Firenze

Buon Giorno! I hope everybody is doing alright back home. Firenze was a beautiful city, with a lot of mopeds. But before I get into that, I don't' want to leave out how we got there. Thursday morning in venezia I woke up early to find an internet cafe. I found out from a fellow traveler that there was one on the island we were staying at so I started walking down the coast. It was pretty early in the morning and the internet place ended up being closed, but it was cool to see all of the shops stocking up their goods from merchant boats. I got to see the everyday people who keep venezia afloat (in a figurative sort of way). After that little adventure we went to the train station and left for firenze. On the train we met a brother and a sister travelling together, Mark and Amy. They told us their story and recommended that we get to the Uffizi museum before 6:15 if we don't want to wait in a huge line (the museum opens at 8:15). They also let us borrow their firenze guide book, and I looked up good places to eat and places to stay. There was a small map in the book and I copied a few streets onto a piece of paper in an attempt to create a rudimentary map to guide us to the hostel. When we got to the firenze train station, we said bye to Mark and Amy then called a few hostels to find one that wasn't full. Luckily we found one that was on my "map" and we headed that way. We soon got of the few streets on my "map" but after using an assortment of italian words that I learned last year I managed to ask for directions and we ended up at the ostello Santa Monaca. While we were checking in some people were just leaving the hostel and among them was our long lost pal Dan. (We found out that Dan disappeared in Venice because he had to catch a train to firenze that night). After checking in we walked by the Uffizi piazza, where we met my good friend Anne Leipzig and her family, completely out of the blue. Turns out she's in firenze with her family for a few days.



After talking to Anne for a while we went to a cheap internet cafe, then back to town where we crossed the ponte vecchia, which is a really cool bridge with old stores on it. After that we found the church San Croce.



We went inside and saw the tomb of Michelangelo and many other famous artists. Then we had some good pasta and some gelato (benissimo). Greg got a sweet patchwork newsboy hat from an outdoor market and then we went back to the hostel for the night.



The next morning we got up at 5:50 and headed to wait at the Uffizi. When we got there Mark and Amy had already been there for a half hour and were at the very front of the line. There were only 5 other people in line (meaning we could have gotten up a lot later, as Greg pointed our). We got into the uffizi as soon as it opened and saw a lot of great artwork from Michelangelo, Donatello, Rafael, Leonardo da Vinci (All the ninja turtles), and also many more renaissance artists. After the uffizi we went tot eh Duomo, which is the big cathedral in firenze. The Duomo is a beautiful cathedral made almost entirely of marble. I couldn't help but feel that it wasn't being used for what it was made for, with as many tourists and all. Regardless though, it was really awesome. After that we went to a market to buy food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (we decided eating out was getting way to expensive).



We bought some baguettes, nutella, apples, bananas, and salami (benissimo). After eating on the steps of the medici chapel, we went tot he Academy to see Michelangelo's David. We met Dan again in line and toured the museum with him. It was a cool museum. David is awesome and something you really have to see in person to appreciate. I also really liked the unfinished statues by Michelangelo. It was almost as if you got a glance inside his mind. You could see the individual chisel marks almost as if Michelangelo was working on the statue right in front of you. There was also a hall with tons of plaster busts and statues that were used by the students to make measuremnets for their statues (often replicas of the ones in the hall). The plaster statues in the hall had black marks on them where the students had used calipers to make measurements. After the academy we went with Dan to see Dante's House and then made our way up to the piazzale Michelangelo. The piazzale has an awesome view of the city.



Dan ended up taking a nap on a park bench there so me and Greg decided to head down to the Boboli gardens. We ended up being on the wrong side of a giant wall and so we eventually turned up in the suburbs of firenze.



Where ever we were, it was not a touristy spot, which made it real nice. We ended up walking for about an hour and finally navigating our way back to the hostel, where we ate dinner. I just ate leftover market fare, and Greg attempted to make tortellini (he accidentally bought tomato paste instead of tomato sauce). We met back up with Dan and then met Lidnsey from Canada, and Maggie and Meagan who were traveling together. We hiked up to the piazzale Michelangelo and shared some wine while watching the sunset over Florence.



Back at the hostel, Dan, Maggie, and I talked politics for a while and then we all called it a night. This morning we went to the train station with Dan, who was off to Sienna, we went back to the market, stocked up on baguettes, salami, and fruit, then back to the train station and on to Roma. We are now checked into the Freedom Traveler Hostel in Roma. (They have free internet, so don't expect another blog this long once we leave Roma). Cia