Saturday in Firenze

Another late night out, this time at Space, and another bright beautiful morning to wake to! Our checkout time at the hostel was 10am so around 9:15 we were stirring and showering, packing up, cleaning up, trying to stuff our beautiful leather goods in the small luggage bags we brought. By 10:15 we were ready to roll, the kind hostel owner told us we could leave our luggage in the storage room while we explored in the morning because our train wasn't until 6pm that night.

First concern once we were out the door was food! We thought it'd be fun to just wander around and if we couldn't find a cafe head back towards Astor. We found one further up the street from Astor, right across from the apse of the Duomo. Today was a little bit chiller than before because the wind was really moving. The cafe we stopped in was playing music videos on the tv so we watched some Italian and some familiar American music videos and reminisced about the past two days of fun. During a break in the program there were updates about Parliament's vote of confidence for Burlusconi and the "protesting" in Rome and around the world. If Parliament had a vote of no confidence in Burlusconi (only off by maybe 15 votes) he would no longer hold power and there would be new elections ect. They voted for him so he's got the power still. This on top of the protesting already taking place (which we were warned to stay away from because it was very likely to be violent) caused just a smidgen of mayhem in Rome. While we were chomping into some delicious panini in Florence the streets of Rome were being torn apart and set on fire by the Black Bloc. This small group of individuals attend peaceful protests and create confusion and destruction. No matter what is shown on tv 80% or more of the protesters wanted nothing to do with the violent destructive acts that took place. We sat in amazement watching places we've been for field studies swarmed with people and riot police. We all thanked our stars we were far far away.

A Noir Bloc is hitting the car while the media ignores the peaceful protesters
Grazie Gatto ;) 

What we saw on the news, burning cars in Rome!

But this is what we saw on our way to breakfast

After another great meal abroad we headed back to the leather market because Kat had second thoughts and decided she needed that beautiful brown leather jacket she fell in love with the day before. We all went back, we introduced Julie to O.A.F. (Our Albanian Friend) and she bought lots of bracelets and a little pouch of leather while he tore her apart! His first comment to her was "Where did you get your sunglasses? the Barbie Store?" haha please see the cute pictures of her in the pink cateye sunglasses. Later he mentioned the Jersey Shore again and I remembered "Oh yeah! Julie's from New Jersey!" He turned to her and said in the most serious voice with his broken English accent "You, go kill yourself" then burst out laughing. He was hilarious!  Julie loved him just as much as the rest of us and he even gave her a bracelet for free since she bought so much. Another fun moment when my heart was bursting with happiness was sharing the math homework cheating joke with my friends. It was a solid five minutes of laughing in the middle of the market in the sun. Then we all split up because most of them wanted to go shopping but the smart ones (Julie, Aven, and I) were going to the Uffizi Gallery!!!!  How could we go and NOT visit the Uffizi? Especially since I am taking a Renaissance class here and we have studied a third of the museum!

Aven, Julie, Pepperoni

The three of us found the river and walked along it in the bright sunlight, stopping to admire some statues and public art and the ponte vecchio on our way to the museum. We found a cool sculpture that was some sort of rounded column type form but based on the sun's position it was a sundial in the afternoon and would show what zodiac sign we were in. It was very cool. Once we reached the Medici building where the Uffizi is we got a little turned around trying to find the entrance and the correct line. We decided to give the line 30 minutes and if we were nowhere near the doors we would leave and go to Santa Croce instead (still bummed I missed that). After 45 minutes were inside! What a short wait! The first room in the Uffizi houses Cimabue and Giotto's Madonna and Child Enthroned side by side. What?!!??! My favorite artist's second most influential work right next to his master's!!! That room was heaven for me and I'm so glad to see it first because it's a long museum and by the end we were dragging our feet. I honestly cannot describe the joy that nearly every room of paintings and sculptures brought me. I can't list every amazing work of art I saw. The number of things I've studied from Sturd sophomore year all the way through my classes here in Rome. Please visit it, please please please. It is full of Renaissance masterpieces! Julie and Aven aren't quite as experienced with art history as I am so I was a mini-tour guide (yes Aven that's tore not two-er). Aven would walk up behind while I am sighing over some artwork and say "So tell me about this one. What's important?" and off I would ramble! It was a blast and they humored me as well as giving new names to some artworks and pointing out some of the funnier looking portraits in the backgrounds of works. General conscientiousness though: John the Baptist looks over-served in every image (when he's not a baby). Must be because he was starving in the wild or something, but the red crossed eyes didn't help his case either.

Aven and I with Ponte Vecchio behind us

A cool statue along the river

Since it was getting late (we spent about 2.5 maybe 3 hours in the museum) we left to go back to the hostel to meet up with the group, collect our belongings, and go to the train station. On the way back Aven and I stopped in Festival del Gelato (which again I had read about in the guidebook) which we happened to walk by.  They have over 70 different kinds of gelato and we were hungry! I tried the snickers with chocolate fondante (70% cacao) and kiwi! Aven copied me but got strawberry on top. Honestly the snickers was a big let down, not very good nor tasted like snickers. The chocolate was AMAZING! I'm going to try and find something similar in Rome. The Kiwi was also very good but a little too crisp and fresh for the chilly day (never too cold for gelato?).

We grabbed our luggage and friends and went back to the train station by Santa Maria Novella. We were very early but just wanted to make sure we knew what tracks to go to. Thank goodness!! Turns out the tickets we bought were from a different train station and to get there we had to take a train! The nice man at the information desk saved us. We hopped onto the short 5 minute train to the other station. There we had time to kill so we bought some pizza for dinner and played a celebrity name game Tom shared with us. Then onto the train and home to Termini. We weren't sure we were going to be able to catch a bus from Termini because of all the rioting that was taking place. Thankfully once we were at the station our bus was running and there were quite a few police standing around with nothing to do so we felt safe.  Rome again Home again!

Thus ends my wonderful Florence experience. So far Florence is the best vacation city I've ever been to. I wouldn't want to live or study there because there are so many tourists that English is heard on the streets more than Italian. I didn't see the gritty heart of the city like I can find in Rome but still it's classical beauty is peaceful and calming.

Ciao Firenze