Firenze

Apologies for the lack of a post last week. There really wasn't anything new to update on, and I kept meaning to post something, but I never got a chance to sit down and write. It's two weeks before midterms and my teachers are just piling on the homework and information before them. I've been super busy.

This weekend however, I am not doing homework or walking around Rome, taking everything in, because I'm in Florence for the weekend! Because of my Friday class, myself and MariaJose, another ISA student in my class, had to take a train to Florence instead of riding the bus that ISA provides. We got to the train station early, so our train platform hadn't been announced yet. We were waiting for it to show up when an information guide (or so we thought) came up to us and showed us the paper version of the train departure schedule, and showed us to the platform. MJ and I were both very grateful, until she started asking us for money, but she was chased of by one of the Termini station guards. However, we never actually saw the platform that our train was actually departing from. The train that was at Platform 6 was the same type of train, same destination and everything, it was just leaving eleven minutes after. However, MJ and I did not realize it was the wrong number until it left and the train number was flashing on the screen that we were on the wrong train. Luckily, the train conductors didn't make us pay for new tickets.

We finally got to Florence and dropped our bags off at the hotel, and met up with Andrea, one of the ISA Rome staff who is super helpful. He met us in front of the fake David outside of the Uffizi Gallery, where the rest of ISA was. We went inside and saw so many beautiful paintings, by Botticelli, Raphael, Leonardo, and one by Michelangelo. They were all paintings I had studied in Italian Renaissance Art last semester, so the tour guide wasn't able to give me any new information about them, but it was still amazing to see them in person.

I haven't had time to really stop and really look at the Duomo, and Giotto's bell tower, but I have walked past them multiple times already. It's breathtaking, and the Duomo is soo huge, it's larger than life. Brunelleschi really wasn't messing around when he designed it and built it. Tomorrow we get to tour the Duomo and climb to the top of the bell tower (413 steps...) or the dome (436), as well as visit the Accademia Gallery to finally see the real David!

I'll post again when I return from Florence, to make up for last week's post, and to share pictures.

Ciao!