A Weekend In Florence

Well, it has been one heck of a crazy weekend!  I know I haven't posted in the past few days, but the reason for this is a good one, I have been in Florence (or Firenze to the Italians)!  I was in Florence one other time when I was in 8th grade.  I don't really remember too much of that visit to Florence, but it was nice to spend a few days there.

My weekend started at 4:00 a.m. on Friday.  My whole apartment and I woke up this early to make it to Termini train station to catch our train.  We all reluctantly woke up and headed out the door.  It was an interesting sight being up at those early hours of the morning in Rome.  There was literally no one else outside.  45 minutes later, we made it to the train station.  Our train ride took four hours to get to Florence.  Waiting at the train station for all of us was my friend Shalyn.  Last weekend I showed her around Rome, so we flipped roles and she was the tour guide in Florence.  Before leaving the train station I bought my return trip train ticket.  Because the train ride to Florence was so long, I along with four other guys decided to buy the fast ticket.  We printed the tickets and headed out into the city.

The first place we went to was the hostel.  The hostel's name was 7 Santi.  It was a nice place, but nothing like a hotel in America!  I dropped my stuff off and Shalyn, Trent, and I headed back to the city's center.  Shalyn had mentioned the chanting monks on the hill, so that is where we headed.  On our way to the church, we bought gelato from a little shop at the foot of a large hill.  I don't want to make anyone mad, but this gelato was possibly the best thing I have ever eaten.  It was like eating flavored silk.  My only regret was that I didn't get a bigger cone!  After living in heaven for a few minutes, I snapped out of it and proceeded to climb a million stairs to reach the church.  The three of us finally reached the top to find ourselves in the middle of a wedding party.  We made our way through the wedding and into the church.  Several monks were in the lower portion of the church and chanting/singing verses from the bible.  I had no idea what they were saying, but it sounded amazing.

Following the monks, we headed down the hill to the original location where the statue of David was located.  The view from the overlook was great.  You could see the entire city.  We were all hungry, so we made it down the hill and got a meal.  We all three met up with Shalyn's roommate Jess and found a restaurant.  Florence is famous for its bistecca, or steak.  Trent and I ordered a double order of bistecca to share.  This steak was gigantic!  It was superb, or it at least tasted that way because Romans don't eat much meat.  I was craving a big steak, and this bad boy delivered.

The next day, Trent and I met up with Shalyn and Jess at the Academia.  The Academia is the home to Michelangelo's David.  I had seen replicas of the statue, but seeing the original David was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The detail of this statue is immaculate.  For some reason, the museum doesn't allow photos of the statue.  I didn't care what they said, I was getting my picture with David.  I hid behind a big pillar and asked some guy to take my photo.  I got away with it, but they were yelling at other people.

The Duomo dome was next on the list.  The four of us proceeded of climb to the top of the dome.  This required climbing 463 steps and lots of bitching and moaning from us all to reach the top of the dome.  The Duomo is the largest structure in the city of Florence.  The dome is the largest brick dome in the world.  Needless to say, you can see everything from the top.  The four of us just sat at the top for a long time just taking in the scenery.  Reluctantly, we had to make our way back down.  This was pretty scary.  Being fairly tall, I had to lean back while descending the nearly vertical steps of the dome.

Later in the day, I went to the Michelangelo overlook to watch the sun set.  The moon was supposed to be the biggest of the entire year, but unfortunately the sky was filled with clouds.  The view from the hill was so great, several of us just stood up there for a long time talking and feeding each other bull.  It was nice to just take some time and relax after a long day of sight seeing.  Of course, when we went down the hill, we all made a stop at the world's greatest gelato shop.  This time I got a huge cone!

My final day in Florence was a good one as well.  I woke up early and Annie, Kyle, Trent, Nick, and I all took a bus to the Boboli Gardens.  The gardens are the result of the Medici family.  The fortress of a house that greets you is very imposing.  The gardens were great, but had many hills.  I wasn't up for too much walking so we spent an hour here and then made our way out.  We all got some lunch and then we parted ways to go do the last few things that everyone had planned.

After a few hours, I met up with the four other guys that I was riding back on the train with.  We were early, so we sat at the edge of a clothing store.  We were all joking that we looked like homeless people.  I put some change at my feet and started to sing.  Everyone joined in, but unfortunately no passersby gave us money.  Better luck next time I guess!  After time passed, we got on our train.  This ride home was quite different from the trip to Florence.  The train we were on was a bullet train.  We traveled at a speed of 125 mph.  What took us four hours on the way to Florence, took an hour and 25 minutes to return.  We actually passed the train that the rest of my class had taken back.  Luke said he saw a red train fly by the window.  I like to think it was us!  Tomorrow is back to class, but before I go to bed, I gotta call Dad and let him know how the weekend went and to wish him a happy Father's Day.