Firenze

Hello Florence. Hello to a city that specializes in steaks. This is my kind of place. I'm here for 4 days and I'm very excited about it. The italian name for Florence is firenze. I'm not sure if the centaur in harry potter is related. Aside from the steaks, Florence is kind of a heaven for women. The main activity to do here is shop. Florentines have a knack for jewelry and leather goods. My mother and sister have discovered this rather quickly and I'm now watcing them get fitted for leather jackets and it's a several hour process. My only solace is the coke the shop owner gave me and Italian MTV (which still shows music videos, unlike it's American counterpart). I'm now a fan of British techno. It's evidently very popular around here. After the shopping we made it to one of Florence's main attractions: the Basilica of Santa Croce. Galileo, Michelangelo, Dante, and Machiavelli are all buried in this colossal church. It's amazing to be in the presence of so many people who contributed so many different ideas to history. We also visited Michelangelo's statue of David today. It's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. It's so much bigger in person of course, but somehow I wasn't expecting David to be the size of Goliath.
Day 2 of Florence and ive discovered something incredible about this city. They have the best ice cream in the world. It's as if God brings it down to then each day. so they can sell it to American tourists. there's a flavor called straciatella that is unbeliveably good. I think it means chocolate chip, but I could be wrong. The best part of all this is the frequency with which one can acquire gelato. You know how there is a starbucks on pretty much every corner in America? Well multiple the number starbucks in an average American city by about 5 and that's roughly the number of gelaterias in Florence. Sometimes there will be 3 next to each other. And I sample from each store. It's glorious. Although I admit I look somewhat ridiculous with an ice cream cone in each hand while walking down the street.
But it's totally worth it. Somewhere in between my 4th and 5th gelato of the day we traveled to the uffizi museum to see boticelli's Birth of venus. While the rest of the museum was frankly a little monotonous, this piece did indeed stand out. I'm starting to think my brain can only handle so much exposure to art before it starts to all look the same. The obsession with painting Mary holding baby Jesus in like 300 different poses hasn't helped either.
On re 3rs day in Florence, we took a road trip to some surrounding towns, specifically Siena and San Gimingnano. We saw the cathedral of st. catharine, who was from Siena. Part of her head was mummified there and on display...and really really really really a thousand times creepy and weird. Not to mention unpleasant to look at. The rest of the day trip was very enjoyable though. The Italian countryside is very beautiful. It pretty much defines the word "picturesque". It has more hills than France, but they look very similar, so it reminded me of my MUS in Europe trip to Dr. Dalle's chateau. On a side note, we drove right past Volterra, the town from the twilight series. My sister and I thought that was pretty cool since we've both read the books. I boo the movie though.
The main event of out final day in Florence (other than ceaseless shopping) was a visit to the Petti Palace, the ancestral home of the Medici family. It contained a lot of art similar to the Uffizi, which made it feel a little repetitive. That night I had a phenomenal dinner at this restaurant called Aqcua. The played techno music over the speakers the entire time an the lights were pink, so it was a pretty interesting place. I had tagliatta (sliced beef) on a bed of rosemary and rockets, all of foccacia bread. It was one of the most flavorfull meals I've ever had. And ive eaten at restaurants with 3 and 4 michilen stars. Not that that particularly gives me the right to determine which food is good or not. It's such a subjective art. Anywho, tomorrow we take the train to Rome for the last leg of the trip. Rome is the city I'm most looking forward to as it has most history. Should be fun!