neat. After dinner was finished, we decided to get some gelato (duh). I started to lead them in one direction because I could have sworn I saw a gelato place on our way the restaurant. Wrong! I was completely wrong. I led them back to the hotel without passing any place, so some of them decided they didn’t want to walk all the way back to a gelato place while it was still wet and rainy outside. However, the girls stuck together and ditched the lazy boys and decided to get some. You can never end a night in Italy without it!
At the end of the night, there will always be a group of Harlaxton students partying it up somewhere. So, we brought our breezers to Jamin and Jeff’s room and enjoyed the company of some half drunk peers. They were silly but we always enjoyed watching them. Finally we went back to our room (me, jess, and megs) and decided to play cards. Somehow Jeff and Jamin decided to join us and left their hopping party for a nice, relaxing game of cards. Of course Jamin was completely drunk and couldn’t catch onto the concept of the game, but that’s beside the point. We still had a good time. Finally we decided to call it a night and go to bed.


Tuesday
We got up at about 7:20 that morning and went down to eat breakfast around 9. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to join some of the guys and visit Piza or go bum around at the museums. The boys ended up going to Piza while we stayed and did the museums. Although I honestly probably would have enjoyed Piza a little more, I didn’t want to leave my friends.

Our first stop was the Uffizi. Considering I’m a person who doesn’t like walking through museums of art, I got bored really fast. It was all the same stuff and it wasn’t very interesting to me. Plus I had to pay 6.5 Euros to get in, just because everyone else was going. Oh well, I guess I can say that I at least did it. Half way through, Meghan started feeling a lot of pain and had to sit down. I gladly offered to sit with her so everyone else could continue walking through the rooms. Thinking Megs needed a little food in her belly, we tried to hurry up the rest of the museum so she could eat something. I did end up buying a cookbook from the gift shop before we left. Right outside the exit there was a little Italian place, so we stopped and ate lunch there. It was a pretty good meal and we enjoyed each others company.
The next stop on our list was to visit the Academy Gallery where David was held. I found it slightly more enjoyable because sculptures are more appealing to me than just paintings. Of course, we weren’t allowed to take pictures and there were some strict enforcers there to make sure that didn’t happen. Although, being a sneaky and cunning American, we were able to hide and take one somehow. It was really neat though. I didn’t think seeing David would be any big deal, but it’s huge! I had no idea how freaking big it was and the details were absolutely amazing. It was seriously one of the best things I got the witness. It was by far more exciting to see than the Mona Lisa.

We stayed and observed David for quite a while because it also gave us a chance to rest. Once we were finished, we tried to find the Christmas market which was supposed to be pretty good. It had started raining though so I wasn’t in a really good mood for exploring since my pants were soaking up all the water from the pavement. We finally found it and I didn’t find anything special about it. So, we decided to walk back and some of us split up. Jessica, Sara and Chelsea wanted to go back to the leather market but I wasn’t in the mood to continue trudging around in the rain, so the rest of us went back to the hotel. I thankfully took a wonderful nap until about 7pm.
When it was time for dinner, a few of the guys, like Jamin and Jeff decided they wanted to go ice skating. Well, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Meghan, Adrienne and Chelsea wanted to, but Jessica really didn’t. I didn’t want to leave Jessica although ice skating sounded pretty fun. So I decided to turn it down and go eat with her and Sara. We ended up eating at a nice little place and I had by far the most amazing Italian meal of my life. It was meat ravioli and I seriously think I would kill for some again. It was so freaking amazing. Gosh, I was obsessed and kept wanting to eat it long after it was gone! It was a good little dinner with just the three of us and we were able to enjoy a friendly conversation.

Meghan and the rest of them ended up having a great time too. She didn’t get back until close to midnight! But apparently the ice skating rink was like in some dudes back yard and it took them forever to find the place. They said that the rink was tiny sized and had little hills in it, so it wasn’t even flat. I laughed so hard when I heard about it but they still managed to have fun, which is the only important thing.


Wednesday
In the morning we woke up a little before 8, so we could get packed up and leave for breakfast. We were leaving for Venice that morning. We left Florence about 9:30. Overall it was a pretty good experience in Florence. Of course it rained for a lot of it, so exploring isn’t always as fun—at least for me. Though, I would like to revisit it one day. If you are an avid museum go-er, or just enjoy countless museums, the Florence is a good place for you. I, on the other hand, don’t enjoy looking at a billion paintings, so it could be a little boring. I prefer walking around and enjoying the sights. Regardless, I had a good time. My next blog is about Venice, so make sure to keep reading!